Sitting of 17 January 1992

Preamble
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PETITIONS

    Asbestos
    9.34 am
    Mr. Stuart Randall: To the honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, I wish to present the humble petition of Richard Jackson, the organiser/secretary of the Hull Asbestos Action Group and the humble petition of numerous residents of Great Britain, there being the massive number of 4,413 from the great city of Kingston upon Hull alone.
    The petition
    Sheweth:—a humble plea requesting the banning of all asbestos in Great Britain.
    Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House might bring forth a Bill prohibiting the importation, manufacture and use of all asbestos in Great Britain, at the earliest possible date.
    And your Petitioners, as in duty hound, will ever pray, etc.
    To lie upon the Table.

    Kashmir (Human Rights)
    9.35 am
    Mr. Ray Whitney: I have the honour to present to the House a petition signed by some 500 of my constituents in which they express deep and understandable concern about the very worrying situation in Kashmir which I believe should be resolved in accordance with the United Nations resolutions of 1948 and 1949 and the Simla agreement of 1972 between India and Pakistan.
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    My constituents call upon the House in the following terms:
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will condemn the systematic mass murders, torture, arson and rape by the Indian forces of occupation in Kashmir; promote international efforts to help refugees fleeing Kashmir and to relieve the hardship and suffering of the people who remain in the territory;
    demand that India permit Amnesty International and other independent human rights agencies to enter Kashmir, with a view to investigating and reporting on human rights violation;
    and calls for the withdrawal of the Indian armed forces and security forces from the State of Jammu and Kashmir and their replacement by an interim United Nations Administration, with the task of restoring law and order and, as soon as possible, conducting the said plebiscite.
    To lie upon the Table.

    Education (Ealing)
    9.36 am
    Mr. Harry Greenway: I have the honour to present a petition signed by Christine Eborall, Maggie Dimakopoulos, Helen Burns, Anthony Whitford and nearly 400 of my constituents to the honourable House of Commons of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and of Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
    This is the humble petition of the Friends of Compton first school and the Home school association of Gurnell middle school in Ealing W13, which shows that in the case of the London borough of Ealing proposals for the reorganisation of primary, secondary and tertiary education have not yet been decided by the Secretary of State for Education and Science and that such a decision is urgent. My constituents' children will not know until that decision is taken the precise school for their children next September. Teachers will also not finally be in post until the decision is taken.
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will press the Secretary of State for Education for an immediate decision on the merger of these two schools
    and on the decision relating to the remaining Ealing schools, to ensure that teacher recruitment and building alterations can be completed by September 1992. This decision is vitally important to the morale of the teaching staff and the well-being of the children.
    And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
    I beg leave to present the petition.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Orders of the Day

    National Lottery Bill
    Order for Second Reading read.
    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 11.30 am and 1 pm. I hope that the hon. Members who are fortunate enough to be called before that time will bear the limit in mind.
    9.39 pm
    Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
    I am delighted that the Bill has attracted so much interest and enthusiasm from my parliamentary colleagues that, unusually for a Friday, a 10-minute time limit on speeches has been proposed. I shall endeavour to comply, but I cannot guarantee that I shall be able to conform. I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, will not insist that I limit my speech to 10 minutes.
    I hope that the House will think it appropriate that, having won the lottery of the private Members' ballot, I should devote the proceeds of my good fortune to a more glorious lottery. I look forward to the time—very soon, I hope—when a national lottery, so big that it will attract millions of players and tens of millions of pounds every week, will breathe considerable new resources into areas of British life which the taxpayers' money barely reaches—to the arts, to sport, to our national heritage, to charities and, of course, into the pockets of the lucky winners. The aim of the Bill is nothing less than to raise the quality of life in Britain to even higher levels.
    When the political air is alive with the conflict of party politics, it is a real joy to be able to introduce a measure which has the enthusiastic support of Members on both sides of the House. I pay tribute to the Bill's distinguished sponsors.
    Every country in Europe has a national lottery, except one—Albania. I say nothing against that fascinating yet unhappy country, but I do not recall any other area of national life in which we have claimed to be the equal of Albania. In all, 116 countries, at the last count, are known to have national lotteries. Why? It is because a large enough lottery raises huge sums which can be used to do a huge amount of public good.
    A Gallup poll taken in October told us that 72 per cent. of the adult population of Britain would play a national lottery if we had one. If other national lotteries are anything to go by, we could expect to raise about £3 billion a year from 25 million to 30 million players. We could for example, split that sum three ways. We could say that a third would go to the beneficiaries—the Bill specifies the arts, sport, heritage, and charities such as medical research—a third could go to the prize winners, and the other third would be for operating costs and for the taxpayer.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Lawrence: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
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    My hon. Friend the Minister might say that the taxman will not be interested in the lottery, in which case its beneficial results would be so much the greater. But I am not as confident as I should like to be about the Government's attitude, so I have taken the precaution of incorporating in the Bill an opportunity for the Consolidated Fund to work its way.
    Mr. Skinner rose——
    Mr. Lawrence: I see that I am about to receive the support of the hon. Member; I welcome that.
    Mr. Skinner: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that, although a distribution into thirds may be the going rate, in the United States, where there are lotteries, some of the money finishes up in the pockets of politicians? In one recent case, a senator got done for corruption because he had been lining his pockets with money from lottery schemes.
    Will the hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that the people behind the move towards a lottery in Britain are in no way connected to the United States lottery schemes that have been lining the pockets of politicians there? Apparently, money has been offered to the people who want to operate the lottery scheme in Britain. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give us an assurance today that no money has been received from the United States for the campaign and that no such money will be used in future? Many suggestions have been made in United States newspapers that that is taking place already.
    Mr. Lawrence: The hon. Gentleman brings his well-known anti-Americanism even into a debate on a private Member's Bill on a lottery. In presenting the Bill, I am not in a position to give any undertaking about details that still have to be worked out. I do not know whether Americans are involved in any offers that may be made in the course of the tendering.
    However, I am sure both that the integrity of British public life is beyond question and that when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary makes the necessary choices and formulates the necessary regulations for the national lottery regulatory authority he will certainly not do anything to encourage any kind of dishonesty or malpractice. We can all be confident of that—that is, all of us except the hon. Member for Bolsover, (Mr. Skinner).
    Mr. Ray Whitney: May I make a more constructive point than that made by the hon. Member for Bolsover? I very much support my hon. and learned Friend's Bill. He said that the lottery was likely to raise £3 billion. I wonder whether he has considered the findings of the Peacock committee, which in 1985 considered the possibility of a lottery for funding the BBC. It estimated that £500 million was the outside figure that might be raised. Grossed up in today's terms, that could mean £1 billion. I wonder whether that thought might allay the fears of the pools promoters. The lottery would open up a new market, so the football pools—with the good that they, too, do—may not be damaged as much as some apprehensions suggest that they might.
    Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friend has made a helpful point, and I am grateful for all such help. I cannot confirm anything about broadcasting history or public opinion polls of 1985. I shall try to explain to the House how we came up with our figure.

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    We have observed a number of other national lotteries elsewhere in the world, especially in Europe. We have seen how popular they are and brought our estimates into line with that, and with the Gallup poll that suggested that 25 million to 30 million British people would take part, and told us the sort of price that they would be prepared to pay. Two rather good estimates have been made. The lower estimate—made by the Sports Council—is that £2 billion would be raised. Another estimate—that £4 billion would be raised—was also made by a reputable body. In my normal, moderate, middle-of-the-road way, I have taken the middle path and used a figure of £3 billion.
    Mr. Denis Howell: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Lawrence: I shall give way to one of the most distinguished sponsors of the Bill.
    Mr. Howell: I need to deal with the regrettable interference of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), and the suggestion that he made. I must declare that I am a director—unpaid, as we all are—of the National Lottery Promotion Company. In view of the suggestions that have been made, I wish to tell my hon. Friend that no director has received a penny from our activities, nor intends to do so. Our purpose would be at an end if a lottery were promoted. Secondly, no American money has come forward for the promotion of the national lottery. It is true that £20,000 has been paid towards our expenses, but that pales into insignificance compared with the expenditure on the other side. It was paid by a British company which is a subsidiary of an American company—[ Interruption.] I am telling the House frankly what has happened. If my hon. Friend says that there is anything wrong in British companies operating in this country supporting the cause, he has an extraordinary sense of values. I hope that that clears up the matter and that the debate can now proceed normally.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): I should tell the House that interventions will be a factor taken into account in determining who will catch my eye later.
    Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell). Those comments could not have come from a more authoritative source than a former Labour Minister for sport. I am only sorry that, when I have come here in a spirit of ecumenicalism, expecting that there will be no conflict between the Labour and the Conservative sides of the House, it seems that our Labour friends are falling out among themselves. Please, gentlemen, maintain that spirit of ecumenicalism, which I want to encourage today.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: I hope to develop some arguments later, if I catch Mr. Deputy Speaker's eye. On a point of fact, does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the net consumer spend on gambling and gaming is about £3,300 million a year? My hon. and learned Friend's estimate of £3,300 million being spent on a national lottery would be either an addition, thus doubling the amount of gaming and gambling, or a substitution.
    Mr. Lawrence: I do not agree. It seems that the Treasury is not quite sure how much money it gets from gambling. There is a discrepancy of £3·5 billion between the figures at the end of 1990 and the figures at the beginning of 1991. I am sure that we can work rather more
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    on that matter during our debate. For the moment, I say that my hon. Friend is wrong in suggesting that there will be no element of new money and no element of increased money to the Treasury, if the Treasury decides to take money from the national lottery.
    Mr. Derek Conway: My hon. and learned Friend is very patient. I must tell the House that I act as adviser for the National Association of Bookmakers, as my hon. and learned Friend knows. He will recall that the Select Committee on Home Affairs produced a report on the effects of the levy which bookmakers pay to the Government. The figures in that report and Home Office figures often differ considerably. Will my hon. and learned Friend describe the impact of clause 2 on the licensed betting offices, which run gambling in a proper and regulated way and which have a genuine and understandable concern that the Bill will have a serious impact on their livelihoods?
    Mr. Lawrence: I have nothing but the best regard for licensed gamblers. From time to time I have advised them on a legal basis and I must declare that interest. Some of my best friends are bookies. On the question of the Bill's effect on a particular interest, I am unwilling and unable to give an answer, simply because the Bill is an enabling measure. Everything is to be played for and everyone's interest is to be competed for. I have no reason to think that anyone's interest is likely to be excluded.
    There is an important point for hon. Members of all parties about the financing and taxation of gambling. The figures show that the return from the sporting and gambling industry to the Exchequer outweighs the money that the Government spend on sport by about 8·5: 1. The more money that the Government put into sport, the more—eight and a half times more—will come back.
    Mr. Patrick Cormack: Will my hon. and learned Friend underline the fact that, worthy as bookmakers may be and wealthy as they may be—the Rolls-Royces on the racecourses testify eloquently to that—the money paid under the Bill will come to the public good?
    Mr. Lawrence: I know that it is sometimes to the public good that people win large sums with the national bookmakers. Let us not fall out over that. I think that the Bill will please everybody—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am sure——
    Mr. Thomas Graham: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Lawrence: Having given way on half a dozen occasions, I am sure that I have your support, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in asking to be given the opportunity to make progress. In due course, I may give way to the hon. Gentleman when I feel like having a breather.
    Why should the arts, sport, heritage and charities be the beneficiaries of the Bill? My answer is that they are areas of British life which are important to the character and reputation of our nation and to the quality of life, but which are not sufficiently well funded by taxpayers' money.
    France has 20 times as many covered tennis courts as we have. Germany has 20 times as many covered

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    swimming pools and 96 more opera houses. Our 50,000 competitive swimmers have to share only 12 Olympic pools. More amenities would not be just plain indulgence.
    How many more of our children would spend time in sporting activities if there were more and better facilities for them? What is the curse on our children today? It is sitting in front of television sets and being subject to boredom. Most of us are parents and know that boredom leads to crime. It is no coincidence that the peak age of criminality is not the twenties and thirties, involving those who are unemployed, but the middle teens. Those kids are bored out of their little minds and find mischief to do. If we give them better swimming pools, better and more football pitches, more and better athletic grounds and gymnasia, and more local theatres and musical instruments to engage their interest and vitality, there is likely to be a reduction in juvenile crime. That is one way in which such expenditure would help British society.
    That is why the Bill is backed enthusiastically by the Arts Council, the Sports Council, the Amateur Boxing Association, the Amateur Swimming Association, the British Music Society, the British Olympic Association, the British Ski Federation, the National Youth Orchestra, the Musicians Union, the Scottish Arts Council, the Welsh Arts Council, the great museums, the great orchestras, the operatic and dance groups, the National and Tate galleries, the Council for the Protection of Rural England and English Heritage. The list is almost endless. I give way to the great champion of the arts.
    Mr. Terry Dicks: I am in favour of the principle of a lottery, but I find myself in a dilemma. I cannot support a Bill that proposes giving more money to the arts. It is clear that the arts get more than enough from the public purse. The weakness of the Bill is that it proposes spending money on the arts. I accept sports, but not the arts which get too much. I have had a letter this week from the great and good Sir Richard "call me Dickie" Attenborough asking for my support for the Bill. However, unless my hon. and learned Friend can guarantee that the arts aspect will be withdrawn, I will vote against the Bill.
    Mr. Lawrence: As long as my hon. Friend votes for the closure, I do not mind whether he votes for or against the Bill. In the hope of winning over my hon. Friend, I must point out that few measures are 70 per cent. as we should wish them to be. Even if provision for the arts were deleted, the other 70 per cent. must involve matters of which he is in favour.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: My hon. and learned Friend knows that I support the Bill strongly, especially on the question of money going to arts and charities. Does he think that he has got the percentages right? I should like a little more to go to charitable purposes, especially to help disabled people who have rather a raw deal in life.
    Mr. Lawrence: I have not broken down the percentages except to suggest that 90 per cent. of the funds should go to art, sport and heritage in whatever proportion the Home Secretary or the national lottery regulatory authority decides. Up to 10 per cent. would be for charity. I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster
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    (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) that there are problems. One is that many big charities do not want me to rain on their parade. They do not want to ask for money and then to be told that, because the national lottery will provide all the money, their finely tuned and dedicated activity will be less welcome.
    On the other hand, I want something to go to charity, because the charities are concerned that some of them may be threatened, and I want to ensure that any likely threat is more than compensated for by what goes to them from the lottery. I quite understand my hon. Friend's feelings about these matters, however, and I am sure that they will be taken into account.
    I reiterate that this is a skeleton Bill. It is an enabling Bill—in a sense, the worst possible kind of Bill to have to try to defend against the suggestions and attacks of others. But there is good sense in bringing an enabling Bill to the House because the concept is pretty simple—one is either for a national lottery or against a national lottery—and if I do not go into too much detail, many of the arguments and, perhaps, possible interventions can be avoided so that we can get on with the debate.
    Mr. John D. Taylor: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman explain why he thinks that our experience in the United Kingdom should be different from that in the Republic of Ireland, where the emergence of the national lottery has severely hit the funding of charities?
    Mr. Lawrence: That is an unusual intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, who usually makes very sensible contributions. With great respect, I draw to his attention the fact that, although it may be perfectly true that, since the introduction, in point of time, of the national lottery in Ireland, there has been a fall-off there in charitable contributions, there has been a similar fall-off in charitable contributions in Northern Ireland, where there is no national lottery. The one conclusion that one can draw from that is that one cannot draw the conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman suggests. There is probably no link whatever between the two facts; otherwise why has the same thing happened in Northern Ireland?
    I shall come back to charities a little later; for the moment, I am dealing with the first limb of the Bill.
    Mr. John D. Taylor rose——
    Mr. Lawrence: I am sure that the House will look forward to hearing the right hon. Gentleman's answer when he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not want to be the only hon. Member to speak in the debate and I have already spent the best part of half an hour giving way and answering interventions. I hope that the House will be considerate and allow me to get on and develop my argument.
    With such a fund, our cathedrals, churches, national monuments and works of art could be protected from destruction by the ravages of time and weather and from purchase and removal from Britain by foreign buyers.
    Some people have asked why the Bill does not help the national health service, which it does not do directly. There has been much fuss about keeping the national health service a state concern and, although it is not remotely possible, and has been denied vigorously, that the Conservatives or anyone else will privatise the national health service—there is no merit in the suggestion at all

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    —the very idea makes people very angry. It is clear, therefore, that everyone wants the national health service to be funded by the taxpayer and only by the taxpayer, and funding from a private lottery would be a strange way of maintaining a state health service, especially as we spend £33 billion of taxpayers' money a year on the NHS and the lottery would raise only 3 per cent. of that.
    Nevertheless, the Bill will help the nation's health. First, it will help charitable research foundations such as the Cystic Fibrosis Research Trust, with which I am particularly closely concerned. There are also research trusts for diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis, which depend largely upon private contributions, and those would benefit from the £100 million a year that would be allocated to charity under the Bill, if the figures that I have put before the House are right.
    Secondly, there is the money that the Exchequer will take from the national lottery—possibly hundreds of millions of pounds—which could be used to help to fund the national health service or to relieve the taxpayer of liabilities that give him a big headache and make him sick.
    Thirdly, an improvement in the nation's health would inevitably result if we had more sports facilities such as squash courts, running tracks and football fields—the list is very long.
    That is the first way in which the income of the lottery could be split between the beneficiaries.
    In addition, the prize winners would obviously benefit. Many hundreds of millions of pounds a year—with my model, up to £1,000 million a year—would go to them. That would make a lot of people happy and would considerably improve the quality of life.
    Mr. Graham: Would the money go only to private clubs, running private facilities, or would some of it go direct to local councils which provide sporting facilities? Will the hon. and learned Gentleman explain whether his Bill would channel any money into local government? And can the hon. and learned Gentleman tell me whether he gambles himself and what form of gambling he knows all about?
    Mr. Lawrence: On the hon. Gentleman's first question, nothing has been ruled out. The local authorities have everything to play for in making their bids for the various activities involved in the national lottery, so I do not wish the hon. Gentleman to lose heart.
    My own gambling proclivities are very modest and I have placed no bets on the outcome of today's debate, although I think that I can say that I am certain of success in the long run.
    Mr. Graham: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what gambling he does himself?
    Mr. Lawrence: I do not do very much gambling of any kind.
    Let me give some examples of benefits to the prize winners. In France, the lottery, now 15 years old, is a national institution, with draws twice a week, televised at peak viewing time, and an average stake of 80p per person. Some 50 per cent. of the population play and Today tells us this week that last year's big winners walked away with a £5·5 million jackpot.
    In Italy, the Government raised £1·5 billion from gambling. Italy has 13 lotteries, and 40 million tickets are sold at £2·50 a time.
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    In Ireland, 60 to 65 per cent. of all adults play regularly, spending about £3 a week—the cost of one newspaper a day—and £250 million has been raised over four and a half years. Yesterday, Ray Bates, the Irish lottery secretary, told a meeting in Committee Room 13, to which all hon. Members were invited, that a nun in full regalia—so much for religious objections—won £50,000 and a weekend for two in Paris, which she raffled to raise more money for her order.
    In Spain, players spend £3 billion to £4 billion a year on the lotteria nacional, with a pay-out one Christmas reaching £115 million. I read this Christmas that a department store's employees—64 of them—won £16 million between them, or £250,000 each. The only person who did not join in was the English manager. If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, can imagine what a sick parrot looks like, you can imagine how that gentleman must have looked when the lottery result was announced. In addition to the arts, sport, heritage, charities and health of the nation, ordinary men and women from one end of the nation to the other would gain from a national lottery.
    The third way in which the national lottery income would be split would be among the operators and their workers, the taxpayers and the Exchequer. If my right hon. Friend the Chancellor wanted, several hundred million pounds could go to help to relieve the burden on the taxpayer or be used to improve the welfare state.
    Some have said, "With so much good, where is the catch? Are not there any losers?" What objections are there to a national lottery, and how valid are they? The short answer is that, provided that a national lottery is properly, fairly, efficiently and honestly run, the only losses are the amounts voluntarily and freely placed in the purchase of tickets that do not win. Society still benefits, however, and one cannot really call the players losers in the sense that they have been harmed by the national lottery. I have heard some very feeble objections advanced by self-interested groups over the past few weeks. I have also heard some very old-fashioned ideas. No doubt we will hear more of them today as there are some very old-fashioned Members on the Opposition Benches and, perhaps, also behind me.
    I have heard it said that the state should not engage in gambling or encourage it in any way. However, it already does that with regard to premium bonds, which are state controlled and state run. That is not the purpose of my national lottery. There are also quite lowly taxed gambling events such as horse racing and casinos. Low taxation is a form of encouragement for gambling by the state. I am afraid that the pass about the state's encouragement or otherwise of gambling has long since been sold.
    A state lottery is not hard or addictive gambling. It is harmless gambling and it is fun. It is a very different kind of gambling.
    I have also heard it said that the poor must be protected from the temptation to abuse their charity and that they must be saved from fecklessness. What outdated paternalism that is for the 1990s. It seems that people cannot be trusted to spend their money as they wish and that people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale must be deprived of entertainment and the chance to win prizes.
    I am pleased to say that the Church of England no longer adopts that dated approach. It has a very laid-back attitude to the Bill and, as I am instructed to say by those who are knowledgeable about these things, the Church of

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    England claims that the Bill is a matter for individual conscience—as indeed it should be. The Catholic Church exists side by side with some of the biggest national lotteries in the world.
    If hon. Members are still in doubt about this, let me point out that in 1978 the royal commission on gambling, which examined all those matters and considered all the lotteries operating at the time, concluded:
    "We have neither heard nor seen anything to suggest that its remarkable success"—
    that is, the national lotteries in other countries—"has been accompanied by any socially harmful events."
    We have all been deluged with literature of a sort from the pools lobby—as unself-interested a body as it is possible to meet. I have nothing against the football pools or the pools promotion companies. Long may they all flourish and prosper. However, they should not insult our intelligence by claiming that a national lottery would kill off the pools in a few weeks. It has not killed off the pools in Italy or in any other country in Europe where football is a strong national game and where the pools are well run and efficient.
    Why do our pools companies fear competition? Are they so feeble and weak that they will disintegrate if any other group is after their money? If they are weak, perhaps they should have spent more money on spectator facilities and less on high-priced players. I have advice for the pools companies. The picture of weakness and incompetence which they are apparently painting will not stand them in good stead when they bid to run the national lottery as an operator which they have said that they will if such a lottery is instituted, and as Vernons already does with other state lotteries in the United States.
    Mr. Joseph Ashton: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Treasury received £309 million from the pools last year? Is he aware that the pools give £40 million to football and £20 million to the arts and other facilities? Is he also aware that 6,000 jobs in Liverpool are at risk because of the lottery? Is he further aware that in Belgium the pools collapsed three weeks after a national lottery was introduced, that in Greece the takings went down by two thirds and that in Australia they fell by 50 per cent? That is the effect that a national lottery would have.
    Mr. Lawrence: The hon. Gentleman has made several points on behalf of the pools promoters and I will deal with them seriatim. With regard to Belgium and any other country in which the pools have gone down, if those countries do not have a strong tradition of football—as those countries do not—and if their pools are weak and inefficiently operated, of course they will go out of business. However, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) cannot be suggesting that that applies in Britain.
    Mr. Simon Burns: Does my hon. and learned Friend accept that the football pools in Belgium and Greece were not based on the internal football matches of those countries in the way that pools are run in this country? Therefore, it is hardly surprising that there should be less interest in the pools in Belgium and Greece when there is a more attractive alternative. As we have a strong and fine tradition of football in this country, a lottery would not have the same effect.
    Mr. Lawrence: As I expected, my hon. Friend has made the point so much better than I did. I hope that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw will be reassured. Indeed, I can reassure him further. If the pools promoters had bothered to commission Gallup or any other public opinion poll—although they do not always say the same thing—to carry out a poll on the threat to their survival, they would have discovered the following facts: first, 92 per cent. of pools players will continue to play the pools even if there is a national lottery. Only 8 per cent. of pools players would spend less on the pools. Secondly, only one in three people play the pools—fewer than one in five of women—while 72 per cent. would play a national lottery as would a much higher proportion of women. Why should women be discriminated against? They are as important in society as men and they have as much right as men to ease of access. Not all women are as interested as men in filling out complicated football pool coupons.
    Most of the national lottery payments would be—[Interruption.] Due to the ribald behaviour of Opposition Members, I had better repeat that point. Most of the national lottery payments would be new money. The pools have little to fear, especially if they are planning to run the new lottery.
    The pools promoters have also warned—and this point was supported by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw—that they would lose 6,500 jobs. No doubt many hon. Members will oppose the Bill because their local football clubs have written to them claiming that jobs would be at risk because of the lottery. However, the football pools have been losing jobs steadily over the past few years without a national lottery and they will continue to lose jobs as they modernise their systems and install on-line computers in place of people. Let the pools promoters deny that they have such plans.
    Had the pools promoters and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw consulted the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, they would have been advised that once the national lottery achieves a turnover of £3 billion after three or four years, 85,000 jobs—and not 6,500—would be created.
    Just think of the people who would benefit from a lottery. It has been suggested that there may be 25,000 outlets. Those may be in corner shops or village stores. Small business people would be grateful for an extra £100 a week to ensure that they remained in existence. What about the new employees in sport, the arts, heritage and related areas? Those people would not simply be working for the lottery office. Many more jobs would be created, and that is another answer to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw.
    Mr. John Lee: With regard to outlets, my hon. and learned Friend may be interested to learn that my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Hargreaves) and I met the senior management of Post Office Counters earlier this week. Post Office Counters has about 20,000 outlets, 19,000 of which are sub-offices. If a national lottery was introduced, Post Office Counters would be very keen to participate. That is an indication of the scale of the potential.
    Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Lee), who has done sterling work in support of this cause. He knows more about it than I do, and I am happy to rely on his advice and experience.
    Mr. Brian Wilson: I am sure that, during his researches, the hon. and learned Gentleman has come across the cautionary tale of Skillball, which was also to install computer terminals in every corner shop, post office and village store, as a result of which the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) was to preside over a fund which also was to dispense millions of pounds to good causes. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman confirm from his researches that the founder of Skillball decamped to Barbados with a rather large sum of money, and that the right hon. Member for Chingford did not dispense a single penny to charity as a result of those terminals being installed?
    Mr. Lawrence: I do not wish to discuss Skillball, about which I know nothing. Of course it is very important that the national lottery should be properly monitored and properly policed so that no possible element of fraud or dishonesty can be allowed to enter. I am confident that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—he has sent me a note saying that, unfortunately, he cannot be present today, although he wanted to be, and I am most grateful for that—will be most astute to make sure that the regulations that he lays down and the people who are appointed to the national lottery regulatory authority will be of the greatest integrity, and will be sure to maintain that none of that criticism can arise. If the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) has any doubt about those matters, perhaps he should convey them to his hon. Friends who support the national lottery and are not dissuaded in any way by the hon. Gentleman's point.
    The pools promoters have warned us—the hon. Member for Bassetlaw touched on this point—that they may not be able to manage the £60 million they give to sport and the arts if their income is weakened. I pass over the fact that that money is largely taxpayers' money, anyway—it is the 2·5 per cent. tax reduction deal that they struck with the Government last year, less tax and the money to sport and the arts. I have already said that, if they are more efficient, they will not be weakened.
    In any event, is not it extraordinarily selfish—I am surprised that the pools promoters are not ashamed to make this point—to suggest that £60 million will be of more benefit to art and sport than the £600 million that they are likely to get from the national lottery? Also, the pools give nothing to the heritage, and the lottery will give a further £100 million a year specifically to charities. That is the answer to the points that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has made.
    I have heard—doubtless we shall hear it again—that the national lottery would be the ruination of charities. I have already dealt with the Northern Ireland point—the Irish point—which is very ill founded. The connection between charities and a national lottery, as suggested, is manifest nonsense. Other countries with successful lotteries do not appear to have had their charities obliterated. Why is that? It is because they are two different kinds of spending. One gives money to a charity—we play the lottery. That is a very different mental process, and it is very different money.
    If I go up to somebody and say, "Will you buy a lottery ticket, or will you give to the local church group?", he or she is not likely, in common sense, to say, "I am sorry, I have already bought a ticket, because I am playing the national lottery." If I go up to somebody and say, "Will you help to stop water coming into the local scout hut or
    1230
    mend its windows and give some money to the lottery for that?", they will not say, "I am sorry, I have already given to the national lottery." The same applies to people who raise money for local hospitals. People who are committed to a particular form of charity will not say, "I am sorry, I am not going to give because I am already playing the national lottery."
    The national lottery will not affect corporate giving to charity, which has risen by 50 per cent. over the past five years. It will not affect the giving of those who have never given to charity. In fact, 56 per cent. of the population do not give to charity. However, the national lottery will channel more money to charity. Charities that find that their income may have been adversely affected can put in their bids to the trustees for further charitable giving. I am very sorry that whoever it was from some kind of charitable body or institution who circulated a letter to every Member of Parliament last week—I do not have the letter with me—said that there is no provision in the Bill for charities. They simply have not read the Bill. It behoves everybody who circulates letters to Members of Parliament to make an important point to know what on earth they are talking about; otherwise we will never be able to trust such circulars again.
    Mr. Stuart Randall: I wish to comment on the figures that the hon. and learned Gentleman presented before he started to talk about charities. We should recognise that no hon. Member knows what revenue will emanate from a national lottery. We do not even know whether it will be viable because we do not know what tax regime will be in operation. We do not know what possible regulation will be in operation. We need also to take into account the fact that Britain is rather different in the sense that there is a far wider range of gambling opportunities here than in many other countries. Hon. Members must refrain from pushing figures on what we would like to spend, because none of us knows.
    Mr. Lawrence: Of course I concede that nobody knows precisely the detail, but one conclusion to which we can come is that it will be a jolly good thing for everybody to whom I referred. Perhaps my figures are wildly optimistic, although they are tied to the Gallup poll findings and to what happens in other countries. I have already given an account of the massive incomes in other countries that are no more sporting-oriented than we are. Perhaps it is wildly pessimistic to assess that we can raise very much more money than I have postulated. I said that I have taken the middle line between the £2 billion figure and the £4 billion figure. If it is £2 billion, it will still be a fantastic advance in raising the quality of life in Britain. If it is £4 billion, it will be even more fantastic.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
    Mr. Lawrence: I am sure that my hon. Friend will make his contribution. I must come to the end of my speech. I hope that he will forgive me. When he was at the Dispatch Box, he had many opportunities to be interrupted. From time to time, he had to take a hard line and refuse to accept interventions.
    In summary, much of the criticism of the Bill is ill-informed, unsubstantiated and downright unlikely, and splendid examples of special pleading against the wider

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    national interest. No one is perfect, and certainly no Bill is without fault, least of all mine. My Bill is enabling legislation. I doubt whether the Government will like it very much because it is enabling legislation. I have no doubt that that is why the Government have decided not to send Ministers into either Lobby: they are leaving the matter to us. This is a real Back-Bench day. I hope that Back-Bench Members will show the Government precisely how they feel about this matter.
    This enabling legislation clearly sets out limited aims for the national lottery to help arts, sport, heritage and charities, and I have explained why that is so. It establishes the framework of the national lottery regulatory authority, which, under regulations to be made by the Home Secretary, will agree the kind of lottery, the proportion of prizes, the kind of game, the granting of an operator's licence, the selection of the operators, and the policing of the operation. I do not intend that that body should comprise civil servants because that would make it a state enterprise, which is not what I foresee. It must be totally private. However, I have no objection to a member of the civil service being on the authority to ensure for the taxpayer that the scheme is properly policed.
    The Bill establishes that the lottery will be conducted by operators under regulations made by the Home Secretary. It sets up a board of trustees to allocate the revenue—90 per cent. to arts, sport and heritage and 10 per cent. to charities. It lays down requirements for monitoring activities and for ensuring that that monitoring comes before Parliament and the Home Secretary. It also provides for the Treasury to extract its share.
    I have drafted the Bill in such a way as to avoid arguments and limitless interventions and interruptions—[Interruption.] It is not sensible to go into detail at this stage. Everybody's representations will be heard in due course by the Home Secretary and the regulatory authority. There must be more specific rules and regulations, and I recognise immediately that that means that there will have to be consultation and discussions between the interested parties. Everybody must have the chance to make his or her pitch. Those who are interested in running or taking part in such a lottery will have nearly everything to play for and can make their representations in due course.
    What I want of the Government today is for them to face up to the necessity for a lottery and to the need to resolve its complexities speedily. Not only are we almost alone among the enlightened nations in not having a national lottery; if we are not careful, foreign lotteries will flood into the country in a few months, taking British money for other countries' good causes. I want to see—I expect that the House will want to see—British money going to British causes to improve the quality of British life.
    Why might we lose out if we do not move soon? There are moves afoot in the European Community to harmonise the service industry. I know that the Government are not enthusiastic about giving up any British powers, and I want to ensure that that eventuality is narrowed, although, of course, sometimes we can do very little about the efforts that are made in the European Community. If hon. Members are not sure that that is what is happening in the European Commission, I refer
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    them to a letter written by the Vice President of the European Commission as recently as 1 August 1991. It stated:
    "Lawful gambling activities are considered service activities. The transfer of winnings linked to a lottery is therefore a current transaction and thus liberalised according to relevant provisions of the Treaty and Directive".
    The Vice President of the European Commission is saying that, as far as he is concerned, such activities are very much a matter of the removal of barriers because there will be a restraint of trade if the barriers remain. Even now, a committee is sitting to consider how far forward that point can be taken.
    I realise that the Government do not propose to lose control of the area, but, if the Commission 'and our other colleagues in the European Community decide to dismantle the barriers and to allow the free play of lotteries, will they say, "No, this is a matter of such fundamental importance to the survival of Britain as a nation that we shall not go along with it or make that concession for the purpose of being communautaire"? I doubt very much whether this is the sort of issue on which the British people would expect the Government to stand up to the rest of the Community.
    If foreign lotteries are to be available in Britain, the only effective way of dealing with that is to have our own domestic national lottery. If the Government feel that their position on this issue is stronger than some of us believe, I have two warnings for them. First, when asked in a Gallup poll whether they would buy foreign lottery tickets if they were available and if British tickets were not, 40 per cent. of people said that they would. That is strong evidence that the British public want to buy foreign lottery tickets if we do not have our own national lottery.
    Secondly, because Denmark had been so slow to establish its own national lottery after international lotteries had been allowed into the country, even a year or two after the establishment of the Danish national lottery, 10 per cent. of the Danish money that is spent on lotteries still goes to the Germans. Even if European lotteries are not to be allowed in by law, who can stop them coming in illegally? Last year, our police and Customs and Excise confiscated 3 million lottery advertisements. They were not just for European lotteries, but for the United States and Canada where there are substantial lotteries. Who knows how many British people even now are playing foreign lotteries illegally, perhaps blissfully unaware that it is illegal? How many foreign lottery tickets are being sold in Britain? How much money is currently going abroad that could be used to raise the British quality of life?
    Mr. Lee: My hon. and learned Friend might be interested to know that I have with me a totally unsolicited letter that was recently posted in Brussels, containing details of the Australian national lottery. Such things are circulating freely.
    Mr. Lawrence: While getting this Bill together, I have seen very many foreign lottery tickets that have not been stopped from entering the country by Customs and Excise. About 3 million tickets have been stopped, but many have not. I have heard stories of people playing foreign national lotteries, although that is unlawful.
    For more than 200 years, lotteries have played an important part in the public life of Britain.
    Mrs. Audrey Wise: I have waited to intervene until it became clear that the hon. and learned Gentleman

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    was concluding his speech because I have been expecting him to tell us where the £3 billion that his lottery would raise is being spent at present, but he has not done so. Will he enlighten us on this important point?
    Mr. Lawrence: Perhaps I can answer the hon. Lady quickly with this statistic. An average of 27p per head of the population in Britain is now spent on the football pools. The average spend in Europe is £1 per head on lotteries and similar forms of gambling. Unless this country is a lot less sporting than European countries and a lot less liable to engage in a flutter, that means that there would be 73p per head of the population to be spent on the national lottery for a start. It would be new money. All our experience shows that, if people are presented with, a sensible, rational and inviting alternative, they can and do find the money for the causes that they think are right.
    I am trying to come to my conclusion, Mr. Deputy Speaker——
    Mr. Ashton: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Lawrence: I have given way many times. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw may well say, "Hear, hear", but I have spent about half of my speech answering the inane points that he has made on behalf of the Pools Promoters Association. If the hon. Gentleman had not made those points, I should not have had to deal with them.
    For more than 200 years, lotteries have played—[Interruption.] Let us be ecumenical. For more than 200 years, lotteries have played an important part in public life in Britain. In 1569, a national lottery raised money to repair the Cinque ports. The British Museum was built with lottery money. Manuscripts and art collections have been purchased by public lotteries, which have numbered the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons among their patrons. From 1709 to 1824, a national lottery was authorised by Act of Parliament to raise money for public works. It was removed from the statute book by 19th century moralists, who are much reviled by Opposition Members, because it was thought to be a temptation to the indigent poor to be offered a lottery against which A was necessary to protect them and everyone else in our society.
    Now the time for a national lottery has come again. It will be good for the poor and everyone else. It will strengthen the parts of our quality of life that taxes do not reach. It will be popular. Recent press reactions since I published the Bill proved that. The number of letters from the public proves that. The arguments put against the Bill, as the royal commission concluded as long ago as 1978, are feeble. There is no longer any excuse for not reviving the national lottery. In addition—I say this in all seriousness to my hon. Friend the Minister—a national lottery will be a vote winner for whichever party is in government and. implements it.
    I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to make a clear and unequivocal commitment to the principle of a national lottery now and to give the House a copper-bottomed undertaking that it will be implemented soon. If he does not like my Bill—and I will understand why—let him say to the House that the Government intend to introduce a national lottery through their own Bill as speedily as can be arranged, following consultation and the acceptance of representations from all the interested bodies. As my offering to assist in achieving that end, I commend the Bill to the House and invite it to support it.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: May I remind the House of Mr. Speaker's earlier appeal for brief speeches? A large number of right hon. Members wish to take part in the debate.
    Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Towards the end of today's proceedings it is likely that the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) will move the closure of the debate. I hope that you will bear in mind that Deputy Speakers and others take into account the nature of the debate, and the fact that a Member takes up 20 per cent. of the time in moving the Bill, in deciding whether a closure is warranted.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: We shall deal with matters if and when they arise, not hypothetical matters.
    10.41 am
    Mr. Peter Kilfoyle: The Bill is a dog's breakfast of a scheme and I am opposed to it. I hope that the Bill will be disposed of, not merely because I come from Liverpool, but because it is based on a string of fallacious propositions. The arguments made either today or in any of the lobbying briefings that I have received have not changed my mind one iota. It is argued that billions would be raised for art and sport and that no damage would be done to the pools, the lotteries or the general gambling industry. It is argued that somehow we shall be flooded with European lottery tickets post-1992, if not before.
    It is argued that we shall get out of a lottery grand public works catering for sport, the arts and so on. It is understating the case to say that the various projections of income from a national lottery are open to question. To put it mildly, they are confusing. In his letter of 16 December, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said that the lottery might raise as much as £1 billion. The Sports Council briefing note claimed that the lottery would raise at least £2 billion. Not so long ago we were being told that the scheme would raise £3 billion. There is no guaranteed return on a national lottery and it is misleading to suggest otherwise.
    Mr. Lawrence: I would not like the hon. Gentleman to make a bad point and I am sure that he would not want to do so either. If he reads my letter carefully, he will see that I said that £1 billion would be liberated for arts, sports and heritage. The total take would be £3 billion.
    Mr. Kilfoyle: With respect, that is exactly what I am saying. But it still confuses the issue. The various parties that support the Bill cannot agree on the exact figure. The amount is limited. That is an important point to make. Not so long ago the hon. and learned Member for Burton suggested that somehow there is an unlimited amount of gambling take to be spread about. That is just not true. It is possible to speculate about what income would be generated for sports and arts projects, but it would be merely speculation.
    The Sports Council is a strong supporter of the Bill. In its briefing note it could not even decide on the basis of its own projections whether sport and the arts would receive £600 million or £800 million from the scheme. The whole idea is based on over-optimistic and simplistic analysis of what people might spend on gambling in the future. Any national lottery scheme would have a devastating effect on other lotteries and the gambling industry in general.

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    There is widespread opposition to the Bill among responsible bodies. We were given a list of people who support a national lottery but not of those who are against it, such as the Lotteries Council. The Lotteries Council represents bodies as diverse as the Children Nationwide Medical Research Fund, MIND, and the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals. Professional rugby, football and cricket clubs are vigorously opposed to the Bill.
    Mr. Ken Hargreaves: The Lotteries Council is not against a national lottery. I speak as president of it. The council is against this Bill because it believes that it would not help it.
    Mr. Kilfoyle: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The Lotteries Council is against the Bill, not a national lottery. Nevertheless, we are dealing with the Bill this morning.
    Equally implacable in its opposition is the Betting Office Licensees Association. It is a major employer in Britain. Some 50,000 people are employed in betting offices around Britain. But obviously my particular anxiety is the effect that a national lottery would have on the pools industry. I make no apologies as a Liverpool Member of Parliament for arguing that industry's corner.
    In Liverpool we have more than 4,500 people employed in the pools industry. Most of them are women. Indeed, some of my relations are employed or have been employed in the industry. An awful lot of those women are the only breadwinners in their household. In my constituency we already have the highest number of unemployed women in Britain. I do not want to see any addition to that number. I am absolutely convinced that a national lottery would have a devastating effect on the pools and would cost those women their jobs.
    We are told that a national lottery will not impact on the pools industry. To me it is nonsense to suggest that. I was in Australia when the soccer pools were devastated by the national lottery scheme—Tatts Lotto. Anyone who suggests that one does not have an effect on the other is talking nonsense. Soccer pools in Australia were destroyed by the national lottery. Without a shadow of a doubt, exactly the same thing would happen to the pools industry in Britain. That has been independently confirmed by Coopers and Lybrand Europe. It was engaged recently by the European Commission to do a study on gambling in the Community. It was in no doubt about what the Bill would do to the pools industry. It said:
    "A UK national lottery would effectively kill off the football pools in a period of weeks."
    It gave the example of what happened in Belgium. I have heard the contrary argument put this morning about that. Belgium's pools industry was killed off within three weeks. Coopers and Lybrand was particularly pointed about the effect that a national lottery would have on the pools industry in Britain.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: I shall speak against the Bill, if I catch Mr. Deputy Speaker's eye, but it is probably worth saying on the football pools point that because many people go in for a blanket entry, a national lottery could not possibly have the immediate impact that the hon. Gentleman suggests. Whether it would have an impact in the longer term is a matter for genuine debate. It is a weak point to claim that the pools would disappear so fast.
    Mr. Kilfoyle: The hon. Gentleman may think that it is a weak point, but I am convinced that Coopers and Lybrand has a comprehensive view of the effect that a national lottery would have. It seems to be convinced that the effect would be fairly immediate. Certainly, the effect on soccer pools in Australia was immediate. All the statistics show that.
    Gambling currently generates more than £1 billion in tax and duty for the Government. Obviously, that includes the element from the football pools. I believe that much of that will be imperilled by the scheme, especially if the football pools and small lotteries are damaged and the betting industry generally is damaged. I am sure that the Treasury would not want to lose the money that it already rakes in from the gambling industry.
    Mr. Ashton: Is it not a fact that the vast majority of pools coupons are collected? Would not those collectors push state lottery tickets instead of collecting the pools? Is not that the reason why the pools would suffer instantly?
    Mr. Kilfoyle: I can only assume that there would have to be some collection system——
    Mr. Ashton: On commission.
    Mr. Kilfoyle: Yes, on commission. I assume that that is what hon. Members are talking about when they mention all the jobs that will be generated by a national lottery. The only alternative is to have on-line terminals of the sort promised with the Skillball game—or whatever it was called—which never came into being. I can see no other way round that and it will obviously cost those jobs.
    Mr. George Howarth: Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that only 10 per cent. of pools entries are standard forecasts—where people do the pools several weeks in advance—negates the argument of the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) a few moments ago?
    Mr. Kilfoyle: Absolutely. Also, it can be argued that some skill is involved in the pools. It is not the simple gambling trick that a lottery would be.
    I am sure that the Treasury would want to make up any lost income. Surely, that will affect the portion set aside for tax anticipated in the briefing notes that I have seen. That would mean that less money would be left to be disbursed on the arts, sport and heritage. They cannot have it both ways—it is a finite piece of cake.
    I am less than optimistic about the running costs and profit margins of such a scheme. The hon. and learned Member for Burton did not really answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I am concerned about the involvement of American companies such as Reebok and Control Data in promoting the proposals. We ought to know exactly how they are funding the campaign behind the Bill and what their future role will be. They do not put money in unless there will be some return for them. It is all very well and good to make snide comments about the pools industry. I want to know the exact position of those companies as regards the proposals. One thing that I am sure of is that if those companies have a future role of any sort in a national lottery, they will want a far higher return than the 3 per cent. which the pools companies take.
    Those in favour of a national lottery say that we are about to be overwhelmed by foreign lottery tickets. A few

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    moments ago, the hon. and learned Member for Burton said that that was happening already. Yet the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), confirmed to my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) on 12 March 1991 that that was not the case. Foreign tickets will not be allowed into the country. Whether the law is being broken now is immaterial. It was suggested that post-1992 we would be flooded by such tickets. On 12 December the hon. Member for Fareham confirmed that there would be no change in the Government's policy and that gambling controls are matters solely for national authorities.
    Following the aforementioned Coopers and Lybrand report for the European Commission, it is clear that most European Community member states are totally against any cross-border sales of lottery tickets. Each fears the consequences for its own national lottery.
    On 12 December the hon. Member for Fareham stated to the House in a written answer that a range of measures had been taken here and abroad to prevent the importation, promotion and sale of foreign lottery material. In short, the argument about post-1992 and the flood of foreign lottery tickets is unsustainable.
    Despite the figure of 27p which was mentioned earlier, as a nation we spend far more on gambling than France, Germany, Italy or the Netherlands. In Europe, only Spain, Ireland and Greece spend more on gambling. Home Office figures that I have seen suggested that £4·50 per week is spent for every man, woman and child in the country. I do not believe that that amount can be substantially increased; nor ought it to be. That begs the question where the extra income will come from. The hon. and learned Member for Burton skirted round that. There is no doubt that it will come from other forms of gambling, whether from the pools, racing or small local lotteries. That is why many people have argued that this is a bad scheme. It will have a devastating effect on fund-raising activities at a small, local level. That must be unacceptable to the House.
    There has been no mention of the potential effect of the Bill on football, our national game. Research at Leicester university shows that, on average, 10 per cent. of football's income comes from small lotteries. The smaller the club, the more dependent it is on lottery income and the more vulnerable it will be to competition from a national lottery. I want to know whether supporters of the Bill have taken that into account. Have they thought of the devastating effect that it will have on football clubs?
    The game as a whole receives more than £40 million from pools-related sources. It has been computed that if the scheme went ahead, the Football Trust alone would have its income slashed from £33·8 million to just £6·5 million by 1994–95. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that that money would be replaced by a national lottery. It would be merely one of many interests competing for money from the proposed scheme. There will be no guarantee that our national game would have any prior claim to any part of it.
    I am also sceptical about the grandiose claims that have been made about the benefits of the scheme for sport and the arts. The Sports Council has produced a long list of worthy projects to be funded by the scheme—it hopes. Frankly, I find it a sign of desperation that such organisations are seeking funds in that way. They recognise that grants in aid have declined in real terms and that local authority expenditure on sport and recreation
    1238
    has been slashed by more than 25 per cent. in the past five years, due to what they euphemistically describe as pressures on public finance.
    The Government waste billions of pounds on the poll tax, yet cannot provide sports and arts facilities commensurate with a civilised society. We want them to go and I hope that the Bill will go with them.
    10.56 am
    Sir Richard Luce: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) represents a Merseyside constituency and one would expect him to speak on behalf of football pools, but he did not do the promoters of the pools a great service by what clearly was a gross exaggeration about what might or might not happen. No hon. Member knows precisely what the effect of a national lottery will be on overall levels of gambling and how it might affect the football pools. To state that there will be a mass decimation of the football pools—which is what I think that he was implying—must be a gross exaggeration and does not do a proper service to the discussion of this issue. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that football pools and national lotteries co-exist in many countries successfully and examples have been given by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence).
    I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton most warmly on his decision to introduce the Bill and on the way in which he has presented it, on his great good humour—which was much needed when dealing with some of the neolithic tribesmen who opposed him—his approach to the Bill, his profound hard work on it, his research and the rational case which he produced so sensibly and fully for the House. He has done a great service and I am proud to be one of the sponsors of the Bill.
    Like the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), I should declare an interest, although it is unremunerated, as I am a member of the Lottery Promotion Board. It is a good thing that the board exists to collate all the facts and to put forward evidence about the advantage to the country of a national lottery.
    My reasons for supporting the Bill go back to my experience as Minister for the Arts for five years. After two or three years I came to the view that it was vital to find new ways to finance the expansion of the arts in our country, and that it would not be right to depend solely upon the taxpayer or potential benefactors to support the arts and cover all the requirements of the arts in the long term. Bearing in mind the constant pressures and needs of our national health service, education system and road system as well as all the other areas which the Government are obliged on behalf of the taxpayer to support with public expenditure, I came clearly to the view that one had to look at new ways to find support for the arts and sport. The arts and sport need a substantial injection of extra resources, particularly capital sums to improve facilities, buildings and our heritage. That can be illustrated clearly. Above all, we need a large injection of capital funds to improve facilities. We need to follow the American example and establish endownment funds as the basis of funding and, in the long term, of running costs of many arts bodies.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Would the right hon. Gentleman support the concept of income from

    1239
    a national lottery being ring-fenced? I am a sponsor of the Bill, but many of us have reservations. A problem is that any Government will see the income as a replacement for central Government funding, so in the end the arts will not be a net beneficiary.
    Sir Richard Luce: I understand that important point. The money must not be seen in any way as a substitute for public expenditure. It is important to find ways of strengthening that point in the Bill. It is absolutely essential that a national lottery should in no way be seen as a substitute for taxpayers' support. That is why it is right that as large a part of the proceeds as possible should be isolated for capital and endowment funds which are desperately needed in sport and the arts.
    Many arts building were constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries and need refurbishment. We need new buildings, such as concert halls. Our theatres undoubtedly need refurbishment. The south of England is much in need of a new dance centre. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) is not here. I know that he would not agree with that, but there is no doubt about the need and there is a great deal of discussion about using the Lyric theatre. Our cathedrals and churches need extra support, as do our national museums and galleries. The Museums and Galleries Commission estimates that we need capital expenditure of £300 million a year to get the fabric in good condition.
    There is the whole question of works of art. There should be as much international free trade as possible, but it is absolutely essential to preserve some works of art for the nation. We cannot constantly make demands of taxpayers to save works of art. When one compares the price of a hospital with the price of a work of art, often the priority is to spend the money on the health service.
    Mr. Cormack: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present system has excellent rules, but has collapsed? Despite all his valiant efforts and those of his successors, the system is not working because the money is not there. Does he agree that a national lottery is one potential source of that money?
    Sir Richard Luce: My hon. Friend, who knows so much about this subject and has been the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, makes an important point. This is exactly where a lottery could assist and help to save important objects for the nation, thus lifting the burden from taxpayers.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Although I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks), has my right hon. Friend seen table 32 on page 232 of the Rothschild report on the perceived appeal of a national lottery? It shows the groups most likely to take part and that 1 per cent. want to keep art treasures and stately homes intact and less than half a per cent. go to operas and theatres. I agree with my right hon. Friend that it is right that we should find the money for these good causes, but we should not go to a group where less than 1 per cent. wants the money to go to those destinations.
    Sir Richard Luce: I know about the 1978 report, but I have not seen that specific page. More recent research by the Arts Council demonstrates widespread support for
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    participation in a lottery, with money going to different types of arts and heritage causes. I have no doubt that that is the case.
    Even if the predictions and forecasts are half true, a national lottery scheme would without a shadow of a doubt produce enormous extra sums which would help to improve the quality of life. The forthcoming millenium, with the targets set by Lord Palumbo and the Government that we should strengthen our heritage and the fabric of our buildings, is an added reason.
    Many hon. Members will argue all the reasons why we need improved sports facilities, so I shall not detain the House on that. I believe that sport is as important as the arts. It is just that I have not had experience of sport.
    Mr. David Bellotti: The right hon. Gentleman referred to sport. Would he care to comment on the local situation with Brighton and Hove Albion? The club says that it takes about £1 million gross in its bingo scheme, which is greater than the gate receipts from our joint local professional club and that that scheme would go by the wall if a national lottery came in. If that is the case, can he suggest another way in which we could jointly support our local professional club in Sussex?
    Sir Richard Luce: The club should have regard to the views expressed by the Sports Council which strongly supports such a scheme because of the advantages that it would bring to sport. It has listed a whole range of facilities, from hockey to tennis and water sports to athletics, which would be advantaged.
    It is important to keep our sights on the overall advantage to the nation of the introduction of a national lottery. Many people have, understandably, referred to the arts and sports foundation scheme. It is right that they should do so and right to welcome the scheme, but we need to look at the difference in scale. The money spent on that scheme is about £60 million, but a national lottery could bring benefits to the tune of £1 billion a year. We must keep our sights on the big issue. The scale of operation would be enormously enhanced and would bring dramatic benefits to the arts, sport and charities.
    The arguments about football pools have been dealt with effectively. Of course there are fears and, naturally, we must abate them. The evidence from research that my hon. and learned Friend produced demonstrates that many people who do not take part in the pools would participate in a national lottery and that the vast majority who take part in the pools would also take part in a lottery. That is important evidence, as is the fact that in Italy, Spain and France the two schemes co-exist. We need to keep in perspective how a lottery might affect the other industries. Some competition is inevitable, but a great deal of complementary work will be done by the different methods of raising money.
    Some charities have expressed concern because they operate local lottery schemes under the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976. About £23 million is raised in that way. It is right for us to have regard to that. My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to provide in the Bill that 10 per cent. of the proceeds could be given to charitable causes. Certainly, it is important to monitor the effect of a national lottery on local lottery schemes to ensure that good charitable causes are not damaged. The Bill makes good provision to deal with that.

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    To suggest that the Bill would encourage gambling is sheer nonsense. As everyone knows, we are one of the biggest gambling nations. What could be better than to channel those gambling instincts—I do not believe that the lottery represents hard gambling—into beneficial causes from which the whole nation would gain?
    I am delighted to support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton and I hope that the Bill passes its Second Reading by a large majority. We must keep our sights on the overall benefit that a national lottery would bring to the nation. Therefore, we must support the Bill.
    11.9 am
    Mr. Stanley Orme: I oppose the Bill and the principle behind it because I believe that it is a substitute for Government action.
    The right hon. Gentleman for Shoreham (Sir R. Luce) was a distinguished Minister for the Arts, but, during his term of office and beyond, expenditure on the arts has been cut. Local government expenditure on the arts and sport has also been reduced with a detrimental effect on the number of playing fields and other sports facilities available. In Salford and Greater Manchester, there have been devastating cuts in arts facilities.
    Sir Richard Luce: I must stress that there has been a real increase in the resources available to the arts in the past 10 years. The right hon. Gentleman should be fair to local government and accept that, during the same time, it has also given more money to the arts. The right hon. Gentleman is not using a good argument.
    Mr. Orme: I think that it is a good argument. The ballet company based in Manchester was virtually driven out because the Arts Council had insufficient money and, therefore, expenditure on it was cut.
    If we have a national lottery, the Government will no longer be involved in a proper sense in the financing of the arts and sport through direct taxation. Such money will, in future, be distributed in an ad hoc manner.
    In common with many of my hon. Friends, I have a strong interest in association football. I have seen the letter from the Lotteries Council, of which the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Hargreaves) is president. That letter suggested that the council was basically in favour of a national lottery, but, two thirds into it, the council then makes out a devastating case against it. The list of members of the Lotteries Council includes all manner of sports clubs and football clubs that exist because of the funds that they raise through their own small lotteries.
    It is not just small clubs that benefit from small-scale lotteries. The development association of one of the wealthiest clubs in Britain, Manchester United, has provided facilities to make Old Trafford one of the finest grounds in the United Kingdom. The national lottery would put all that in jeopardy. It would threaten small clubs such as Bradford City, Bolton Wanderers and Darlington, which exist because of their development associations and lotteries. It is also important to note that Manchester United has not just creamed off the money for its own benefit, but has helped local associations, charities and hospitals.
    Mr. Tony Banks: My right hon. Friend knows that I am a passionate supporter of Chelsea football club and we receive a substantial income from our pools. Probably all the people who support their local football club pools do
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    so out of loyalty to the club, not because of the prizes offered. In many cases, the income to the clubs is vast in comparison with the relatively small prizes offered. I do not believe that such club loyalty would disappear with the introduction of a national lottery.
    Mr. Orme: I accept that, but we will not know the effects until the national lottery is in operation.
    Sufficient account has not been taken of the fact that there is only a limited amount of money available for spending on gambling. However, I accept that we spend a far larger percentage of money on gambling than any other European country. If there is only a limited amount to go round, something must give.
    Other factors also come into play. The pools are now contributing more money to football and to the arts than they have ever done. That money has been given under pressure and those in control of the pools do not like it, but to jeopardise that money would be fatal. I believe that the Bill will prove disadvantageous to football.
    The Sports Council has expressed enthusiastic support for the Bill. I wish that it would campaign a little bit harder on the basis that it provides facilities for our society, which should be financed by the state. The provision of those facilities should not be left to a national lottery.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said that the introduction of a national lottery would not affect the financing of the health service as it will continue to be funded nationally by the state. However, he then said that some of the money could be given to the Medical Research Council. That is the thin end of the wedge. In the past people used to raise money for the NHS to provide such things as televisions or a room for visitors; now that money is used to provide medical equipment. The same thing has happened in schools. In the past people raised money to pay for extra-mural activities; now that money is spent on books. We must take that into account when considering the introduction of a national lottery.
    The Bill takes us down the wrong road. I support small charities and the moneys that they raise. It is essential that their work continues. I would oppose anything that was done to damage them. Therefore, I shall vote against the Bill.
    11.18 am
    Rev. Ian Paisley: I oppose the Bill because the gambling principle lies behind it. Put simply, that principle works on risking something more or less valuable in the hope of winning more than one has hazarded.
    I do not believe that gambling enhances human life. We already have enough outlets for gambling without the Government sponsoring further gambling. Whatever one expects from one's neighbour without offering an equivalent in time or money is either the product of naked theft or the principle of gambling in operation. Lottery tickets come into the same category. That which professes to bestow upon someone a good for which one gives no equivalent is the principle that we should be debating. The gambling craze is no new sprite but an old transgression that has come down the centuries, bringing with it a thousand woes.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said that, as a nation, we have already sold the

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    pass. I remind him that two wrongs do not make a right. He is now advocating that we should go all the way. I do not believe that that is a good policy.
    The desire and aim to get money without doing the equivalent of necessary work strikes at the heart of the well-being of mankind. The man who works for what he gets is happy and contented. He is not shadowed with the frustration, disappointment, tension, agony and remorse of the gambler. A trade and occupation are ennobling things. They bring out, to the best advantage, the talents and energies of the individual. Anything that debases those talents and energies and puts them to a wrong use is not good for a person or humanity as a whole.
    We are all aware—I am especially so from my pastoral work—of the power of the fever of gambling by mere chance. Even before the lottery begins, we have heard in the House charges of deception, cheating and corruption regarding its sponsorship. Whether those are real or unreal, they reflect what lies at the heart of the scheme.
    Gambling tells against domestic happiness. The charms of the home do not satisfy the person caught up in this craze: he wants louder laughter, something to win or lose and excitement to drive the heart faster, fillip the blood and fire the imagination.
    The Bill is serious because it would put the imprimatur of the nation on gambling. Some say that there are enough outlets and that enough is spent on gambling. Paraded by the other side is the fact that there will be a tremendous increase in gambling and that billions of pounds will be made available. I should like the House to consider what happens to those who do not retain their winnings. Often, a deeper craze grips them, so winning becomes a more entangling net.
    What of those who do not hold the lucky numbers? They remain tied and fettered to the wheel of eternal fortune. I do not believe that a lottery is the way in which we should finance our arts, sports or any other part of our national needs. It is a poor community, surely, that cannot find a better way of obtaining money for those necessary matters. We should find a means of augmenting our national income that will do the decent thing by everyone.
    Will these games help those whom we are told will benefit? I seriously doubt it. The additionality of EC moneys is a most controversial subject. Much of it is used to replace the contribution of the Treasury, not to enhance it. Will the Treasury further evade its responsibility by using money from the lottery kitty? The people whom I represent in Northern Ireland are aware of the cost of not getting EC money to take the measures that they need. Instead, the money is used by the Northern Ireland Office to finance its own programmes.
    I ask the House and the sponsor of the Bill to consider some words of Holy Writ:
    "He that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days and at his end shall be a fool."
    Hon. Members, including myself, should consider that.
    Several Hon. Members rose——
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the House that speeches between 11.30 am and 1 pm are caught by the 10-minute limit imposed by Mr. Speaker.
    11.24 am
    Mr. Denis Howell: I have already declared an interest that I have had for many years. It is the reason why I support the Bill, which I do not believe will go far in this Parliament. The vote, therefore, is not highly relevant, but the Bill offers an important opportunity for hon. Members to express their views.
    The Rothschild committee on gambling was set up by the previous Labour Government, with whom I was involved. In 1968, it strongly recommended the creation of a national lottery. The Labour Chancellor included a lottery in the Finance Bill, but in a free vote it was turned down, mainly because of the arguments that we have heard today about small clubs and small lotteries. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on introducing the Bill.
    I want to meet head on the arguments advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), with whom I so often agree. I agree with him about the importance of Manchester United—second only to the importance of Aston Villa. If I thought for one minue that the Bill would affect its success or the interests of the workers in the sports industry, I should not support it.
    The quality of life available to people is fundamental to a healthy social life. We must therefore promote sport, arts and our heritage. I agree with the right hon. Member for Shoreham (Sir R. Luce), who is a former Minister for the Arts, that the need to develop sport, the arts and our heritage is overwhelmed by the financial size of the task. The hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Tracey), who is a former Minister for Sport, nods in agreement.
    What do we want for sport? We want a national velodrome, a national ice skating rink, a national Olympic swimming centre and regional centres for athletics and football. A feasibility study is being carried out into Manchester's Olympic bid, which I have long said the Government should support and I hope that they will do so. But I ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East; even if Manchester gets the £900 million that it says it needs for the Olympic bid, who will take it over and meet the revenue costs of running it year after year? That cannot possibly be met by the Exchequer or local authorities.
    The right hon. Member for Shoreham mentioned orchestras, ballets and opera, to which I would add street and community theatre and community art. We must maintain our cathedrals, historic houses and areas of natural beauty in good order. Our churches are falling down. No Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to finance the colossal cost of meeting those needs and it would be false to say otherwise. The alternative is that we do not provide, unless we try to find other money.
    Mr. George Howarth: Does my right hon. Friend seriously suggest that the long list of needs that he described would be funded by a national lottery?
    Mr. Howell: Not at all, but there is a much better chance of getting £1 billion out of the £3 billion—or thereabouts—that is to be spent to help along the way. I agree that the task is gigantic, so let us start. The first step is very important.
    I am sympathetic to local charities, as we all are. I am a member of two charities—Warwickshire cricket club and the Labour party—and I give to them out of conviction. It would not occur to me not to give to the Diabetic Research Association—I am a diabetic—or to Warwickshire cricket

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    or to the Labour party merely because I wanted to buy a lottery ticket. People give to causes out of conviction, but I am glad that the Bill states that charities should be included. I welcome that, but an alternative is for charities to become agents for the lottery and they would probably make much more money if they did.
    The arguments made by betting and pools organisations are ludicrous. Many millions of pounds have been spent on opposing the Bill by people who have vested interests. I am not against people with vested interests expressing their views—I have a lot of vested interests and they are perfectly legitimate—but we must deal with the arguments.
    The arguments for the pools are best stated by Mr. Paul Zetter in a letter to The Times in December which contains a colossal contradiction. He begins:
    "If we started a national lottery the turnover would be minuscule compared with European competitors and the prize money insufficient to attract people."
    Halfway through the letter, he states that a lottery would destroy the pools.
    That is utterly absurd, but the absurdity is carried further by the Betting Office Licensees Association. That includes William Hill and Ladbrokes—they are good friends whom I have supported all my life and I shall continue to do so. The association said that the betting industry was delicately poised. When I see its accounts I cannot agree that there is any delicacy about the matter. The association also said that we should not be
    "stimulating demand for betting and gaming".
    Let us remember that the association includes William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral. Every time I open the newspapers and see their adverts inviting me into their plush betting offices or to ring up to listen to their commentaries, it is not to encourage me to place a bet but to inform the nation who is winning the jockeys' championship or who has won the 2.35 pm at Sandown in which we have an academic interest. Let us put all such nonsense to one side and recognise the facts.
    I am much more sympathetic to the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. That is why—as the lion. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) knows—on behalf of the national lottery I met representatives of the pools industry and told them that if there is any danger to their workers in Lancashire—we want to site the national lottery there—we are ready to talk to them about their running it. That is a reasonable and generous offer, but they turned it down.
    I followed up that offer by writing an article in The Times which I concluded by saying that, based on the Italian experience, I am certain that pools and lotteries can run side by side. The organisations should be talking to each other to ensure that we do not put anyone out of work. That suggestion was not taken up, but, as far as I am concerned, it remains on the table. I am encouraged by the fact that the pools organisations—or some of them—say that if they lose the argument, they would like to run the lottery, which is another extraordinary inconsistency.
    I can offer the workers some assurances. When we were discussing the Labour party's policy document on sport and the arts—which the Labour party has honoured and to which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) will refer—we arranged that we should come out not now but after the election—to quote the leader of the Labour party—saying that more of the money made out of sports should be put back into sports.
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    That must be an acceptable proposition to everyone. We would put everything in the pot and consider all the issues together, including betting and gambling. I have always supported the idea of a national lottery, but I go along with the Labour party's policy in that respect.
    I believe that the Government will say much the same today. I prophesy that they will wait, but, according to the leak in The Guardian, they will say that they do not like the Bill, but that they accept the principle of a national lottery. If they do, we shall be saying the same thing—we must consider how to get more money from betting and gambling which is made out of sport back into sport—that should unite us all—and to give the protection that everyone wants.
    Mr. Robin Corbett: I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate. Most of us have received letters from the Lotteries Council. I know that my right hon. Friend has a special interest in Birmingham City and Aston Villa football clubs. They are among the number of small charities—they are run by the supporters' clubs—that believe that a national lottery would virtually put them out business and rob them of a very important source of money.
    Mr. Howell: My hon. Friend has only just arrived, but if he reads Hansard, he will see that I have dealt with that issue. I shall move on to the main argument, which involves Europe.
    The Minister said previously that European lotteries cannot operate in this country. Gambling is the twelfth largest industry in Europe and, given the terms of the European Community, it is inconceivable that when the Commissioners have finished their current review—it is likely to be finished during the British presidency—they will say that competition should not apply in the twelfth largest industry. We know that it will apply and that is another good reason for the pools industry and its workers to anticipate their future.
    There is no doubt that in two or three years the European lotteries will come into this country because they cannot be stopped under the terms of the treaty of Rome.—[Interruption.] My hon. Friends are entitled to their views, but that is what we shall find. At the end of the day, the European Court will uphold the purpose of the treaty. In such circumstances, the question to be answered will be whether we want lottery tickets that are sold in this country to benefit European sports and arts or whether we want British people to be paying for British sports, British arts and British heritage.
    The arguments in the Bill are overwhelming. We can protect the pools' interests. As a long-standing friend of the pools and one who acknowledges their contribution to the sports—especially when I was a Minister—I want to protect them. We can also protect the interests of the charities. Indeed, these issues will be in hand if the organisations walk side by side.
    I appeal to my hon. Friends to stop saying—as Paul Zetter said in his letter—that it is either pools or the lottery but not both. That is a mistaken approach. It is political advice and I hope that the House will see the common sense in accepting the Rothschild royal commission's recommendation of 14 years ago and proceed to a national lottery which the sports, arts and heritage of this country desparately need if we are to expand and promote their interests.
    11.39 am
    Mr. John Greenway: I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on having won what is clearly the best prize of the many lotteries run by the House, in coming first in the private Members' Bill ballot. I congratulate him too, on his choice of a National Lottery Bill, which provides a long overdue opportunity for the House to debate gambling issues.
    I understand, and have much sympathy with, the enthusiasm for a national lottery. However, on closer examination a number of factors argue against such a lottery, and Parliament must consider those before any lottery can begin. My worry is that if Parliament were to approve the Bill and set up the regulatory framework, that momentum would mean that we would end up with a lottery without proper regard having been had to the other crucial issues affected.
    I shall examine some of the arguments in favour of a lottery—first, the European question. I do not believe that the flood of European lottery tickets is as certain as supporters of the Bill have suggested. Gambling is not covered by the single European market, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has often made clear. Even if the European Commission were to try to introduce a directive to free up the availability of lotteries and gambling opportunities across the Community, with this as with many other matters affecting society, the Government could argue the public good principle in order to prevent any lottery tickets from other countries from being readily available in this country.
    There is much discussion about what can be provided as a result of a national lottery. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton spoke with his usual authority, and with considerable enthusiasm, about the many facilities that a national lottery could provide, and which many people, both inside and outside the House, feel need to be provided in Britain, and which are available in other countries, especially sporting facilities and support for the arts. I must tell my hon. and learned Friend that in Europe such facilities are often supported by central, local and regional government, not just from the proceeds of national lotteries. In fact, my hon. and learned Friend made a good case for our right hon. Friends in the Cabinet to look at our manifesto commitments on the provision of sport and leisure facilities. We should be doing more about that, although I accept that if a national lottery were set up it could provide a valuable source of funding.
    I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) is not here, because I wanted to tell him how much I disagree with him about support for the arts. The Sports Council and the Arts Council were set up as the result of an imaginative joint initiative by the Government and the pools promoters. How glad we were at Opera North to receive an endowment of £250,000 for which no other funding was ever likely to be available. That demonstrates the opportunities, and shows why a national lottery has such a great appeal.
    However, there are objections, and perhaps my hon. and learned Friend dismissed those a little lightly. First, we must question how much more money is available from the pockets of the British people for gambling. It has been suggested that £3 billion may be wagered. There is some difference of view on how much existing betting turnover
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    amounts to. The Select Committee on Home Affairs carried out inquiries, and we were left in no doubt that the gross amount already wagered is about £13·4 billion. I believe that that makes this country the biggest gambling nation in Europe.
    Supporters of the national lottery say that we should consider the next spend after prize money. No doubt many regular betting shop punters have a purple patch when they win more than they lose, but it may concern the House that the sum of money wagered by one individual or one family can already be substantial. That is why the Home Office is right to have a general policy of non-stimulation of gambling, betting and gaming.
    I have yet to see how a £3 billion turnover could be achieved without changing that policy. Advertising and promotion of a national lottery would be essential to achieve such a turnover in a short time. My hon. and learned Friend agreed that lottery tickets would have to be sold at a large number of outlets, which suggests a considerable relaxation of current policy.
    Only last summer my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary spoke to the Home Affairs Committee about outlets for the Tote. The Tote would like to run a national lottery, and, were that to happen, as its facilities are based in Wigan, Iancashire, the prospects of its being run from Lancashire are good. The Tote would like to locate betting terminals in high street locations, as does the French tote, the Paris Mutuel, which operates in cafes, bars and restaurants throughout France. In response to that idea my hon. Friend said:
    "I think the problem would come if there is the possibility of making bets from terminals in cafes, bars or restaurants, and that would certainly breach the rules over gambling which successive governments have had and of which the Home Office is the guardian."
    The Select Committee has found many anomalies in gambling legislation which need to be re-examined. Betting shops operate under great restrictions. Evening opening of betting shops and Sunday racing are two issues affecting gambling legislation which Parliament should now consider. Pool betting on greyhound racing is not permitted either off-course or between greyhound tracks. Advertising and promotion of most forms of gambling is strictly curtailed. Lotteries used in sales promotion and those run under local authority licences face restrictions. In my constituency when a lottery was run by the Ryedale York rugby league football club, offering the prize of a motor car, the chap who won it was not allowed to have it because the prize was too valuable for a lottery licensed by a local authority. That was nonsense.
    The Home Affairs Committee was in no doubt that all that needed to be examined afresh, and it made a sensible recommendation in its report on the Tote—that the Home Office should
    "undertake a thorough review of the legislation to ensure that controls on gambling keep pace with changes in society and in technology."
    With regard to the effect on other forms of gambling and on charities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Sir R. Luce) put his finger firmly on the issue when he said that none of us knows what the effects of a national lottery on other forms of gambling and on charities would be. Many of us have genuine concerns about that. They go beyond special pleading, and should not be lightly dismissed.
    Current legislation on gambling urgently needs a wide-ranging review. There are too many anomalies for

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    comfort. Furthermore, the increase in the amount of money wagered that is contemplated by the proposals is of such magnitude that it could have an adverse effect on other charities, causing them to lose money. Some worthy causes could lose state support. Both those aspects must be considered before the House passes legislation for a national lottery, not afterwards.
    11.49 am
    Mr. David Alton: A number of seductive but misleading arguments have been put by hon. Members, especially by the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), to support the idea of a national lottery. I hope that by the conclusion of our debate hon. Members will have carefully considered the implications of a lottery, not least the implications for jobs, and will recognise that this is one gamble which the House should not take.
    Before turning to my principal reasons for opposing the Bill, I will address some of the bogus arguments put in the debate. One country that has been quoted as a place in which a national lottery co-exists with the football pools is Italy. Taking Italy as an example, with the dubious base of gambling there, reveals the reason why the football pools and the lottery are able to co-exist. Presumably, along with importing Italian methods, we shall also bring in some of the Italian family-based companies from Naples and from Sicily.
    For months, many hon. Members have said that we must have a lottery because, come 1992, the European floodgates will open and punters will desert the pools for French or German lotteries. Huge prizes will lure away the stakes and British money will be sucked into a European black hole. That argument has seduced hon. Members and charities. Despite its obvious appeal to xenophobia, the argument, if true, would have to be taken seriously. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which works for the under-privileged and those at risk, responded to the original inquiry about a national lottery by saying, not surprisingly:
    "as the Common Market will allow other countries' national lotteries to sell tickets in this country, it would be as well to have one established as a defence."
    In other words, if we are going to be bitten, it might as well be by a British snake rather than by a foreign one.
    The myth that continental lotteries will flood the United Kingdom market needs to be destroyed once and for all. It was abundantly clear during the European Commission hearings on gambling that all member states were implacably opposed to the principle of cross-border trading in lotteries. Most lotteries are state monopolies, so it is hardly surprising that national Governments are extremely reluctant to put the proceeds of national lotteries which they run at risk in a single market. Our Government have endorsed that view, despite all that was said by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell).
    We know the Government's view from the written reply that the Under-Secretary gave to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson). As recently as 12 December 1991, the Minister said that the Home Office had no proposals to include gambling within the terms of the single market. A flood of continental lotteries—[HON. MEMBERS: "Liberal Democrat policy?"] I can tell hon. Members what Liberal Democrat policy is because it was discussed at our parliamentary party meeting last week. I
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    am glad to say that we have come out against the principle of a national lottery. A flood of continental lotteries, 1992 and the European Community are all imaginary windmills at which the House will, I hope, tilt today.
    The second myth is the dreamland of unimagined riches. We are told that hidden pots of gold will be produced to provide £3 billion for Sports Council projects. Let us think of a figure—£2 billion or £3 billion every year, depending on the person to whom one listens—for the sum that would flood into the Exchequer. That would be the equivalent of 1·5p off income tax. That is the scale of the fabulous windfall. If the figures were true, Treasury Ministers would be queuing up to speak in the debate today and would argue in favour of a national lottery. In a country in which more than £52 billion of consumer debt is currently outstanding and in which economists are concluding that people cannot afford to spend their way out of the recession, where will the money come from?
    The United Kingdom gambling market is already the biggest in Europe. The country spends more per head of population on gambling than the rest of Europe—£4·50 per head per week. If the new money is to come through extra gambling, who will that affect? All the figures show that it will be lower income groups who will be milked. They spend the most. Why should they disproportionately pay for Covent Garden, the National gallery or the Sports Council? Even if the figures could be believed, they are based on a regressive principle which the House should reject. Those are the flawed arguments of those who promote a national lottery.
    There are other reasons why the House should decline to give the Bill a Second Reading, and the first is jobs. In Liverpool, 71,601 people are currently unemployed. Some 15,000 women are unemployed in Liverpool. They are bread winners for the family and they do not receive pin money; it is their livelihood. As the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) said when she came to open the new Vernons building in Liverpool, "three cheers" for the workers there, and for the excellence and standards maintained in the factory. Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters employ more than 6,500 people in Liverpool, Glasgow, Cardiff and London. A further 70,000 are paid as agents collecting coupons every week.
    By contrast, computerised and centralised national lotteries dispose of people. In France, just 400 people operate the national lottery, while in Germany one large lottery employs just 180 people. When we are told that jobs may come even to Wigan or to the north, let us realise that the substitute for jobs is a loss of almost 6,500 jobs compared with a maximum of 400 jobs needed to run the national lottery. At a time of increasing dole queues, is the House seriously going to gamble with the livelihood of more than 6,000 people?
    Is not it also the height of irony that we have three successful private companies which will effectively face nationalisation without compensation if the Bill is successful today? That is what is coming from the champions of private enterprise.
    In a letter to The Times, already quoted, on 26 December, Paul Zetter said:
    "the choice is stark: football pools or a national lottery. You will readily understand why I oppose a national lottery."
    Malcolm Hughes, the managing director of Vernons, says:
    "It is not possible to find an example anywhere in the world of a National Lottery and a Pools industry thriving side

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    by side. In case after case, arrival of a lottery has squeezed out Pools Games and the examples of Australia. Belgium and, more recently, Greece all bear testimony to this fact."
    Malcolm Davidson, the managing director of Littlewoods, quoted from a letter to the financial director, Colin Thwaite, from Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte. We have already heard part of it. The letter says:
    "A UK national lottery would effectively kill off the football pools within a period of weeks … A successful national lottery would act as a substitute for the football pools … as a result of this the level of employment within the industry will be dramatically reduced."
    In a letter to me on 16 December, the Prime Minister confirmed that the Government see those implications. He said:
    "I can assure you that we are very well aware of the potential implications for existing charitable lotteries and for the existing gambling industry, in particular the football pools who, as you say, are an important source of employment in the Liverpool area and who make payments to football and now more widely to sport and the arts via the new Foundation."
    Apart from jobs, a national lottery would also hit existing football clubs' lotteries and charities. The letter from the Lotteries Council has already been quoted. It says that some lotteries would face extinction from a national scheme. The Irish experience, to which other hon. Members have referred, points to that. In July 1991, 16 leading charities wrote to the Taoiseach saying that charitable lotteries had lost half their income and that
    "the situation has reached crisis point."
    In other words, 50 per cent. of the money going into charities was lost as a result of the national lottery. Not only would our charities be hit, but sports, the arts and the Football Trust would stand to lose £100 million. The Treasury would say goodbye to the £300 million generated by the pools.
    The third substantial reason for opposing the Bill centres on the undesirability of deliberately stimulating gambling as a way in which to finance public services and needs. If a hospital needs a dialysis machine, if a school needs a soccer pitch or if a community needs an arts centre, surely we should pay for it through taxation and voluntary effort, not by proliferating the modes of gambling.
    By destroying the football pools, a national lottery gambles with people's jobs. It would undermine existing lotteries run by charities and football clubs. It would promise Alice-in-Wonderland gains, while risking the £300 million now generated by the pools. I hope that, in this pell-mell rush to a national lottery, the House will consider these matters and will vote against the Bill.
    11.59 am
    Mr. Richard Tracey: I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on winning the ballot and on selecting this most important and interesting topic for legislation. I dare say that hon. Members who, like me, glanced at the sports page of The Times this morning, will have been worried to read the headline,
    "England chances hit as Lawrence drops out".
    Fortunately for the supporters of the Bill, the story referred to Mr. David Lawrence, the England bowler—although, as a cricket fan, I cannot say that that is good news for the England team.
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    The people of Britain are waiting for a national lottery whose time has truly come. A recent poll conducted by the Sports Council, one of the prime supporters of the Bill, showed that three quarters of the population want to participate in a national lottery and that 90 per cent. strongly support the idea that the proceeds from it should go to the arts, sport, heritage and charities. Those who talk the idea down should be aware that, in doing so, they could seriously hit the nation's expectations.
    There has been much talk about how the Bill would extend gambling. The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) made much play of that, but a national lottery would not represent a form of high-level gambling that would corrupt our morals or our minds—rather, the spirit behind it should be seen as extending the fun of the flutter. In the minds of our people, that is perfectly right and proper, and we should not stand out against it.
    Mr. Mark Wolfson: Does my hon. Friend agree that, because of the intentions of the lottery and the use to which profits from it would be put, it would be a benefit rather than negative in moral terms?
    Mr. Tracey: My hon. Friend is right.
    It is extraordinary to think that, if the House opposes the Bill and frustrates the expectations of the British people, we shall be putting ourselves in the same position as countries such as Albania. The rest of Europe has lotteries—indeed, in all, some 170 nations run lotteries.
    Given the success of the lotteries run by our European partners and neighbours, we should be extremely shortsighted if we stood in the way of a lottery here or delayed its introduction. In Denmark, the result of the delay was that the country was immediately flooded with lottery tickets from neighbouring Germany. Despite what some hon. Members have said, those who run foreign lotteries are already taking a great interest in getting into the market in this country through the post, and even though we hear of attempts to prevent such letters coming in, that often does not happen. My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Lee) produced a letter posted in Brussels inviting him to participate in an Australian lottery. I regularly receive letters from Amsterdam inviting me to participate in a European lottery, which I do not.
    I believe that we should have a British national lottery contributing to British national stadia and to the British arts. I want to be able to contribute to that. In that respect, my attitude is four-square with that of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), one of my predecessors as Minister for Sport, and agree with him that we should not allow contributions to foreign lotteries.
    During the past week, we have heard from a number of sporting personalities and leading figures in sport and the arts who feel that there is a need for an extra contribution, over and above anything that the national Government can produce, to fund our sports and arts facilities. When I was Minister for Sport, I visited magnificent sports stadia, athletics tracks and swimming pools abroad, and I can remember thinking how ideal it would be if we could have them here. The secret of those facilities was that they were provided through a national lottery.
    Mr. Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Tracey: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to speak when I have finished.

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    The Sports Council has sent us a list of what could be done, which includes worthy proposals not only for Olympic facilities in Manchester but for regional facilities such as velodromes, hockey stadia, swimming pools, athletics training facilities and indoor tennis training facilities. To get those facilities, we need a national lottery. They are desirable, and we shall have them if we give the Bill its Second Reading and so set the climate fair for a national lottery.
    What of the. attitude of our critics? I shall refer in a moment to the attitude of the pools companies, but, as we have heard about local government's attitude towards a national lottery, I wish first to tell the House that I have received a letter from the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, with which I sometimes disagree but which declares itself four-square behind the idea of a national lottery to give additional funding, over and above that which it expects to come from the Treasury, for sport and the arts. So we can again call in evidence the support of local authorities.
    As a former Minister for Sport, I pay tribute to the pools companies for what they have done in support of the Football Trust and the Football Grounds Improvement Trust. I do not understand why they are so opposed to a national lottery. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) referred to Italy. I do not understand his view. Surely, the greatest pillar of society in Italy is the Roman Catholic Church and it must therefore be wrong for the hon. Gentleman to place a slur on the Italians. Italy has a strong national lottery and a strong national pools set-up, which contributes greatly to its communities and national life. I see no reason why this nation of ours, which so strongly supports football, should be any different from Italy or why the football pools should win any less support here than in Italy. The national lottery will interest those many thousands of women in Britain who would never even dream of sitting down and filling in a pools coupon. They will go into a post office or newsagent and take part in the national lottery, so enhancing the funds available to it. Finally, I remind the House that, in opposing the idea of a national lottery, the pools companies saw fit to say that, if the Government decided to introduce a national lottery, they would like to run it. Does not that fact speak for itself? Surely we need no more evidence than that.
    12.9 pm
    Mr. Thomas Graham: Littlewoods provide 600 jobs in my constituency. Before I came down to London this week I spoke to some pensioners in my constituency about various problems that they were facing. They asked what I was doing as their Member of Parliament and what I intended to do this week. I told them that I hoped to speak in the debate on the National Lottery Bill. They said, "What's the National Lottery Bill?" I told them that it was a Bill to set up a lottery which would provide extra money for the arts and culture. Some of the pensioners scratched their heads and said, "Who are these people?" I said, "Well, the guy who is introducing the Bill is a big Tory barrister." They were a little deaf and got it wrong. One of them said, "I suppose they are all like that, Tommy." I said, "Well, some might agree about that."
    Those pensioners then said that surely people must recognise that pensioners arc important to this country. They have given up everything and they now rely on a
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    small pension which is being eroded by inflation and price rises. They stressed that pensioners need lifelines like the telephone. They said that elderly people cannot afford to buy television licences. The pensioners are not considered when money is directed towards arts and culture. Half the pensioners to whom I spoke earlier this week cannot afford their television licences. They cannot take part in the cultural or sports worlds.
    Not long ago I saw the Prime Minister and many other political figures sitting in a park beside members of the royalty. It was bucketing with rain as they watched Pavarotti. The first time that I heard of Pavarotti I thought that it was a bar of soap or an eau de cologne. I later discovered that Pavarotti was a very talented man. The pensioners to whom I have spoken cannot afford that kind of culture, but they are desperate for lifelines like a telephone. Standing orders make no difference to the problems that they face.
    The National Lotteries Bill will seriously affect my constituency. I have been unemployed. I know the stinking miserable feeling in one's belly when one cannot provide the wherewithal for one's children. I know what it is like. I would fight like blazes to give every unemployed man and woman in this country the right to employment.
    The Bill will mean unemployment for at least 5,500 people directly or indirectly. It is ludicrous for a former Minister responsible for sport to plug a lottery. He should have fought to ensure that sports and culture were provided by the Government. It is disgraceful that any country as rich as ours should have a lottery to provide for sport to educate our kids and make them feel healthy. That is absolute nonsense.
    Mr. Wilson: The jobs of some of my constituents are involved at the place to which my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham) has referred. Does my hon. Friend acccept that after that major fire which destroyed the Littlewoods factory in Glasgow, Littlewoods could have centralised the jobs in Liverpool and got rid of about 700 jobs in my hon. Friend's constituency? Instead, Littlewoods decided to maintain the level of employment not least because of its long-standing commitment to areas in which it has provided employment for many years.
    Mr. Graham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that to my attention. I was very impressed by the caring attitude and tremendous enthusiasm of Littlewoods and the way in which it kept the girls in employment. Conservative Members may smile, but for people who live in Strathclyde which has one of the worst unemployment levels in Europe, a job and a wage packet are so important. When the girls saw the factory burn down, the broke their hearts crying. They thought that that was it. They thought that they would be back on the dole and back to that miserable pittance which the Government provide. The girls faced that before Christmas, but Littlewoods paid their wages and provided jobs for people who desperately needed them.
    That is the kind and considerate face of industry that I appreciate. I wish that we were dealing with Littlewoods and not the black Scholey in respect of the Ravenscraig workers.
    Unemployment is a scourge. Some single parent women at Littlewoods in my constituency receive quite good pay. Their working conditions are also good. Any woman in

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    Scotland with a good job and quite good money would have nightmares if she thought that that job was to be taken from her. Those jobs will be lost if the Bill is successful. Thousands of people will be on the scrap heap if the Bill is passed. Thirty five thousand jobs have already been lost in my constituency. In Scotland we face the closure of Ravenscraig and Armitage Shanks. In the face of that, a rich Tory barrister who has probably been wealthy all his life and has never faced the possibility of unemployment—except perhaps at the next general election when the electorate will get rid of him—wants to introduce this Bill. I will fight for my constituents' right to work.
    Mr. Bellotti: With regard to the hon. Gentleman's point about unemployment, is he aware that 50,000 people are employed in betting offices throughout the country? As there is a limited amount of money, if that money is not spent through betting shops, the jobs of those 50,000 people will be at risk. That is almost the same number of people at risk as in the football industry.
    Mr. Graham: I am grateful for that point.
    I said that I would fight vigorously to defend the right of my constituents to continue to work for Littlewoods. It is the Government's responsibility to provide cash for sports and culture.
    Mr. Kilfoyle: Does my hon. Friend agree that many of the jobs in the pools industry in Strathclyde involve women who are the sole bread winners? If they lose their jobs, whole families will be destitute, not just the individuals concerned.
    Mr. Graham: That is absolutely right. The 5,500 people to whom I have referred pay tax. That tax provides money for the local council. If those people are thrown on to the dole, they will stop contributing through tax and central Government will have to support them.
    I have lived in Glasgow all my life. I could never afford private sporting facilities. My local council provided the wherewithal. It provided the soccer field, the swimming baths, tennis courts and bowling greens.
    The Bill represents an abdication by the Government of their duty and responsibility to provide people with jobs. We should let lotteries remain in other parts of the world. We do not want to import lotteries from Spain with its bullfighting, and so on. Let us not support the alien concept of a national lottery.
    12.19 pm
    Sir John Farr: I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) not only on being No. 1 in the ballot for Bills—something that many of us have sought to be—but on the subject that he has chosen. My hon. and learned Friend deployed his argument with great skill and persuasion. I support the Bill. I shall certainly go into the Lobby and give my hon. and learned Friend what support and encouragement I can.
    However, that is not to say that the Bill is perfect by any means. All hon. Members could improve it. However, let us consider the Bill in Committee so that some of us who have a real interest in it may have an opportunity to deploy many of the important arguments that we have received. I
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    am delighted to see my hon. and learned Friend still in his place. He is attentive today, and I do not blame him. It is important to state that several hon. Members have a few points of real concern.
    One matter that springs straight to mind is the fact that my hon. and learned Friend is in danger of establishing one of the biggest quangos of all time. Perhaps that matter can be debated in Standing Committee. When he so skilfully introduced the Bill, my hon. and learned Friend said that some of the wording of the Bill was faulty. I have never been one to support state quangos. However, we seem unwittingly to be establishing the mother and daddy of all state quangos. We should consider that matter in Committee and see how we can improve it.
    Like other hon. Members, I have had many representations about the pools. It is easy to say that the pools are part of the British way of life and so on. They are. Any threat to the structure of the football pools must be taken seriously. However, any such threat is not sufficient for us not to let my hon. and learned Friend's Bill through. Let us consider it in Standing Committee and make it possible for the existing football pools structure to continue in the United Kingdom as it has done so successfully for many years. Hon. Members have received letters from Zetters and Littlewoods, fearing the worst if the Bill is successful. The pools can still enjoy their traditional place in British society, unimpaired.
    One of the most impressive documents that I have received was from the Advisory Forum on Gambling. Hon. Members know all about that forum. It had severe reservations about my hon. and learned Friend's Bill. However, its reservations can be put right in Committee. Some of its real fears can be satisfied if the Bill is carefully amended.
    The real point in question is the Bill's purpose. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned that the Bill is to benefit the arts, sport and heritage. Who chose those subjects? Why must they be the only subjects? There may be an argument for some support, but one can make a strong case for health, medicine, pensioners and the elderly. Why are they not mentioned in the Bill?
    If my hon. and learned Friend wants to go down in history—I know that he does—all that he has to do is to include a guarantee that all old age pensioners will have free TV licences, which would cost £.150 million a year. There would be a marble statue of my hon. and learned Friend in my constituency. Ordinary people are not so interested in football. They are not so interested in art galleries. They are not particularly interested in the arts. I expect that they may be interested in heritage. However, they are most interested in free television licences. If there were free TV licences, Conservative central office would also erect a statue to him.
    I have received a letter from Tenovus. I have received several letters about the national lottery from such groups. Tenovus, of course, fights cancer. It is very worried about its position in the world. My hon. and learned Friend wants Tenovus to continue and to flourish. Let us consider the Bill in Committee and improve it.
    I should not like to conclude without congratulating the research staff in the House of Commons Library. It may be unusual to do that, but I shall probably never get another opportunity. They do a wonderful job in producing the fantastic research documents that we take for granted and never mention. I pay tribute to Jane Fiddick, who has

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    produced a document on my hon. and learned Friend's Bill. It is a masterpiece which sets out all the arguments for and against.
    I have great pleasure in supporting my hon. and learned Friend's Bill.
    12.27 pm
    Mr. Terry Fields: Just 24 hours after the announcement of an increase of 80,000 in the number of people on the unemployment register, and in anticipation of a rise in inflation today, millions of workers—and certainly my constituents and the people of Liverpool—will wonder why we are spending five hours on a Friday morning discussing a national lottery when the economic and social conditions in our inner-city areas demand the Government's attention.
    Having heard the speeches of failed sports Ministers and failed arts Ministers, with confessions from their own lips that during their periods in office they failed to gain sufficient funding from the Government——
    Mr. Burns: What about failed Labour Members of Parliament?
    Mr. Fields rose——
    Mr. Tracey: Pay the poll tax.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Fields: This matter is too important, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for me to rise to the bait of those who have failed this country not only in relation to the arts and sport, but economically and socially too.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) is weaving a tatty cloak to confuse people. Great play has been made of the fact that a poll has been taken and that huge numbers of people would support a national lottery. If somebody said to me, "How do you fancy winning £1 million every week?", I would, of course, say, "Yes"; but the lottery itself will still have to be paid for.
    It has already been said that the lottery will not be run by the Government or the civil service. It will be a private lottery, which means that people could milk it and make profits from the greed and acquisitiveness that Thatcherism has produced in many people in the past 13 years.
    At first sight, the detail of the Bill seems uncontroversial. It refers to raising large sums of money for good causes. The hon. and learned Member for Burton referred to £3 billion or £4 billion, but one of my hon. Friends has said that the hon. and learned Gentleman simply took those figures off the top of his head. In a debate on 16 February 1988 on establishing a national lottery in favour of the health service, initiated by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), it became clear that there is no substance to the idea that between £3 billion and £5 billion could be raised. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) said in 1988, the most that has been raised by the lottery in America is £200 million. The figure for France was £540 million; for Spain £690 million; and for Germany £910 million. Therefore, there is nothing to back up the idea of a potential revenue of £4 billion, which, I am sure, would be an attractive figure to many people. That is simply supposition and conjecture by the hon. and learned Member for Burton.
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    The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to providing finance for good causes and to improving the welfare state. He even went as far as to say that some of the charitable donations would aid medical research. I find it disgusting and nauseating that people such as the hon. and learned Gentleman and his Friends who, in the past 13 years, have trooped through the Lobbies consistently to attack the health service, education, housing and the poor in our society, such as pensioners and the disabled, should now raise the spectre of a lottery as a panacea for the ills of millions of people in this country.
    The hon. and learned Gentleman stated in The House Magazine not only that the lottery would raise £3 billion a year, but that it would not affect the low-paid because they do not buy lottery tickets. However, experience in Ireland disproves that contention. Fund-raising for charities has attracted money from low-paid families, thus causing even more financial distress to those who seek the pot of gold.
    Apart from my concern about the social consequences of the proposed lottery, I speak with a vested interest because I come from Liverpool and Littlewoods Pools is based in my constituency. I live a stone's throw from the new Vernons complex. We in Liverpool are proud of our area. We already have high unemployment as a direct consequence of the Government's policies and the system that they represent. The Bill would jeopardise the jobs of 6,000 mainly female workers in Liverpool, many of whom already face the prospect of being their families' sole bread winner. That is the prospect for an area that has been evaluated as a centre of poverty, not only by those of us who live in Liverpool, but by experts.
    I hope and believe that the Bill will be defeated today and that hon. Members will not support it. There are other ways of achieving what have speciously been referred to as "good social works". Such works will not be achieved by the Conservative party, a member of which has introduced the Bill. When one looks at the social and economic conditions that prevail in this country today, one sees that such people are not philanthropists. People talk about obtaining new money by the lottery. Where will the new money come from? Reference has been made to the poll tax. This week 135,000 poverty-stricken people in Liverpool are going through the courts. Where will they find the money to fund the arts? They cannot afford to go into galleries or even the bus fares to travel there. Yet those are the people who are supposed to be enamoured of the Bill.
    The record of the hon. and learned Member for Burton on health, education, housing and funding local authorities, pensioners and the poor does not attract me to him or anything that he stands for. I believe that the House will reject the Bill today and that people in my constituency will be happy about that.
    12.34 pm
    Mr. Simon Burns: May I first add my congratulations to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on winning the lottery of the private Members' ballot and introducing this Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Tracey) said, it is a Bill which has reached its time and is long overdue.
    In order not to cause any confusion or fall foul of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), I should—

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    although I am not sure that I must—declare an interest. After I introduced my 10-minute Bill on a national lottery in 1988 I spent a week visiting the United States sponsored by others to see how lotteries operated in certain states.
    The people of Britain enjoy a justifiably high reputation for the generosity with which they donate money earned by themselves to good causes. The Charities Aid Foundation calculated in 1985 that there were 160,000 charities in England and Wales which raised over £12·5 billion for good causes. Since that date we have seen the phenomena of Live Aid, telethons and the Wishing Well appeal for Great Ormond Street hospital. That shows beyond any reasonable doubt that we are a nation of givers. In addition to those high-profile fund-raising activities, various forms of local lotteries have been permitted under existing legislation. They were consolidated in the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976. However, they have tended to be a failure.
    In 1983–84 there were 4,045 local lotteries, with ticket sales of just over £40 million. By 1987–88 there were only 1,401 local lotteries, with sales of only £21 million. Those figures show a decline of 76 and 59 per cent. respectively. The cause of that decline is not the basic idea or principle behind the lotteries but that they are too small and fail to generate enough interest or excitement. Only a national lottery can achieve that. Furthermore, because there are so many lotteries throughout the country on such small scales, they tend to dilute their own effect. Similarly, the maximum prize money laid down by legislation is so relatively small that it does not attract enough people to participate.
    If a lottery is to be successful, it is crucial that excitement be generated. Far too often, the time scale between purchase of the ticket and the draw in a local lottery is far too long to generate success. That is why I believe that my hon. and learned Friend is so right to seek to get away from the legislation that is failing and introduce a single national lottery that will generate interest, excitement and sales so that we can make a success of it and make available generous amounts of money for good causes such as sport, the arts, heritage and charities.
    One of the main reasons for personal opposition to lotteries is that they encourage gambling. There is a great deal of contradiction and confusion in that position. I also suspect that some people in Britain always oppose lotteries and gambling for the same reason that they would like to see alcohol and tobacco and certain activities which they consider a vice banned. It is important to make a distinction for a national lottery.
    All too often many people who say that a lottery would encourage gambling and, thus, is wrong will unwittingly contribute to gambling. For example, I think that I am right in saying that every major political party represented in the House generates some of its funds, either locally or nationally. through gambling. Any hon. Member who goes to church or party political fete will probably buy a raffle ticket during his or her political career—probably quite often. That is gambling. That is a form of lottery, yet the people who buy tickets and who may be opposed to gambling will not condemn such activities.
    Mr. Bellotti: The distinction that I should like the hon. Member to tackle is what the proceeds of gambles are for.
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    In the Bill that the hon. Member put before the House in 1988, he suggested that the proceeds of his proposal should go to the national health service. Does he still hold that view? Has he not come round to the view that the Government ought to provide all the funds necessary for the health service, and that we should not have a national lottery to support it?
    Mr. Burns: The hon. Gentleman is trying to tempt me down a cul-de-sac off the Bill before us. However, he is incorrect. The Government have increased national health service spending substantially in the past 12 years. Furthermore, if he read carefully the reasons behind my Bill he would realise that it was to provide additional funds. For many years the health service has benefited from additional funds raised by leagues of friends and other interested parties.
    To return to the Bill, a number of people who have strong religious convictions, which I respect, condemn gambling but are happy to buy raffle tickets at a church fete and take part in gambling activities to encourage the financing of their local church, a rebuilding project, or whatever else.
    Before people strongly criticise gambling they should examine their own behaviour. They should not use that as an excuse—as what they believe is a respectable front—to oppose the principle of a national lottery. If they do so, they will be failing many organisations that could genuinely benefit from the additional money generated by a national lottery.
    Like many other hon. Members, I have been bombarded with data, correspondence and lobbying by the pools organisations, which have been mentioned so often in the debate. In many ways they operate as a cartel and have a monopoly on a national lottery. I fully appreciate that they are fearful of any competition and that they want to defend vigorously their self-interest by throwing up some red herrings and some genuine causes for concern about a national lottery. If such a national lottery were to be successful it might well cause some decline in their revenue, although by nowhere near the amount that they are suggesting. They are defending what is, in effect, a monopolistic national lottery.
    I do not see why we should automatically accept that a national lottery will ruin the pools system. The examples of Belgium and Greece have been bandied about the House, but that argument was effectively squashed because they did not run their pools on their own football games—it is obvious that that weakens loyalty to the pools system—whereas in this country the system is based on our football leagues. So in that respect I see no reason why a lottery should be detrimental. Similarly, pools promoters who oppose a national lottery are more deserving of being described as selfish—as they have accused others of being—because they seek to protect the pools, with their link to football, at the price of depriving the rest of British sports, arts and heritage of the funding, capital and endowment funds that they so desperately need. I do not see why they should be so keen to deprive others. There is more money to be shared. The cake should be widened and shared, so that everyone can benefit.
    A national lottery would be popular and fun. It would generate income to help deserving causes. I greatly hope that my hon. and learned Friend's Bill will be given a Second Reading.
    12.44 pm
    Ms. Kate Hoey: I am pleased to have the chance today to contribute briefly to the debate. I have always supported the concept of a national lottery and I am even more convinced now of the need for one than I was 10 years ago.
    Although I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) that the Bill is unlikely to become legislation in its present form, I am delighted that it provides an opportunity for people to hear the arguments on both sides, for us to air many of the misconceptions about a national lottery and for the Home Office officials to take lots of notes. No matter what Government are in power after the general election—I know that there will be a Labour Government—at some stage next Session Home Office officials will draft a proper Bill, so I hope that they are listening hard today.
    It is particularly important that we are discussing this at the beginning of 1992. No matter what is being said, other European countries will undoubtedly find a way of getting their national lottery tickets sold here. They are already coming here and each year thousands of tickets are seized by Customs and Excise. The European gambling industry is large and I believe that it will not continue to be outside the terms of the single market. That is the context in which we need to consider the debate.
    In Northern Ireland it is not so much poor people buying lottery tickets from southern Ireland as people in cars queuing up and going over the border to buy lottery tickets. Other countries' lottery tickets are already being sold in the United Kingdom. [HON. MEMBERS: "Illegally."] Yes, illegally, and that will continue until gambling comes within the terms of the single market, as I am convinced that it will.
    This is an enabling Bill. It does not go into detail. There are different views about the details and how a national lottery would work, but the Bill does lay down clear areas for the proceeds—sport, the arts, the heritage and small charities. Lotteries should target particular projects. I have views on how a national lottery should work. We should not follow the example of some other countries. We should have lotteries aimed at particular targets, such as to build a velodrome. That will involve not just those who want to take part in a lottery but people with a particular interest in the project who will buy a one-off ticket because they know that their money is going to a worthwhile project. We could consider all sorts of possibilities for the detail.
    National lottery proceeds are not a substitute for money that should come from the state. Lottery proceeds are extra money. All the sponsors of the Bill agree on that; there is no way that the proceeds can go to anything other than what has been mentioned here without a further debate in Parliament, a complete change and a new Bill. None of the sponsors wants that. We know clearly where the proceeds should go.
    Last night at a Labour party ward meeting I spent £2 on a raffle ticket. I did not win—I never do. I do not believe that buying a lottery ticket or a raffle ticket is gambling. Nor do I believe that the average member of the British public believes that it is.
    To buy a lottery ticket would be totally different from gambling on the pools or on horses or dog racing. To participate in a lottery is a harmless amusement, just like a raffle, and is far removed from the compulsive world of casinos, card houses and gaming machines. It is
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    patronising to the poor to imply that they do not have the free will to make a choice about whether to buy a lottery ticket. I accept that some people are totally opposed to gambling, but I do not believe that a lottery would extend gambling as those people fear.
    We have been inundated with literature about this issue from the pools industry. I wonder how much it has spent on that? However, it has the right to lobby for its industry. It is a question of balance. I do not believe that those who have done the pools for years will suddenly stop doing so because a national lottery has been introduced. I do the pools with Zetters, not Littlewoods—I am giving Zetters a plug—and I have done so for many years. I have never won a penny, but I shall not cancel my standing order simply because a national lottery may be introduced. I do not believe that others will stop doing the pools either. It is patronising to suggest that people are so easily persuaded to change a habit of a lifetime. People should have the choice about what they want to do.
    One of the good things that has come from the debate on a national lottery is that the pools industry has started to realise that perhaps it has taken too much of the profits and that not enough has gone back into football. After all, most of those who play the pools have an interest in that sport. Perhaps the pools industry will now put more money back into football in an attempt to win the argument.
    Our pools industry is unique, as it is totally different from that run in any other European country. It has a long history. I do not believe that it will be affected by the introduction of a national lottery. At the most, the effects on the pools industry will be slight.
    I appreciate the concerns that have been expressed by those who represent Liverpool and Glasgow about the possible loss of jobs. However, I do not believe that those jobs will be threatened, because I do not believe that people will stop doing the pools just because a lottery is introduced. The people who will buy a one-off lottery ticket will be different from those who do the pools regularly.
    I am pleased that small charities are mentioned in the Bill. I appreciate the anxieties that are felt by local football clubs and sports clubs that run small-scale lotteries. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) has said, people buy a lottery ticket in those circumstances out of loyalty to their club. In essence, they are giving a donation because they do not expect to win a huge amount of money. I do not believe that that loyalty will be put at risk by the introduction of a national lottery.
    The debate has been useful because it has revealed some existing prejudices. Even if the Bill does not receive its Second Reading, no one can deny that the public would like a national lottery. However, that lottery must be carefully planned and scrutinised so that it can win people's confidence.
    Those who are doing the pools this weekend have nothing to fear. If a national lottery were introduced, they would still be able to do the pools. I am absolutely convinced that the pools industry and the jobs associated with it are not threatened. Today's debate marks the beginning, because this issue will not go away.
    12.54 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Peter Lloyd): Rather than my commenting individually on the many good speeches that have been made in this lively debate, the House might find it more helpful if I set out the Government's position.
    I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on his good fortune in the ballot for private Members' Bills. As several hon. Members have said, it is appropriate that his success in the parliamentary lottery for legislative time should provide the opportunity to debate the introduction of a national lottery for good causes. The odds of winning a national lottery must be better than those of winning the ballot for private Members' Bills.
    My hon. and learned Friend made a characteristically vigorous and full speech. I applaud his initiative in bringing the issue before the House. The Government warmly welcome the idea of a national lottery or lotteries. We recognise, as many hon. Members have, that they could raise substantial amounts of money for good causes. On the basis of experience abroad, estimates of turnover here range from £1 billion to £4 billion or more, although such comparisons should be treated with much caution. We have seen how other countries have managed to provide resources for valuable projects that would not, and probably could not, have been funded from ordinary public expenditure. Indeed, as my hon. and learned Friend said, apart from Albania, the United Kingdom is the only European country that does not have a lottery.
    The first Westminster bridge in 1750 and the setting up of the British museum in 1753 were financed by lotteries. Despite such achievements, state lotteries in this country ended in 1826. However, there is no shortage of projects today that, with funds from a national lottery, could improve the quality of life in the United Kingdom.
    The success of foreign lotteries provides an additional argument for having a national lottery here. It has frequently been predicted that we shall he forced to accept national lotteries from other EC countries on or soon after 1 January 1993. Indeed, that prediction has been repeated today, but the Government believe that the threat has been highly exaggerated. The programme for completion of the single market does not contain proposals for the harmonisation of gambling legislation. The European Commission is studying gambling in the single market, but no formal proposals have been made. We believe that our present prohibition on major lotteries, which applies equally to domestic and foreign ones, is compatible with EC law. By contrast, other EC countries have national lotteries, but do not allow foreign lotteries to operate in their territory.
    Mr. Tracey: Will my hon. Friend confirm that between 3 million and 6 million unofficial lotteries come into this country by letter and are not stopped by Customs?
    Mr. Lloyd: No, I cannot confirm that, because those that we do not catch we do not know about, but about 3 million forms have been seized by Customs in the past year.
    Our policy is that controls on gambling should remain a matter for national authorities. We believe that many other countries will take a similar view. We cannot be certain of the final outcome, but it seems extremely unlikely, to put it mildly, that there will be a common
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    market in lotteries in the foreseeable future. It is likely to become increasingly easy for individuals to participate in foreign lotteries. For example, satellite television provides new opportunities for foreign lotteries to promote themselves. Modern technology means that participation will become easier. Such developments may take a number of years to emerge, but their impact is likely to grow with time.
    There are incentives for European countries to try to promote their lotteries here. Without a national lottery here, there will be incentives for people who wish to take part in other lotteries to do so. Those incentives would be considerably less if we had our major lottery in support of good causes.
    Clearly my hon. and learned Friend, who is an experienced hand where private Members' legislation is concerned and a shrewd lawyer to boot, rightly recognises that there are many ways of providing and regulating national lotteries and that there are a host of practical considerations that have to be thought through and which it is not practicable to tackle in a private Member's Bill. That is why, I am sure that his Bill is deliberately designed—indeed, he said as much—as an enabling measure which provides a broad framework and leaves the Government to fill in by means of subordinate legislation not merely the gritty detail, but most of the substance.
    Leaving aside for a moment whether that is a proper and desirable way for the House to bring in a measure which will have a very wide impact on a whole range of charities and businesses, the Bill nevertheless does in fact limit the range of possible options considerably more than might appear at first sight. The most important way in which it does so is by providing for a single lottery rather than opening up the opportunity for genuine charitable concerns—singly or grouped together—to run a lottery nationally, as they now do successfully locally. That is a very substantial issue with implications for many charitable interests, particularly for those who currently benefit from their local lotteries, but who feel that they may well not be high on the priority list for help from a single national lottery.
    If we opt for a single lottery, decisions have, of course, to be made about who will benefit, and machinery has to be devised to share out the proceeds. The Bill proposes that arts, sports and the heritage should receive the lion's share. Charities are to get no more than 10 per cent., perhaps less. All these causes are undoubtedly worthwhile, but there are many who would argue that the proceeds should be split differently or that other good causes should be included.
    One means of resolving these difficulties would be to allow a free market in major lotteries. In this way, the public could decide which good cause or causes they wanted to support. We already have a free market in small local lotteries. No charity would be excluded from the benefits of a major lottery if it could run one properly and cared to risk the considerable investment either on its own or—much more likely—in conjunction with others. While it is attractive for those reasons, I also acknowledge there are strong arguments the other way. The greater number of lotteries, at least initially, could mean that each one would have lower prizes and attract lower turnover and so raise less money in total than a single lottery. That need not, however, be the outcome. The merits of that approach, rather than the single national lottery proposed

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    by the Bill, need further consideration and consultation before legislation is introduced which must inevitably close off one option.
    Another way in which the Bill appears to limit options is that it seems to provide for the national lottery regulatory authority to run only one lottery at a time. Some countries, although they have a single authority, are able to run a number of different games at the same time. The question of the number and nature of the lotteries that may be run will affect the potential available for good causes. It would also have implications for other existing forms of gambling, particularly small lotteries.
    The Bill also rules out a regulatory role for the Gaming Board for Great Britain which currently has responsibility for licensing small lotteries. I do not now claim that, if we had a single national lottery, there would necessarily be a substantial regulatory burden or that regulation must fall to the Gaming Board, but we certainly need to think carefully about, and reflect in primary legislation, where the responsibility for regulation should rest and how it should be conducted.
    I mention these as areas in which, despite the care of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton, any enabling legislation must inevitably close off some important options. He might argue that some of these difficulties, though not, I suggest, all of them, could be overcome by amending the Bill in Committee to allow even greater flexibility. But rather than leaving even more out, I suspect that there are already a number of matters which the House might feel should be included in any well-formulated primary legislation on the issue.
    For example, the Bill says nothing about the maximum proportions of total turnover which can be devoted to prizes or to expenses. This is not just a matter of consumer protection. If a national lottery is to fulfil its main charitable purpose, it is crucial to ensure that a minimum proportion goes to good causes. In relation to existing charity and local authority lotteries, no more than half the turnover may be devoted to prizes and no more than 25 per cent. may be used for expenses. Those limits are laid down in primary legislation. That seems to me to be right, both because it is a major aspect of regulation, and because otherwise we could be faced with constant pressure to keep changing the proportions. Equally, there would need to be careful study of all the evidence before deciding what the proportions should be for a national lottery.
    There is also the essential bread and butter question, with implications for amending existing primary legislation, as to how a national lottery would fit into the wider framework of gambling controls. Lotteries have always been regarded as the softest form of gambling. They are the only form of gambling which may be advertised quite freely, including on television and radio. By contrast, all other forms of gambling are subject to varying degrees of control on the facilities they can offer to attract customers, and on their advertising. In particular, the broadcast advertising of all betting and gaming is prohibited.
    The implications for advertising controls are, therefore, one obvious area requiring study. We need to consider whether controls on the extent and nature of the advertising of a national lottery are necessary. The controls on advertising of commercial gambling will also need to be considered. Some of these are contained in primary legislation. But there may be demands for other changes. Premises used for gambling might want to sell lottery tickets, which is at present unlawful. The pools
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    companies would want the controls on them relaxed, perhaps by making coupons available in shops, and changes in the law to permit regular jackpots.
    All those points must be examined. It may well prove that no changes can be justified. I suspect that many people would take the view that a national lottery for good causes can be distinguished easily from all other commercial gambling and there might be strong opposition to a national lottery if it were allowed to lead to a significant extension of commercial gambling. But many of the points that I have mentioned would require primary legislation. They need to be considered at the same time as the introduction of a national lottery, not as an afterthought.
    Mr. Lawrence: I agree with all that my hon. Friend the Minister has said, and I am grateful for his remarks. But, as he keeps repeating that there would be a need for primary legislation, does he not agree that whatever may be added to the Bill in Committee or at other points in its passage through Parliament would become primary legislation? All the suggestions that my hon. Friend has made are no reason why the Bill should not go into Committee.
    Mr. Lloyd: I have also mentioned many times the need for consultation, study and the taking of evidence. The time scale and methods of a private Member's Bill do not allow for that.
    The question of gambling controls leads directly to the likely effect of a national lottery on existing gambling, particularly the football pools, as we have heard this morning. The supporters of a national lottery argue that it will tap a source of new money and that the existing gambling industry will not be affected. But the huge sums which it is claimed will be raised by a national lottery must come from somewhere, and that may well be from people who spend nothing on gambling at the moment, but who will be drawn to take part in a national lottery. Equally, it would be surprising if some people did not, in the event, divert some or all of their spending on existing gambling into a new national lottery.
    It is, of course, difficult to tell in advance to what extent a national lottery would reduce expenditure on existing forms of gambling. The football pools are the nearest thing we have to a national lottery and I know that their organisers are very concerned. They even say that they could eventually be driven out of business and point to other countries where the introduction of a major lottery has killed or seriously damaged the football pools. At present, the pools companies employ about 6,500 people, mainly in areas of high unemployment. Those jobs, as well as those of about 70,000 part-time pools collectors, are thus, they insist, at risk.
    The evidence of surveys about the likely effect on the pools is mixed. The survey conducted for the Rothschild commissioners suggested that about 25 per cent. of regular pools participants would switch to a national lottery. More recently, opinion surveys on behalf of supporters of a national lottery have suggested that under 10 per cent. of pools participants would spend less on the pools.
    The conflicting evidence about the impact of a national lottery on the pools illustrates the need for a careful examination of the issues. We should not just brush aside their concerns, but we should not accept that a national lottery must mean major difficulty, if not the end, for the

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    pools. We need to study the evidence carefully and to give those directly affected the chance to put not only their views, but the evidence on which they base their views.
    Mr. Ashton: The Government have said that football grounds will have to be all-seater—as a result of 95 people having been killed at Hillsborough—by 1994 for the first and second divisions. The money for that will have to come from the pools and the Government are now blocking their contribution. If the football pools money were to collapse, would the Government still insist on the all-seater legislation being implemented by 1994?
    Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman makes the assumption that legislation will be introduced which will cause the pools to collapse. The hon. Gentleman said that the money comes from the pools now, but would not come if the pools collapsed. The effect of a national lottery on the pools must be thought through and the question would have to be addressed before legislation went through the House.
    To the extent that a national lottery would have an impact on the pools or, indeed, on any other form of commercial gambling, the Government must also take account of the revenue implications. In 1990–91, just over £1 billion was raised from betting and gaming duties, of which about 30 per cent. came from pool betting duty. In many countries, national lotteries are either taxed or the proceeds directly to the Exchequer. The Rothschild royal commission suggested that a national lottery should be taxed at 10 per cent. of turnover. There is certainly a strong case for taxation of a national lottery, although that, thank goodness, is ultimately a matter on which the Chancellor, rather than I, will animadvert.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: That was a Freudian slip.
    Mr. Lloyd: It was not a Freudian slip. My hesitation means that I need a drink of water.
    The revenue implications of a national lottery also need to be resolved before legislation is passed.
    I come now to what may be one of the most important issues that need to be taken into account—the implications for existing charitable lotteries and charitable giving generally. Many European countries have long traditions of national lotteries, but weaker patterns of charitable giving than this country has. Although direct international comparisons cannot, therefore, be made, the introduction of a national lottery might affect charitable giving by individuals, estimated to be between £3·5 billion and £5 billion in 1989–90. Many national and local charities and sporting bodies promote lotteries under the current law. Such lotteries provide sums which, although small compared with the proceeds of a national lottery, are vital to the charities concerned. The Bill proposes that charities should receive no more than 10 per cent. of the proceeds of a national lottery. That may well be insufficient to compensate charities for what they might lose in revenue diverted from their existing small lotteries. Indeed, it may be impossible to ensure that all small charities that feel that they have lost out are compensated however high the percentage adopted, especially if a section of the public come to confine their charitable giving to the purchase of national lottery tickets.
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    The supporters of national lotteries usually claim that experience in other countries shows that small lotteries have not suffered. Ireland has been mentioned as a country in which small lotteries have thrived following the introduction of a major lottery. In fact, Ireland seems to provide clear evidence that small lotteries have lost out. Last year, a number of leading Irish charities expressed their concern that the national lottery had cut annual sales of traditional charitable lotteries by as much as 50 per cent.
    In part, that may be due to an unfair balance in the rules governing the two types of lottery—national and local—but it clearly raises the question whether a national lottery here should be accompanied by changes to the existing statutory controls governing small lotteries. For example, should the monetary limits on prizes and proceeds be increased and, if so, by how much? At present, the largest lottery has a maximum single prize of £12,000 and maximum turnover of £180,000. Many other aspects of the conduct of small lotteries, including their frequency, promotion and regulation, would also require study. In some areas, change would require primary legislation to amend the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976.
    Mr. Alton: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Lloyd: I shall not give way because I know that other hon. Members want to speak. I have a bit more to say and I want to limit others as little as possible.
    Unless those matters are tackled at the same time as legislation on a national lottery, we shall be in danger of putting some small charitable lotteries at a severe disadvantage. It would be unfair to press ahead without proper study of the consequences for them.
    I have sought to illustrate that the introduction of a national lottery is a complex matter affecting many aspects of existing primary legislation on gambling. These issues have emerged from the Government's initial study of the implications of a national lottery during the previous Session and no doubt quite a number more would need to be resolved before we could come forward with a Bill which it would be right to put before the House.
    As I made clear at the outset, the Government see attractions in the concept of a national lottery and we wish to examine further the issues that it raises. In doing so, it will be important to invite the views of all interested parties, particularly the charities, large and small, and the pools companies. We shall put that work in hand immediately and announce our conclusions as soon as possible. Although I said at the start of my speech that the Government welcome the concept of a national lottery, we must, I emphasise, seek evidence from all those likely to be affected before decisions are made about how best to proceed. The drafting of the Bill has sought skilfully to avoid those issues, but, as I have indicated, they must be resolved first.
    However, I have sought to underline the Government's warm interest and our firm intention to take matters forward in the way that will give everyone a chance to put his views and for the important questions to be resolved. Until that work has been completed, the Government cannot give any final commitment about the outcome.
    I hope that my hon. and learned Friend and the House will agree that the course that I have indicated the Government will now take is the right way of tackling this complex subject. We recognise the need to move quickly, but there must be proper consideration and consultation

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    first. We owe that much to those who work in the existing gambling industries. We owe it to the good causes that stand to lose, as well as to those that stand to gain from a national lottery, and we owe it to the citizens of this country, for whom a national lottery, if it comes, should not be merely an extension of gambling but, in the words of the Rothschild royal commission,
    "a harmless entertainment providing a rare opportunity to improve the quality of British life".
    Finally, I commend my hon. and learned Friend, not merely for his excellent speech but for providing the House with the opportunity to concentrate on the question. It will be clear from what I have said, however, that I cannot ask the House to support the Second Reading. However, it will also be clear from what I have said that, as a result of his energy and eloquence, my hon. and learned Friend has greatly added to the momentum of the cause that he is promoting.
    1.19 pm
    Mr. Stuart Randall: Like other hon. Members, I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on doing so well in the ballot and on giving us an opportunity—whether or not we agree with a national lottery—to express our views in this constructive debate. I thank the Minister for his comments, which I read as being rather cool to the whole thing. I thank him in particular for implying that there will be a need for a considerable amount of work and analysis. That makes sense, and that clarification is welcome.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton has introduced a short Bill which, as he quite rightly said, is an enabling Bill. It gives the Secretary of State the power to decide how some of the highly complex issues surrounding the introduction of a national lottery should be dealt with. In particular, the Secretary of State would be empowered to decide how a national lottery would fit in to the existing gambling structure in the United Kingdom. He would also be empowered to take all the policy decisions to make a national lottery viable.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton has introduced a "feel good" Bill. It appears to be based on the question: who would like to spend lots of money on sport, the arts, heritage and everything else? The answer to that must be that we all want to see more money spent on the arts, heritage and other things. Asking that question is easy. We must then ask how that can be achieved. Apart from a few general and obvious points, the Bill ducks the question entirely.
    As I said in an intervention, no one knows what income would be generated from a national lottery. It would be misleading for the country if any of us suggested what amounts of money might be spent on good causes. We do not know how much will be spent, especially when we bear in mind the fact that the Government's policy of not stimulating demand is still extant.
    I do not want to speak for long, as other hon. Members wish to participate in the debate. However, it might be useful if I were to outline at the outset the Labour party's position with regard to funding sport and the arts.
    We believe that there is a need to review funding arrangements for sport and the arts. In our policy document entitled "Charter for Sport" we stated:
    "We will set up a major review of sport finance and sponsorship, levy, betting and taxation to ensure that a fairer proportion of the money taken out of sport goes back into sport."
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    In another policy document entitled "Arts and the Media: our Cultural Future", we stated in the section on private funding:
    "We will give serious consideration to the proposal to establish a national lottery for the benefit of the arts. We will set up an inquiry to examine the means by which this could be achieved with the lowest possible administrative costs, whilst safeguarding the existence of established arrangements and employment."
    In practice, that means that when we form the Government in the next few months we will carry out a deep-seated review of the funding of sport and the arts and possibly other areas which will also protect the 4,630 jobs on Merseyside, the 730 jobs in Glasgow, the 640 jobs in Cardiff and the 500 jobs in London. The Labour party wants to protect the 6,500 full-time jobs in the football pools companies and the 70,000 to 100,000 part-time jobs—the collectors—associated with them. What I have referred to concerns the possible impact on jobs of the introduction of a national lottery.
    Detailed answers need also to be given to questions regarding the possible loss of nearly a third of a billion pounds of revenue to the Exchequer arising from taxes on football pool stakes. If that were to happen, we would need to ask how the Treasury would be compensated. We also need answers to questions about current funding for the Football Trust, which amounts to more than £30 million per annum and which is vital to the improvement of our football stadiums, as proposed in the Taylor report following the Hillsborough disaster.
    As a result of information made available to hon. Members, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that the piecemeal introduction of a national lottery could prejudice such funding. If so, where will the money come from to compensate for losses? What will be the rules for funding the Football Trust? How can we be sure that the trustees responsible for running the lottery, which essentially is a private system of funding, will be sympathetic to the Football Trust? There is nothing in the Bill which says that they should. My argument for the Football Trust applies equally to the Foundation for Sport and the Arts which receives more than £60 million per annum from the pools.
    Those questions are fundamental. The reason why there are no firm answers is that the Bill is a private Member's Bill. That means that there has been no time—I agree with the Minister—for proper consultation on the matter. There is a range of unanswered questions. We do not even know whether a national lottery would he financially viable, as it can be argued that no other country offers the same variety of opportunities for gambling which would be in competition. Even more important, we have not the faintest idea of what tax regime a lottery would work under.
    Successive Conservative and Labour Governments have consistently regulated gambling for two reasons—first, to limit gambling to adults and to exclude children, and, secondly, to prevent crime. The House should note that, throughout the rest of Europe, gambling is controlled by Ministers of Finance, rather than as it is in the United Kingdom, where control comes under the Home Office and Home Office Ministers. The reason for that is that we have always looked beyond the fiscal aspects of gambling and, instead, have regulated gambling in order to contain its social impact. A consequence of that consistent approach to regulation is that the United Kingdom has the

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    lowest incidence of illegal gambling in Europe, in marked contrast to Italy, where gambling is in the firm grip of the Mafia.
    Mr. David Ashby: Tut, tut, an unjustified slur on a great country.
    Mr. Randall: The hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) is making sounds. He should talk to people at the EC Commission who feel that they cannot get reliable statistics because of that impact.
    The major factor in the central control of British gambling is that we should seek only to satisfy unstimulated demand. In practice, that means that the broadcasting media may not be used for advertising and that controls are placed on the number of sales outlets. Experience shows that existing major lotteries require heavy advertising to become viable. This Bill will probably need massive advertising on television and in the press and on radio and the use of direct mailing techniques.
    It should be noted that the per capita stake in the United Kingdom is likely to be higher than in most European countries apart from Spain. That is based upon the Minister's own figure of £1·12 per week, which was included in the Library briefing on the Bill. It is reasonable to conclude from the Minister's figures, in both absolute and comparative terms, that the amount of so-called new money available for a national lottery in the United Kingdom could be quite limited. Its viability will depend to a greater extent on persuading punters to place their stakes in the lottery rather than using other gambling opportunities. That could mean that the departure from the existing policy of not stimulating demand would have to be substantial.
    An important question that has not been addressed is whether Parliament is now prepared to drop the system of regulation that has been so successful and whether Parliament would accept that stimulating the demand for gambling is acceptable on the ground that the money raised would be used for worthwhile causes. We do not know the answer to that question. The Labour party believes that the country should be properly consulted before any such change in policy is made.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton has tried to bypass the arguments about stimulation of demand by saying:
    "After 1992, the Government will almost certainly be unable to stop European lotteries from flooding into Britain … It would be absurd if British money were to be spent on good causes in Spain, Italy or Germany, but could not be spent to improve the British way of life".
    The hon. and learned Gentleman is looking bewildered. I am quoting from his article The House Magazine on 13 January. At the moment, that argument is unsustainable. I shall not go into the reasons why I think that, because the Minister's answers have made that point perfectly clear.
    Apart from the Minister's comments on the unlikelihood of there being any immediate competition from the EEC as a result of the single market, I suspect that it will not be in the interests of member states to promote competition between national lotteries because punters will always tend to place their stakes with the biggest lotteries because they offer the biggest prizes. Certainly competition could result in a fall in the income to the Exchequer and in the investment made in good causes in
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    certain member states because one national lottery may be smaller than those of other member states. The biggest national lotteries will always be the most successful.
    If there were to be competition between national lotteries across the EEC because of the single market, it is probable that a new British national lottery would not be able to compete with the established biggest lotteries in the EEC entirely because of the size of the prizes. If, for argument's sake, we accepted the hon. and learned Gentleman's assertion that European lotteries would flood into Britain in about 12 months, the business risks associated with a national lottery could be substantial.
    I turn briefly to the effect that a national lottery could have on the football pools. Would the pools really be able to survive? If the current system of regulation and taxation were to be retained for the pools, the purpose of which has been to curtail expenditure by the public on gambling, and if a national lottery were free to operate in the way in which the hon. and learned Member for Burton envisages—in a free market—the pools would probably either collapse or be severely damaged. They would be competing in an unfair environment. They would be heavily taxed at 37·5 per cent., whereas a national lottery would be taxed at an appreciably lower rate. In addition, the pools face constraints on advertising which a national lottery would not. It is inconceivable that the football pools could survive such a skew in the competitive environment.
    Mr. Ashby rose——
    Mr. Randall: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I do not want to give way because other hon. Members wish to speak and I should like to conclude my speech as soon as I can.
    I refer now to table I of the booklet from the Advisory Forum on Gambling, which I am sure all hon. Members have received. It shows that gross remittances would go from about——
    Mr. Lawrence: It is a pools company.
    Mr. Randall: Of course it is——
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Gentleman did not say that it was.
    Mr. Randall: I am quoting the forum. It is for the hon. Lady to know that it has interests in football. I accept that it has. But notwithstanding that—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady says that we should question the figures——
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I did not. I said—[Interruption.]
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order.
    Mr. Randall: It is implicit in what I am saying that we should always question figures because those who produce them may have an interest.
    The forum estimates that, if we started the national lottery this year, the gross remittances would fall from £866 million in 1991–92 to about £260 million in 1994–95. The duty to the Exchequer would fall from about a third of a billion pounds to £97·5 million. The donations to sport and the arts would drop considerably from just below £100 million to about £13 million. So the consequences are serious.

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    I have a letter from Coopers and Lybrand Europe which other hon. Members may have received. II quote from a letter from Mr. Frank McFadden to Littlewoods Pools. It says:
    "I have long ago formed the opinion that the introduction of a UK national lottery would effectively kill off the football pools within a period of weeks. This closely follows the pattern with regard to Littlewoods Pools in Belgium which, following the introduction of a national lottery, survived only three weeks.
    As you are aware, the UK has the largest gambling and gaming market within the European Community. In addition, however, it demonstrates a high propensity to bet, which is only exceeded by Spain, Greece and Ireland. Such propensity to bet indicates that there is a limited elasticity of demand for additional gambling and gaming products in Britain and, as a result, a successful national lottery would act as a substitute for the football pools."
    I shall conclude now because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak and I do not want to hog the time. As I have already said, the Labour party is committed to reviewing the system of and arrangements for funding sport, the arts and other activities. We shall do that when we form the Government in the next few weeks. We also believe that the private Member's Bill mechanism is not appropriate for introducing a national lottery. As the Bill is a private Member's Bill, it lacks depth and has involved little or no consultation. There is no way of assessing the viability of a national lottery at this stage.
    We also believe that there are serious risks that the introduction of a national lottery could seriously damage or destroy our successful football pools system, which has great integrity and is held in such high esteem by the British people. That is not to mention the huge contribution that the pools make to the Treasury. Surely the time is ripe for much more thought to be given to the whole matter.
    Several Hon. Members rose——
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The Standing Order on 10-minute speeches has been lifted, but if every hon. Member present is to be allowed to speak, I must ask for a voluntary restraint of five minutes.
    1.37 pm
    Mr. Hugo Summerson: I will certainly abide by your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker.
    It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for the great city of Kingston upon Hull, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall). I agree with what he said about the effects that a national lottery would have on the pools industry. That is just one reason why I cannot support the Bill. I say that with some regret, because I have the highest personal regard for my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence).
    I have other reasons for not supporting the Bill. First, I have an instinctive suspicion of any commercial enterprise by the state, whether actual or attempted, and a deep instinctive suspicion of a monopoly commercial enterprise by the state. Secondly, I question whether the state should encourage people to gamble. Encouragement there would be, because a national lottery would undoubtedly be widely advertised.
    I am also worried about the effect that a national lottery would have on the greyhound racing industry. I make no apology for raising the subject of Walthamstow stadium,
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    arguably one of the finest greyhound racing stadiums in Britain. I thoroughly recommend it to everyone in the House for a great evening out.
    I am not opposed to gambling. That may be something to do with the fact that a few years ago I went to the races and was persuaded to put money on a horse called Dignity of Labour by Worthy Tryer out of Work Ethic. That horse threw its jockey at the first fence, missed the second fence altogether, caused a collision at the third, ran wide at the fourth and finally sauntered in last. So I have not had happy experiences and since then I have kept clear of betting at races.
    I shall quote briefly from a letter sent to me by the Betting Office Licensees Association Limited—I suspect a different letter from the one sent to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell)—which says:
    "The purpose of this letter is to inform you of BOLA's concern about the proposed introduction of a national lottery. We believe that the injection of a large-scale lottery into a complex and largely mature market which already offers horse, greyhound and football betting, plus football pools, gaming machines, casinos, bingo and local lotteries, would have a detrimental effect on the existing revenue-yielding betting and gaming activities.
    In BOLA's view, most damage would be done to football pool betting, but we would also expect off-course betting turnover on horse and greyhound racing to suffer, as it did in Ireland following the introduction of a national lottery in that country. Thus we would envisage the £1 billion a year generated for the Exchequer by the taxation of betting and gaming being seriously eroded."
    Supporters of the Bill state that we must establish a national lottery in Britain because the introduction of the European single market after 1992 will cause a flood of foreign lottery tickets into this country and that has already been debated.
    What about the consequences of a lottery for other forms of gambling? On the assumption that a national lottery consisted of a numbers-based Lotto game—probably six from 49—and that it was promoted and protected effectively as a state monopoly, which is the almost universal pattern abroad, it is possible to state with considerable accuracy what would happen to other forms of gambling, especially the British football pools industry. The effect on the fund-raising efforts of charities, sports clubs and other voluntary organisations can also be calculated.
    The setting up of a national lottery will have serious consequences for jobs and for sports and the arts.
    In conclusion I shall quote from a letter which I recently received from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, which states:
    "It seems a courtesy to let you know that tomorrow's list"—
    of grants—
    "will include a sum of £300,000 awarded to the Waltham Forest Recreation Services at Forest Road, London Ell which I believe to be in your constituency. The purpose of the grant is for structural repairs at the Waltham Forest Pool and Track Leisure Centre, including access facilities for people with disabilities. The Trustees believe you will welcome this contribution to what is happening in Walthamstow."
    And so I do. Jam today is better than jam tomorrow.
    1.42 pm
    Mrs. Audrey Wise: I have listened carefully to the debate since 9.30 am and with especial care to the promoter of the Bill, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), to hear where the money would come from. He did not tell us. So before he sat down, I

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    made my only intervention this morning to ask him to tell us where the £3 billion will come from. What will people cease to spend it on in order to buy lottery tickets? Even when faced with a direct question, he did not tell us, but started to talk about figures in Germany and elsewhere. He did not tell us whether £3 billion is sloshing around, unused, in British pockets. That is a crucial question.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton did not answer, because there are only two things that he can say. Either it comes from present gambling or people will cease to spend it on something else, in which case he would have to tell us what—would it be food, mortgages, rents or clothes? He prefers not to answer that question and it has not been answered by any of the supporters of the Bill. It is a crucial question. It is important from both angles. As president of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and as a sponsored Member of USDAW, I am deeply worried about the job implications.
    There has been mention of hon. Members being nobbled by the football pools companies. I find that a bit offensive, although in a sense I am nobbled by the work force, because it is important for all hon. Members to be concerned about jobs. As has been established, thousands of jobs are at stake, mostly the jobs of USDAW members, in areas of high unemployment. It is not only the employer who fears for the loss of trade, but the thousands of workers.
    It may come as a surprise to some of my hon. Friends when I pay a compliment to the major company involved in football pools on a particular aspect of its policy. Littlewoods has an explicit policy of maintaining employment rather than making ever-higher capital investments. It would rather spend its money on paying wages than on installing machinery to force workers out. There has been no guarantee or even a hint from one of the Bill's sponsors that a national lottery would be run on those lines. Of course it would not and it could not. Littlewoods is efficient in the organisation of its work force. It is not simply a highly capital-intensive trade. That means that it is important as an employer of labour. As has been pointed out, all its workers, too, are paying taxes from which spending on all the needs of the people can be financed. Therefore, I am concerned about jobs.
    One of the most outrageous arguments this morning came from the hon. and learned Member for Burton who said that the Bill would improve equality for women. He said with a straight face that the Bill would provide access for women who find filling in the football pools too complicated. Their tiny little brains do not run to that.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: My hon. and learned Friend did not.
    Several Hon. Members: Yes, he did.
    Mrs. Wise: Hansard will show that the promoter said that women find football pools coupons too complicated. I am adding the bit about their tiny little minds.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Mrs. Wise: No, I am not giving way to the hon. Lady. I have had experience of her before.
    When the sponsors talk about the rights and position of women, let them remember that most of the jobs at stake
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    will be women's jobs. Let them also remember that women in our society have less disposable income than men. Therefore, if the Bill encourages women to spend money on a lottery, it is even more likely to be at the expense of essential spending. Women have less of the £3 billion that is claimed to be sloshing around than anybody else.
    If the £3 billion comes at the expense of the football pools, it will hit jobs in areas of high unemployment and women's jobs. On the other hand, if it comes from other sorts of spending, which will they be? There is already a recession in retailing because people do not have money to spend on food, clothing and household goods. If they choose to buy lottery tickets, there will be an even bigger recession in retailing and the other members of USDAW will be affected. Even more people will lose their jobs.
    Lewis's, an important department store in my constituency, is likely to close on 1 February, not because it sells shoddy goods—it does not—but because people are short of money. The £3 billion needed to set up the national lottery is just not around.
    People are facing the repossession of their homes and they have arrears in their mortgages and their rents. Thousands and thousands of summonses have been issued for poll tax arrears. However, the supporters of the Bill claim that they will get £3 billion of new money for the national lottery. Do they have a private arrangement with the Mint? That is the only way in which new money could be found; it would have to be freshly minted for the purpose. People will not receive huge wage increases so that they can contribute to a national lottery. There is not £3 billion available from ordinary people.
    I accept that £3 billion could be raised from some sectors of society and I am in favour of them contributing—through taxation. However, they want to be able to say that funding for the sports and the arts can now be met without imposing any extra tax burden on them, the rich. They are looking for an easy way out and that is unacceptable.
    The promoter spoke about the advantages of providing sports facilities as a means of preventing crime. The hon. and learned Gentleman painted a gloomy picture of young people with nothing to do. He said how important it was for society that sports halls, playing fields and other facilities should be provided for young people to keep them from delinquency. That is true. He also said that the national health service is important, but that a national lottery would be a strange way in which to finance it. If that is the case, why is it not also a strange way in which to finance all the things that would contribute to keeping down crime and keeping young people from committing acts of vandalism?
    The Bill is a bad one. I do not believe that it can be remedied in Committee. I am not persuaded by the argument that it is an enabling Bill. I do not believe that the House should pass Bills that can then go off in all sorts of directions when they are amended in Committee. The promoter should get his Bill right when he introduces it. We do not want to pass Bills that are empty shells; that is bad legislative practice.
    I oppose the Bill from a constitutional view. As a woman I oppose the Bill. As someone concerned about proper public provision I oppose the Bill. As someone with trade union interests I oppose the Bill. I am confident that the House will refrain from giving it a Second Reading.
    1.52 pm
    Mr. Ken Hargreaves: I add my congratulations to those given to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on his success in the ballot and on choosing this particular Bill, of which I am pleased to be a sponsor.
    My hon. and learned Friend reminded the House that, in Europe, only Britain and Albania have, as yet, not seen the need for the resources that a national lottery would provide. It is hard to understand why when, in all our constituencies, the need for increased resources for sports, the arts and the environment must be obvious.
    In my constituency a national lottery could help to provide a new running track for the athletic club and a sports pavilion for Rhyddings county high school, whose playing field is half a mile from the school. It could also provide a lift for the civic theatre, so that the disabled and older people could see the excellent amateur and professional productions that are staged there. In common with other hon. Members, I could continue to list the various needs in my constituency. Those needs must be added to the impressive list of national projects set out by the Sports Council and the Arts Council.
    If the Bill were passed it could help to provide m any of those facilities. Failure to pass the Bill could lead to those new facilities being established not in Hyndburn or Burton, but in Hamburg and Barcelona. Despite the efforts of Customs officials, tickets for the German, Austrian and Canadian lotteries are being bought in this country. Many of us have received mail shots which say:
    "You've been declared eligible to win up to 50 million dollars tax free, lump sum cash, in the official Canadian lottery, plus special bonus prizes too. Just think what you could do with winnings like that."
    That is tempting to hon. Members with marginal seats and a general election looming. A magazine that was circulating in this country in December carried a full-page advert for the Austrian national lottery. With the increasing popularity of satellite television, people in this country will have invitations to participate in European lotteries beamed into their homes.
    There is no doubt that, by one means or another, foreign lottery tickets will increasingly be bought in this country. We shall be using our money to improve facilities in countries with which we compete in sport.
    Any non-United Kingdom scheme that issues promotional material here is breaking the law, but the Home Office says that it cannot prosecute foreign lotteries because they have no staff here.
    A national lottery will increase jobs—not simply in running the lottery but in printing tickets and in building capital projects funded from the proceeds and in servicing those facilities when they are built.
    If the advice of an opinion poll taken in November is followed, tickets for the lottery will be on sale in post offices, thereby helping to preserve jobs that could otherwise be lost in sub-post offices that are facing closure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Lee) reminded us, the Post Office—24 million people use its 20,000 outlets each week—is a superb place to sell lottery tickets. It has integrity and credibility, which will be necessary if we have a national lottery.
    I understand the views of the Lotteries Council. It has said that it is not against a national lottery but opposes the Bill because it does not specifically protect its members. Small lotteries have been extremely successful in providing
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    resources that have enabled many football clubs to survive. It is not unnatural that the Lotteries Council should wish to protect its members. At our last annual general meeting, when we discussed the £10,000 lottery being run by UK Charities Ltd., members said that, far from harming them, the new lottery had generated new interest. I believe that the same would be true with a national lottery.
    The objections of the Lotteries Council, like those of the pool companies, overlook the threat from European lotteries. Can anyone say with certainty that if we do not have a national lottery the status quo will continue and that foreign lottery tickets will never be available in this country? No one can give us that guarantee, so we take a risk—a risk which we should not take.
    I wish the Bill success. I hope that if the calling of the election prevents it from becoming law, the Government will include a proposal for a national lottery in our manifesto.
    1.57 pm
    Mr. Frank Field: I want to explain why I have changed from supporting a national lottery to opposing it. It has been the duty of Labour Back Benchers to try to construct an agenda that leap-frogged Thatcherism rather than being part of a party that merely tried to adapt itself to Government successes after yet another general election failure.
    In that context of thinking about the need for a national health service tax and the support that a national lottery could give the national health scheme, I supported that measure. Before the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) says that I am like everybody else who has spoken against the lotteries—a mere spokesman for the pools—let me say that I am critical of Littlewoods. Of course I am mindful of its good employment policies. Many of my constituents work at Littlewoods, but the way in which it has approached the issue in the past few years has been, to be gentle, lethargic rather than looking after the best interests of its members.
    I thank the hon. and learned Member for Burton for giving us this opportunity. We are having a dress rehearsal of the real debate that will take place in the next Parliament, when hon. Members who are worried about aspects of a national lottery will have to advance better arguments than some that we have heard this morning.
    We cannot rely on the shock-horror tactics which state that the whole of English national life will collapse if a national lottery is introduced. The public—the voters—will not believe us. We cannot rely on the arguments against more gambling—thank God we are a country in which most people believe that there should not be a group of people who put their sticky fingers into other people's private lives and dictate how they should behave or spend their money. That argument comes especially badly from the pools industry whose whole income comes from gambling.
    Nor can we rely on the argument that it is bad to have a national lottery for sports facilities, for example, when we know that all the income of the pools industry—minus the prizes—goes into the pockets of the promoters. That argument does not stand up.
    I am well within my five minutes so I shall tell the House why I have changed my mind. I can assure the House that it is not because in the past couple of years I have been on

    1279
    the receiving end of a particular campaign. Indeed, if one were trying to ensure that I did not change my mind, I should have to congratulate the organisers of that campaign. I changed my mind for one reason.
    I said earlier that I was not a member of the puritan lobby which is against gambling, but I must now modify that statement. I am against one form of gambling—gambling with the jobs of some of my constituents. I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Burton was in danger of talking out the Bill because he spoke for so long, but not more than two minutes of his discourse were spent on the possible job implications.
    We do not know for certain what the job implications will be. It is a gamble. The House should not take such a gamble with my constituents' livelihood especially as—as many hon. Members have explained—for many of the families involved it is their only gateway to a normal existence. For that reason—and for that reason alone—I hope that the House will reject the Bill.
    2.1 pm
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Many hon. Members have made some good points today. One of the advantages of being called late in the debate is that one does not repeat some arguments which have already been made.
    I see the beginnings of something called the "Bottomley" law on detailed explanations. When a Minister gives a detailed reason why something is as it is, one can be fairly sure that the Government are likely to change their mind shortly afterwards. It has happened with such issues as compensation for haemophiliacs who contracted the HIV virus and it certainly happened when one Minister at the Department of Education and Science explained why polytechnics could never be called universities. It appears to be happening in this case.
    On 13 January my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary—who I thought handled the debate very well—explained that
    "Government policy on all gambling, whether betting, gaming or lotteries, reflects two basic principles. The first is that controls are necessary to ensure that it is conducted honestly and fairly. The second principle is that demand for gambling should not be stimulated."—[Official Report, 13 January 1991; Vol. 201, c. 460.]
    It is agreed that net spending on gambling in this country is about £3,000 million to £4,000 million a year. The gross figure is larger, but much of horserace betting is recycled—people stake relatively small sums and get a fair amount of it back, although in the end they lose. Therefore, let us work on the net figure of £3,000 million to £4,000 million a year. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said that the Bill would roughly double that amount. It is a major step for the House to take to throw away the principle that gambling should not be stimulated.
    I accept what the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said about job losses, but, in time, that problem will have to be faced whatever happens. I also accept what the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey) said about the need for substantial extra resources for particular causes. It is crazy that we have not found a way—whether through the tax system, through hypothecated income in another way or by allowing another form of market to work, or probably a combination of all three—to put cultural
    1280
    centres, sporting facilities, the preservation of our heritage and funding for charities on a higher level than at present. I am not arguing for voluntary giving—whether through gambling, through charitable giving or in any other way—because it is always a substitute for state funding.
    However, I counsel people who do not seem to have done their homework to remember that the Irish figures quoted in the European survey show that half of the Government funding that went to culture, heritage, sport and other good causes was withdrawn when funding began to come from the lottery. It is important that people do not consider only the good points without considering the bad. I oppose the idea of the House passing the Bill, because some of those considerations have not been talked through. But I hope that one of its results will be that in the country as a whole we shall accept that it is right to produce funds on the scale of £750 million a year for a combination of sporting, cultural and heritage activities. The question is: what is the best way of doing that?
    If we believe that the money should come from people's pockets, either through extra taxation or through extra spending of tax-provided funds—that is a reasonable assumption, and it is reasonable to ask what the best way of providing £750 million is—we could, for example, add an extra 25p to the retail price of cigarettes. That would raise £750 million, but the disadvantage would be that it would put 0·3 per cent. on to the retail prices index, whereas gambling, betting and lotteries are not included in the index.
    Such hypothecation is better than the almost non-hypothecation involved in saying, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton does, that we shall raise £3 billion and then give half of it back to some winners. That does not help to do much except to make some people very rich—although I have no special objection to that. Some of the money will go in expenses and a little bit will go to sports facilities, heritage or conservation.
    It is not necessarily rational, economically efficient or even dignified to say that an extra £3 billion should be spent on stimulating gambling if what we really want to do is to raise £750 million a year for causes that we accept are good and reasonable.
    It would have been nice to have a debate in which we could say, "Do we need £750 million for those causes?", but instead we are faced with a National Lottery Bill.
    Paragraph 13.83 of the Rothschild report, on page 231 in the chapter entitled,
    "A National Lottery for Good Causes"
    says:
    "Finally, the whole of this chapter is predicated on the assumption that the Government will not penalise those organizations which benefit from the national lottery by withholding funds which they would otherwise have got, or reducing them if they are already being supported by the general exchequer."
    I do not believe that any Government—Labour or Tory, now or in the future—when deciding how much provision to make for good causes, would ignore the other funding that those causes receive. In any particular year the Government may give permission for extra funds to be raised, but they will not go on doing that.
    A table on page 232 of the Rothschild report, to which I referred earlier, shows that the vast bulk of the money raised is likely to come from people who do not support some of the causes to which the proceeds are to be dedicated. I do not believe that majority votes should

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    always be required for good causes. Some are minority interests, but important ones should be imposed on other people by an overwhelming minority. It is not right to say that we should stimulate gambling.
    I shall make one of my final points now, so as to allow others to take part in the debate. We have seen a number of examples in which a product banned from being advertised on television is assumed to be all right in news and current affairs coverage, and such coverage is manipulated by certain organisations. One of those examples is provided by the link between motor racing and alcohol. The regulations do not allow alcohol promotion on television to be associated with motor racing. But that did not stop a lager company in effect buying the British grand prix and having it broadcast by a major television channel. So much prominence was given to the name of the lager that—perhaps "scandal" is too strong a word, but it was wrong.
    Given that major gambling is prohibited as a subject for television advertising, the House would probably want to give five hours to debating the single question of whether we could cheerfully accept the idea of the draw for million-pound prizes being shown on televison as a way of stimulating demand.
    I do not believe that we should say to individuals in this country, "You must not do what I do not approve of." We should say, "Do we want to change the system from one of no stimulation to over stimulation?" The idea of doubling gambling in this country as a result of five-hour debate does not seem the best way in which to get £750 million a year for cultural, sporting and heritage activities.
    2.10 pm
    Mr. Joseph Ashton: I declare an interest as an unpaid director of Sheffield Wednesday football club. That is significant because three years ago, 95 people were killed at the Hillsborough ground—not because there was anything wrong with the ground. I do not have time to go into the details. Following those tragic deaths the Government, following Lord Taylor's report, insisted that football grounds had to become all-seater and that the bigger grounds had to comply by 1994.
    There was no chance that the industry could find the money without the aid of the football pools, which are paying 70 per cent. towards the cost. It is impossible to build stands, to get planning permission and to begin work in a matter of months. It must take two or three years for that to happen. There have already been strong demonstrations about the cost. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) knows, there were riots at West Ham when the supporters protested that they would have to pay £750 each, not for the price of a season ticket, but even to be able to buy a season ticket.
    The Prime Minister is a football supporter. He said that the Government would pay 2·5 per cent. of the tax on the football pools to top up the money that the clubs would get from the Football Trust. When the Tories came into office, the tax on football pools was 40 per cent. They lifted it to 42·5 per cent. To be fair to the Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, he said that they would give back the 2·5 per cent. to football to improve the grounds.
    What will happen if the pools collapse? Where will the money come from to improve the grounds? Will the clubs
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    be left with the bill? They will never be able to pay it, and they will he halfway through building the stands and halfway through the contracts when the money will suddenly dry up, if the Bill is passed. The clubs will find themselves in that position although a Lord Justice has told them that the work must be done and although the police have said that they will not police football grounds unless they are all-seater. That will he devastating for Britain's standing in world football because we shall not be able to stage the 1996 European football championships. The industry will be plunged into a trauma and it will not know the way out.
    Conservative Members may say that that will not happen overnight and that there will be a gradual run-down. I do not believe that for a minute. There are 70,000 pools collectors. People no longer send in their pools entries through the post. Instead, the entries are collected by collectors who work on commission, sometimes 25 per cent. and sometimes 15 per cent. The collectors go round every Friday night. If there is a national lottery, they will naturally say to the old ladies who do the pools, "Why don't you try a lottery ticket as well as or instead of the pools?" Many who have done the pools for many years will say, "Why not? I have used birthday dates and door numbers, but they never come up. I will do the national lottery instead." There will quickly be a massive switch and the money that the Government get from tax will dry up.
    The Government will have far less money to give for the improvement of football grounds. The pools will not be able to pay the 70 per cent. as has been promised. Those will he the consequences if the Bill is passed. Between now and 1994, all the football clubs will have planned, put out tenders and taken contracts. Manchester City, for example, complained to me that it made an application for the grant last July, but that the Minister for Sport is sitting on it. I do not know why he has not released the cash, because the Government continually complain that clubs are not getting a move on. Football clubs do not know where they stand on all-seater stadiums, which the Government have demanded, on which they have had little help and which will be damaged by the Bill.
    The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) should read what the Select Committee on Home Affairs, of which I am a member, said about the Horse Race Betting Levy Act 1981. Sharing out the cash from horse racing has been a shambles. Once again, the Home Office has had to step in to sort out who gets what in horse racing between the owners, the trainers, the bookies and everyone else because they can never agree on the share of the cake. That is exactly what will happen with the national lottery.
    2.14 pm
    Mr. Brian Wilson: My fundamental objection to the Bill is that it defines areas of public expenditure that I believe to be very important to the richness and well-being of a society as so marginal that they can be funded outwith general taxation and the normal means of funding things that society regards as important.
    I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) about the proposals advanced in the Labour party's sports document. Of course we should look at the money that

    1283
    comes out of sport—and, no doubt, the arts—and give as much of that money as possible back to the sources from which it comes. I also agreed with much of what the Minister said, and I followed his speech with interest. But what is proposed in the Bill is one mega state lottery, with defined areas of expenditure, and that is what I cannot agree with.
    Over the past few weeks, and again today, we have heard the familiar arguments. If I hear the tale about Britain and Albania once more, I shall be tempted to go to Tirana to check the facts. There is another side to the coin, even if it is true that the only countries that do not have national lotteries are Britain and Albania. In the absence of a national lottery here, other forms of fund-raising—and lotteries in particular—have developed. That problem—if problem it is—would not be confronted in countries with long-established national lotteries, but in countries such as Ireland where the lotteries are not long-established, exactly the problems that we fear are arising.
    The term "small lotteries" is perhaps confusing because some of the so-called small lotteries are very large indeed. I have received two letters of which other hon. Members may also have copies. The example of Tenovus, the cancer charity, is an important one. The charity's letter refers to the fact that the charity has a £3 million income from lotteries and that £1 million of its funds depends upon that. The House must think carefully before taking a step that could contribute—and, in the experience of other countries, would contribute—to wiping out that source of revenue, which is what would happen if that relatively large lottery were subordinated to the great national mega-lottery.
    The second letter was from Rangers FC Development Fund Ltd. Anyone who takes even a passing interest in Scottish football knows that Rangers football club has a splendid stadium, funded almost exclusively from two sources—first, the lottery that the club has run for many years and, secondly, the Football Trust, referred to today as a possible source of funding that would be endangered by the process. Mr. Hugh Adam, the director of Rangers, who is responsible for the development fund, writes:
    "Indeed, it is now a matter of public knowledge that very few, if any, football clubs take enough money through the gate to exist from that alone. Small lotteries are probably the most important source of off-the-field revenue."
    While saying that we are acting in the name of sport, we are threatening on two fronts to remove the funding sources on which football clubs and many other sports and arts organisations now depend. I do not think that we should go into that lightly.
    I came away from the British Columbia lottery presentation held in the House some months ago with two clear impressions. The first was that, in order for the British Columbia lottery to be the great success that it undoubtedly is—it offers huge prizes—all other lotteries, down to a very low level, had had to disappear to make way for it. That example is relevant. Secondly, as the gentleman who came to speak to us freely admitted, no matter how carefully one defines the causes that are to benefit from a lottery, as soon as it exists representatives of all sorts of other causes immediately come knocking at the door so that, in the end, no cause get as much as it at first expected.
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    I want also to refer to a letter from Dr. Moran of Chase Farm hospital in Enfield, who is the chairman of the National Council on Gambling and the adviser on gambling to the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He raised a point on which I agree with the Minister. There is a difference between a large number of lotteries offering relatively modest prizes, but raising a lot of money for many different causes, and the concept of one huge lottery on which the whole fix depends and the vast prize with all the hullabaloo surrounding it.
    The professional view of Dr. Moran should not be taken lightly. He wrote:
    "The existing lotteries law prescribes modest levels; this avoids stimulation and allows the smaller societies to compete with larger ones, when promoting lotteries. In large scale lotteries, the gambling element predominates over that of charitable giving."
    There is no po-faced moralistic view on the matter. I have nothing against gambling or lotteries. However, the House must consider today, as no doubt it will in future, whether we want to approach the matter in a way that does not wipe out other forms of income for good causes and which does not stimulate gambling, as the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) sensibly pointed out, in order to return through gambling a relatively small proportion of the money to the people who invest in it.
    The scale is enormous. The Bill's sponsors switch between minimising and maximising the scale, depending upon which market they are appealing to. By creating a national lottery of £3 billion, we will be creating something new on a level that is double the existing expenditure in the United Kingdom on the pools and bingo combined. That is an enormous enterprise. I do not believe that that money can appear out of thin air. It will either destroy other lotteries or it will be new money which will be diverted from other forms of social expenditure.
    2.21 pm
    Mr. John Lee: In the circumstances, I will be very brief. It is well known that I am a long-standing supporter of a national lottery, and I am delighted and proud to be a sponsor of the Bill. As a former Minister responsible for tourism, and as the present chairman of ALVA—the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions—I am well aware of the huge costs of maintaining the fabric of great museums, galleries, cathederals and historic houses.
    For example, the British museum and the Tate, which are both ALVA members, require substantial funding. The British museum needs £80 million for conversion and refurbishment of the space that has been vacated by the British Library. The Tate needs £32 million to upgrade 21 galleries and to provide adequate visitor research facilities. Museums in Manchester could spend £20 million, and Merseyside could spend £27 million. Sports facilities are required throughout the country.
    The Government and the Exchequer have a responsibility. Recent increases in spending on the arts are welcome. However, the Government must not believe that a lottery will allow them to dodge their obligations. The point that has been emphasised repeatedly today is the gap between what the Treasury under a Government of any political party is likely to contribute and what is actually needed. The difference is vast and that is where a national lottery has a role to play.

    1285
    I had hoped that a national lottery would be announced in the last Budget. However, the pools companies proposed the Foundation for Sport and the Arts and, bluntly, the Treasury fell for that. In the Budget debate on 19 March last year, I described the foundation as mere petty cash compared with what a properly constituted national lottery could produce——
    Mr. Lawrence rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
    Question put, That the Question be now put:—
    The House divided: Ayes 84, Noes 35.

    Division No. 42]

    [2.25 pm

    AYES

    Alexander, Richard

    Jessel, Toby

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

    Arbuthnot, James

    Kilfedder, James

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Ashby, David

    Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Lord, Michael

    Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

    Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

    Bendall, Vivian

    Malins, Humfrey

    Benyon, W.

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Mates, Michael

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Mills, Iain

    Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Buck, Sir Antony

    Neubert, Sir Michael

    Burns, Simon

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Cash, William

    Page, Richard

    Cormack, Patrick

    Rhodes James, Sir Robert

    Devlin, Tim

    Rooker, Jeff

    Durant, Sir Anthony

    Rost, Peter

    Dykes, Hugh

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Farr, Sir John

    Shelton, Sir William

    Fatchett, Derek

    Sims, Roger

    Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Forman, Nigel

    Steen, Anthony

    Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

    Summerson, Hugo

    Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Thorne, Neil

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Tracey, Richard

    Gorst, John

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Gregory, Conal

    Waller, Gary

    Ground, Patrick

    Wardell Gareth (Gower)

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Watts, John

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

    Whitney, Ray

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    Wilkinson, John

    Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)

    Wolfson, Mark

    Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

    Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Mr. John Bowis and Mr. John Lee.

    Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

    NOES

    Anderson, Donald

    Dixon, Don

    Ashton, Joe

    Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

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

    Bellotti, David

    Fraser, John

    Cartwright, John

    Graham, Thomas

    Cohen, Harry

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Corbett, Robin

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Cox, Tom

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Cryer, Bob

    McCrea, Rev William

    1286

    Maclennan, Robert

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    Moate, Roger

    Spearing, Nigel

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Straw, Jack

    Paisley, Rev Ian

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

    Pendry, Tom

    Wilson, Brian

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Randall, Stuart

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Robinson, Geoffrey

    Mr. Peter Bottomley and Mr. David Alton.

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Skinner, Dennis

    Whereupon MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 36 ( Majority for Closure).
    It being after half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
    Debate to be resumed on Friday 24 January.

    CORPORATE SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION BILL
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Hon. Members: Object.
    Second Reading deferred till Friday 24 January.

    TOURISM (OVERSEAS PROMOTION) (WALES) BILL
    Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

    FIREARMS (AMENDMENT) BILL
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Hon. Members: Object.
    Second Reading deferred till Friday 24 January.

    COMMONWEALTH OF EUROPE BILL
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Not moved.

    CHEQUES BILL
    Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

    ARMED FORCES (LIABILITY FOR INJURY) BILL
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Hon. Members: Object:
    Second Reading deferred till Friday 24 January.

    HOMICIDE (AMENDMENT) BILL
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Not moved.

    LICENSING (AMENDMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL
    Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

    M20 (Junctions 3 and 5)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
    2.36 pm
    Sir John Stanley: I am aware that my hon. Friend the Minister for Roads and Traffic replied to an Adjournment debate which I initiated only 14 months ago in November 1990. I make no apology for the fact that just 14 months later I am seeking his reply to a debate on the same subject. I have to tell him that the Department of Transport's handling of the widening of the M20 between junctions 3 and 5 in my constituency has been disastrous for hundreds of my constituents. I shall seek to demonstrate that it appears that it has also been a fair-sized disaster for the public purse. I shall put several specific issues to my hon. Friend, but before doing so I suggest that there is one lesson of overwhelming importance which I hope that the Department of Transport will learn from the way in which it has handled the scheme so far.
    As my hon. Friend will be aware, from the moment that the Department announces its intention to widen a road, blight is instantly created. That is particularly the case if at the time of the announcement the Department does not announce how the widening scheme will be carried out. Obviously the blighting effect is particularly acute in areas where there is a substantial amount of residential property. That is the case along almost the entire length of the M20 between junctions 3 and 5.
    The announcement of the intention to widen was made in the White Paper "Roads for Prosperity", which was published in May 1989. One would have hoped that it would be followed quickly by a detailed description by the Department of Transport of how the widening would be conducted.
    In practice, two and a half years elapsed—until October 1991—before details of the widening schemes were announced. As a result, the huge swathe of blight created instantly from May 1989 onwards along both sides of the motorway continued unabated for two and a half years and continues to a degree. As a consequence, hundreds of people have been unable to sell their houses. The consequences have been disastrous for those who have had to do so for personal, family, health, matrimonial break-up or job reasons.
    I hope that the Department of Transport will accept that it has a fundamental responsibility not to announce its intention to widen until it can at the same time, or shortly thereafter, say how the scheme will be carried out.
    The two-and-a-half-year gap has also had serious consequences for the public purse. In a reply of 3 December my hon. Friend said that the Department had acquired at that time a total of 227 houses for the cost of £21·9 million—a purchase price of about £100,000 for each house. He went on to say that another 59 houses were being acquired. The Department will end up with 286 houses, which will cost the taxpayer about £28 million.
    I do not criticise the Department of Transport for discharging its legal obligations under the blight purchase provisions. Indeed, it would have been wrong for it not to have done so. However, if one looks at the alignment of the road and reads the further part of his answer of 3 December—to the effect that of 286 houses acquired by the
    1288
    Department not one will be required by the road scheme—one realises that it raises major issues of policy concerning public expenditure.
    The Department has effectively spent, or is spending, about £28 million to acquire 286 houses, none of which is required for the widening scheme. That is a matter of great concern. Indeed, I am so concerned that I think it is appropriate for me to refer the use of public funds in those circumstances to the Comptroller and Auditor General. I spoke to his office this morning and he confirmed that that is an appropriate matter for me to refer to him, and I propose to do so.
    I hope that the Department will not again announce an intention to widen without an immediate announcement—or as immediate as possible thereafter—as to how the scheme will be carried out.
    I want to mention six matters to my hon. Friend. The first concerns the section 62 powers which were taken by the Government—and I welcome that—in the Planning Compensation Act 1991, giving new discretionary powers to the Secretary of State for Transport to acquire houses by agreement with their owners when they are seriously affected by a motorway or road scheme, regardless of any distance limit from the scheme.
    I have been asking my hon. Friend for details of how those powers will be used, and I am grateful for the parliamentary reply that he gave me before the debate commenced, in which he has given an initial indication. Obviously, I shall want to examine that in the context of a number of cases. I hope that it will help one of my constituents who is in the extraordinary position of having received an offer from the Department of Transport whereby it will acquire her garage under the statutory blight provisions but not her house. I hope that the answer in my hon. Friend's letter will help her ludicrous and unfair situation as well as that of some other constituents who continue to feel that they are blighted, notwithstanding the announcement of the line of the widening scheme.
    Secondly, there is the question of the continuance of the 200 m notification requirement on the planning authority for prospective purchasers. I can understand why that was necessary until the line of the widening scheme was announced, but I was dismayed to receive an answer from my hon. Friend on 18 December in which he said that the notification procedure would continue until the scheme was implemented. That will continue to blight properties well away from the widening scheme for some years to come. I urge him to reconsider his policy on notification in the context of the scheme.
    My third point relates to noise from the motorway. In my view, this section of motorway—perhaps because I drive on it more than most—is as bad and as noisy a section of motorway as I have found anywhere in the country. It is of a ribbed, concrete surface which gives off more than the usual volume of noise. I hope that my hon. Friend will assure me that the opportunity of the widening scheme will be taken to bring about a significant noise reduction programme along this section of the M20, including a replacement of the existing ribbed concrete surface by a black top surface.
    My fourth point relates to noise during the construction period. As I have said, this section runs almost entirely through a residential area. I hope that my hon. Friend will assure me that when construction commences strict

    1289
    restrictions will be placed on the contractors so that construction is limited to normal working hours and there is no weekend working.
    My fifth point relates to the construction timetable. Now that the line of the widening scheme has been announced, I hope that it will be carried out as quickly as possible, not least because constituents who are facing a reduction in the value of their homes will be unable to claim injurious affection compensation until one year after the widening has been brought into operation.
    The timetable of the scheme seems to have slipped steadily. I have a letter of 31 May 1989 from Mr. Springett of the Department of Transport in which he said:
    "The Department hopes that the widening will be completed in time for the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1993."
    Two years later I had an answer from my hon. Friend the Minister for Roads and Traffic in which he said:
    "Recent experience of other widening schemes suggests that construction could start by 1995 with completion two years later."—[Official Report, 3 June 1991; Vol. 192, c. 54.]
    In other words, between those two indications of timetable, which are two years apart, there has been no less than a four-year delay. If my hon. Friend's latest answer is the correct one, it means that no injurious affection compensation would become payable to my constituents until 1998.
    That degree of delay is unacceptable to my constituents. More significant for my hon. Friend with his ministerial responsibilities, it is unacceptable in national transport terms. The section of motorway, particularly at junction 3 of the M20, is of great national significance. As my hon. Friend will be aware, all the channel tunnel road traffic from East Anglia, the midlands, the north, the west, the south-west and the south coast using the motorway system will converge on junction 3 and proceed from there to the channel tunnel.
    If my hon. Friend continues to allow the widening scheme to delay to the extent that he appears willing to accept, there is a serious danger of a traffic shambles on this section of the M20 almost as soon as the channel tunnel opens. Therefore, I hope that my hon. Friend will look immediately at the timetable for the scheme and I urge him to bring forward the implementation date to the earliest possible, certainly well before 1995.
    What about the 286 houses which are now in the Department of Transport's ownership? As I have said to my hon. Friend, and in correspondence with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State, the management of those houses has been far from satisfactory. Many of the houses have been vacant, squatters have moved in, and properties have been subject to poor maintenance and remote management from Eastbourne. Those factors have made it that much more difficult for people in the surrounding areas to sell their houses.
    What is the Department's policy towards those houses? Will they be sold or will they be rented on a permanent basis, and if so, to whom? The critical thing is that the temporary nature of the occupancy of those homes must be ended as quickly as possible. We are talking about what were once settled, stable communities and they want to revert to that pattern. I hope that my right hon and learned Friend and my hon. Friend will give the highest priority to re-establishing homes along this section of the M20 that are under permanent tenure, whether they are owned outright, rented or under shared ownership.
    1290
    Permanence is the key factor in bringing back stability and, I hope, a reasonable degree of tranquillity to the estates.
    I am sorry to have offered my hon. Friend such a barrage of criticism of his Department. If my hon. Friend had faced, in his constituency, the dismay and distress of so many of my constituents, caused by the Department of Transport, I am confident that he would make a speech no less critical of the Department than my own.
    2.51 pm
    The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Christopher Chope): I acknowledge the genuine concern of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley) on behalf of his constituents. No group of people can ever find it easy to tolerate a major road building scheme in their area. This particular scheme has been the subject of a lot more difficulty and delay than either I or the Department would have wished.
    When the scheme was included in the 1989 White Paper, "Roads for Prosperity", it was part of the Government's expanded roads programme, which covered a large number of schemes. When one is announcing additions to the roads programme, it is impossible, even with the best will in the world, to guarantee that one knows exactly the time in which all of those additions will be built.
    First, one announces an addition to the roads programme and then one must obtain the advice of consultants through competitive tender. One then considers their advice as to the best way in which to implement the proposals.
    When the White Paper was published, the Department hoped that the widening of junctions 5 to 8 and of junctions 3 to 5 would be able to proceed together, according to the same timetable. That is why the letter written to my right hon. Friend's constituent at the end of May 1989 cited a certain timetable.
    My right hon. Friend knows better than anyone about the complexity of widening the motorway from three lanes to four in this constrained part of the M20, which runs between built-up areas. Unfortunately, when the consultants considered the proposal it became immediately apparent that it would not be possible to deal with the widening of junctions 3 to 5 on the same time scale as that for the widening between junctions 5 and 8. That is part of the background to the delay.
    My right hon. Friend regrets the expenditure incurred in purchasing many houses, but he was at the forefront in campaigning for the Government to make their arrangements sufficiently flexible to allow them to purchase those houses and thereby tackle the blight that any new road scheme causes. If the blight period had been shorter, we might have had to acquire fewer houses, but I suspect that, having acquired so many houses already, we shall now have to acquire fewer under the extended powers, to which I referred my right hon. Friend in answer earlier today.
    I am not saying that if we had been able to act more quickly there would not have been so much blight or over such a long period, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will understand that there was no malice aforethought. The proposal was included in the roads programme. The original strategy was to widen the M20 in time for the opening of the channel tunnel, but, unfortunately, that did not prove possible.

    1291
    My right hon. Friend will know that the missing link in the M20 has been completed. The widening between junctions 5 and 8 is under way and should be completed for the opening of the tunnel.
    My right hon. Friend referred to the section 62 powers and welcomed the revised guidance. I understand that he has not had time to consider each case, but one of the most important features of the new guidance is that it enables the Department to acquire properties before construction. Previously, property could be acquired between when blight first occurred and when proposals were announced in detail, and there was a period between then and the start of works when it was not possible to acquire property. I hope that that gap has been filled by the new powers that we have taken in the Planning and Compensation Act 1991. We shall use the guidelines that I have announced today to implement that.
    The 200 m requirement and notification is not Government policy. The Law Society and local authorities agreed that local authorities should be required to reveal the existence of proposals to widen the M20 between junctions 3 and 5 in response to searches by prospective purchasers of properties within 200 m of the scheme, until widening is implemented. I understand my right hon. Friend's concern that that might be thought to be harsh on those seeking to sell their properties, but it is done in accordance with an agreement with the Law Society, no doubt for the protection of potential purchasers. Constituents of my right hon. Friend who found out a day after they had completed that they had moved into a property within 200 m of a road widening scheme would be none too pleased that it had not been drawn to their attention beforehand. My right hon. Friend asked me to reconsider the policy, but it is not the Department's policy. I have no control over it; it is a matter between the Law Society and local authorities.
    I am well aware of the noise from the road surface between junctions 3 and 5 of the M20. Part of the surface between junctions 4 and 5 was recently topped with bitumen. At the exhibition of the widening proposals held in October, some residents said that they thought that it had reduced the noise whereas others said that it had exacerbated it. That bears out the research undertaken by my Department which shows that there is a different type of noise from concrete surfaces compared with that from bitumen surfaces. The volume of the noise is similar, but the pitch is different and that may affect different people in different ways, depending where their house or property is situated.
    We are talking about an on-line widening without the need to remove all the existing carriageway. If we proceed on that basis and if the existing carriageway is strong enough to take the new road, a proper surface—a bitumen surface—would be laid. The widened road would be of bitumen rather than of concrete. If, however, it proved necessary for all of the existing carriageways to be taken up and reconstructed, in accordance with its usual policy, the Department would invite competitive bids from contractors for either a concrete or bitumen-surfaced road.
    I assure my right hon. Friend that whether there is ultimately a concrete or bitumen-surfaced road, the road will be constructed to a very high standard and the most
    1292
    modern noise attenuation measures will be included in the scheme. I cannot give any guarantees about noise during construction, because there must be a balance between the need to build a road such as this as quickly as possible and the legitimate concern of people living close to the road that they should not be disturbed by construction noise at anti-social times. We must consider that aspect in much greater detail. I cannot give any assurances today, but the Department and the contractors are well aware of the effect of construction on residents and they will deal with it as sympathetically as possible.
    On the construction timetable, I share my right hon. Friend's frustration at the potential further delay before the scheme can be brought to fruition. I shall certainly inquire whether we can improve the speed of the proposed timetable, but the biggest uncertainty is that associated with the potential need for public inquiries into objections raised to compulsory purchase orders to acquire the additional land and for the necessary orders to enable the widened road to be constructed.
    As my right hon. Friend knows, there is nothing certain about the way in which an inquiry will go, about the time it will take an inspector to consider the evidence or about the conclusions that he will reach. Again, I cannot give any guarantees, but when I gave my last reply to which my right hon. Friend referred, I did so taking account of the average time it takes to design a scheme, to take the detailed proposals to the necessary inquiry and to proceed beyond that.
    All this is subject to the necessary resources being available, but, as my right hon. Friend said, the improvement of the road links to the channel tunnel is a very high political priority for the Government. I assure him that the road will be a high priority scheme and will be proceeded with as quickly as possible.
    As my right hon. Friend knows, I have been concerned about the quality of the management of the 286 houses, and from 1 April this year there will be a new arrangement under which any new houses acquired after that date will not automatically go the housing assocation that has managed the existing houses. That is because of concerns which we have expressed openly to the housing association about the quality of management. It has improved significantly and I would be interested to hear of the extent to which my right hon. Friend thinks that it is still lower than it should be.
    The Department feels that there is a need for competition to be introduced. That will lead to even higher standards of management and I hope that it will prove beneficial for my right hon. Friend's constituents. The length of time that it will take to resell the houses that we do not need must be the subject of discussion and negotiation. My right hon. Friend will understand what the impact would be if all the houses were suddenly placed on the open market, let alone the implications for the tenants now occupying them.
    The first of the tenancy agreements expires in June this year. Some of them have been on a two-year basis, and some of the more recent agreements on a one-year basis. We shall have to prepare a strategy, which we shall discuss with the local council, for the future plans for the houses that we own. We do not want to own more houses than is absolutely necessary. Those houses properly belong in the private sector and the sooner they can be returned there, in an orderly fashion, the better.

    1293
    I hope that I have answered some of the questions raised by my right hon. Friend, who makes no apology for having raised the subject again after some 14 months. I hope that he understands—although he might not agree with it—my explanation that the Department is very conscious of the adverse effects that such road schemes have on people living close by, and it may have erred on the side of generosity in acquiring so many houses. That was largely because my right hon. Friend was keen to
    1294
    encourage the Department to acquire them. Now that we have done so, we need to get rid of the ones that we do not need as soon as possible.
    We wish to bring the scheme to fruition quickly so that the uncertainty, blight, noise and the other general adverse effects can be brought to an end as soon as possible.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at six minutes past Three o'clock.

EMPLOYMENT

  Virus Research
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will place in the Library a summary of the procedures that are now required to be implemented by employers for the protection of employees working in HIV and hepatitis B virus research laboratories and production facilities in England and Wales.

  Mr. Forth
  Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, employers are required to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of their employees and others who may be affected by their activities. In addition, under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988 employers are required to carry out a risk assessment for all activities which are likely to expose any employee to any substance hazardous to health, including pathogenic micro-organisms, and to introduce appropriate precautions commensurate to the risk.

  Table 1

  Estimates of the number of unemployed in EC countries annual averages

  (thousands)

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  Belgium

  487

  496

  463

  463

  447

  390

  328

  302

  Denmark

  247

  237

  199

  156

  158

  184

  222

  238

  Germany

  1,921

  1,988

  2,012

  1,796

  1,770

  1,747

  1,603

  1,482

  Greece

  —

  —

  —

  287

  286

  304

  297

  281

  Spain

  —

  —

  —

  2,910

  2,917

  2,813

  2,512

  2,407

  France

  1,912

  2,314

  2,424

  2,474

  2,500

  2,375

  2,265

  2,189

  Ireland

  200

  221

  239

  240

  239

  230

  208

  202

  Italy

  1,970

  2,097

  2,189

  2,420

  2,373

  2,535

  2,498

  2,316

  Luxembourg

  5

  5

  4

  4

  4

  3

  3

  3

  Netherlands

  702

  711

  603

  616

  651

  609

  571

  535

  Portugal

  —

  —

  —

  383

  321

  266

  240

  224

  United Kingdom

  2,894

  2,954

  3,124

  3,161

  2,908

  2,411

  2,037

  2,033

  Source: EUROSTAT "unemployment" bulletins

  Table 2

  Unemployment Rates, Annual Averages

  1975

  1976

  1977

  1978

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  Belgium

  5·0

  6·4

  7·4

  7·9

  8·2

  8·8

  10·8

  12·6

  12·5

  12·5

  11·6

  11·6

  11·4

  10·0

  8·4

  7·7

  Denmark1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  9·3

  8·7

  7·2

  5·6

  5·7

  6·5

  7·8

  8·2

  Germany

  3·6

  3·7

  3·6

  3·5

  3·2

  2·9

  4·2

  5·9

  6·9

  7·1

  7·1

  6·3

  6·2

  6·1

  5·5

  5·1

  Greece

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  7·4

  7·4

  7·7

  7·5

  7·0

  Spain

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  21·1

  20·4

  19·3

  17·1

  16·1

  France

  4·0

  4·4

  4·9

  5·2

  5·9

  6·3

  7·4

  8·1

  8·2

  9·8

  10·2

  10·3

  10·4

  9·9

  9·4

  9·1

  Ireland

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  15·2

  16·8

  18·2

  18·2

  18·0

  17·4

  16·0

  15·6

  Italy

  5·8

  6·6

  7·0

  7·1

  7·6

  7·5

  7·8

  8·4

  8·8

  9·3

  9·6

  10·5

  10·2

  10·8

  10·7

  9·8

  Luxembourg1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3·5

  3·1

  2·9

  2·6

  2·6

  2·1

  1·8

  1·7

  Netherlands

  5·2

  5·5

  5·3

  5·3

  5·4

  6·0

  8·5

  11·4

  12·4

  12·3

  10·5

  10·2

  10·0

  9·3

  8·7

  8·1

  Portugal

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  8·2

  6·8

  5·6

  5·0

  4·6

  United Kingdom

  4·3

  5·6

  6·0

  5·9

  5·0

  6·4

  9·8

  11·3

  11·0

  11·0

  11·4

  11·4

  10·4

  8·5

  7·1

  7·1

  1 OECD standardised rates are not available for Denmark. Luxembourg and Greece.

  There are no OECD figures available prior to 1983 for Ireland.

  2 There are no reliable figures available as yet for the unified Germany, the figures quoted relate to the former West Germany.

  Sources:

  EUROSTAT "Unemployment" bulletins for 1983–1990 rates.

  OECD "Quarterly Labour Force Statistics" for 1975–1982 rates.
  652
  To assist employers with these provisions, guidance has been published for the protection of employees working in HIV and hepatitis B virus research laboratories and production facilities. The guidance is contained in "Categorisation of pathogens according to hazard and categories of containment" and "HIV—the causative agent of AIDS and related conditions" prepared by the Health and Safety Commission's Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens. Copies of the document will be placed in the Library.

  Unemployment
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the level of unemployment in the original EC Six countries as a whole each year since 1962, in the EC Nine as a whole after 1973, and in the EC Twelve as a whole since 1986, both in numbers and as a percentage of their total work force.

  Mr. Jackson
  The following two tables provide the extent of the readily available information:

  (i) estimates of the annual average numbers of unemployed for the years 1983 to 1990 produced by the Statistical Office of the European Community (SOEC). Comparable estimates of numbers unemployed are not available on a monthly basis;

  (i) internationally comparable unemployment rates produced by SOEC from 1983–1990. Similar standardised rates, produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), are available from 1975. These have been provided for the years 1975 to 1982.

  Contaminated Syringes
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, if he will introduce regulations to require contaminated syringes stored in a primary container in health treatment premises to be placed in a secondary container if leakage is possible during handling, storage, transport or shipping.

  Mr. Forth
  My right hon. and learned Friend, the Secretary of State, does not consider it necessary to introduce regulations so specific as to cover this matter. Adequate guidance regarding the handling, storage, transport and shipping of contaminated syringes is provided in the publication "The safe disposal of clinical waste" published by the Health and Safety Commission's Health Services Advisory Committee, which was revised in 1991.

  This document provides employers in all health care premises with the necessary information for them to comply with their legal obligations under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988 (the COSHH regulations) which involve risk assessment and the provision of adequate controls to guard against exposure to infection for both workers and the public.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Severe Disability Premium
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his reply at 2 July 1991,Official Report, column 121, if he will make a statement on the likely date of the conclusion of the appeal relating to the severe disability premium awarded to Miss M. Hunt of Perry Barr, Birmingham, Ref 401: 33209.

  Miss Widdecombe
  On 7 January 1992 the Social Security Commissioner gave, with the consent of all interested parties, an interim decision to award the severe disability premium in respect of the period from 11 April 1988 to 8 October 1989. A copy of the decision was issued to all parties on 13 January 1992. The Commissioner has postponed the further decision for the period 9 October 1989 onwards until the House of Lords has given its decision in another case.

  Hours of Work
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many claimants in 1991 with a physical or mental disability who received income support were working for(a) more than 24 hours a week, under regulation 6 of the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 and (b) working for between 16 and 24 hours.

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

  Disability
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether lifetime awards of attendance allowance and mobility allowance will be reconsidered by adjudication officers under the Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Act 1991.
  654
  Mr. Scott
  Awards of attendance allowance for people aged under 65 and mobility allowance will be replaced by awards of disability living allowance—DLA—from 6 April 1992. Life awards of DLA and attendance allowance for those aged over 65 will not be reviewed by adjudication officers unless the person expressly applies for a review of the award of either or both components, or, in exceptional circumstances, where information comes to light which gives the adjudication officer reasonable grounds to believe that entitlement is either too low or too high.

  Medical Evidence
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate total annual cost to social security claimants of providing medical evidence required by the social security appeals procedures which is not provided under the national health service.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Department's general policy is to provide medical evidence for Social Security claimants free of charge where this is required by the appeals system.

  Cold Weather Payments
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the weather stations which have recorded temperatures triggering cold weather payments in each week in 1992.

  Mr. Scott
  The administration of the social fund is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

TRANSPORT

  Lorry Speed Limits
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his estimate of the costs to British businesses of the European proposal of a 50 mph speed limit on lorries.

  Mr. Chope
  The costs for some vehicle operators would have been substantial. In the event the Transport Council decided upon a speed limiter setting of 90 km/h—56 mph—for heavy goods vehicles. This will increase some journey times, although there will be offsetting fuel savings.

  Motorway Accidents
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what research has taken place into accidents on motorways caused by motorists falling momentarily asleep.

  Mr. Chope
  Research has been carried out by the university of Loughborough in this country and by various institutions overseas.

  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what contact his Department has with his opposite numbers in the European Community and the United States of America on research into motorists falling momentarily asleep whilst driving on motorways.
  655
  Mr. Chope
  My Department has regular contact with other countries to discuss all aspects of road safety and research.

  Bus Priority Schemes
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will undertake to review the criteria for Transport supplementary grant funding of bus priority schemes.

  Mr. Freeman
  Consultations will shortly begin with the local authority associations about the transport policies and plans circular for 1992–93. The references in the circular to bus priority schemes and their eligibility for transport supplementary grant and credit approval will be covered in these consultations.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consultations he has had concerning the funding of bus priority schemes.

  Mr. Freeman
  I recently chaired a working group comprising the Bus and Coach Council, the local authority associations, the police, bus manufacturers and the National Federation of Bus Users during which the funding of bus priority schemes was discussed. The group endorsed the statement I made on 16 December announcing the provision of at least £10 million over the next two years to fund specific local authority bus schemes.

  Pavements
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps his Department is taking to monitor the provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1990 with respect to the condition of pavements.

  Mr. Chope
  On 31 December 1991 my Department wrote to local authority associations and other interested organisations to consult them about draft regulations and a draft non-statutory code of practice on various aspects of the arrangements for inspection of undertakers' street works. The draft code of practice was prepared by a joint committee of local authorities' and undertakers' representatives.

  Utilities' Street Works
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consultations he has had with representatives of local authorities concerning procedures for carrying out the inspection of utilities' street works.

  Mr. Chope
  I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the street works provisions of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991. These provide, in sections 71 and 139, for reinstatements of the street, including pavements, following street works to comply with prescribed specifications of materials and standards of workmanship. The Government have commissioned consultants to advise on appropriate arrangements for monitoring the effects of the Act.

  Speed Limits
  Mr. Onslow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to issue revised advice on the criteria to be applied for road speed limits in villages and semi-rural areas.
  656
  Mr. Chope
  Consultation with interested bodies on revisions to the criteria for setting speed limits will take place within the next week few weeks, with a view to issuing the revised criteria as soon as possible thereafter.

  Severn Tunnel (Accident)
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his assessment of the effect of drying out of a length of self-healing cable on its usefulness to the railways inspectorate inquiry into the Severn tunnel accident on 7 December.

  Mr. Freeman
  The cable in question was stored at British Rail's laboratory at Reading for as long as was necessary to arrange a programme of tests, which would identify possible faults without causing further damage or concealing evidence of other problems. Storage of the cable for any length of time in laboratory conditions could cause the latex-like insulation on the individual wires in the cable to reseal, so tests were conducted as soon as possible with both British Rail and HM railway inspectorate engineers being present. The tests have now been successfully completed.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will instruct the railways inspectorate to make available immediately to(a) the British Rail national inquiry and (b) independent inspection the length of self-healing cable from signal box 164 suspected to be part of the cause of the signalling failure which may have led to the accident in the Severn tunnel on 7 December.

  Mr. Freeman
  The accident is being investigated both internally by British Rail and independently by the Health and Safety Executive's HM railway inspectorate. The cable in question has now been examined in detail by engineers from both organisations working together in a British railways laboratory.

  Network SouthEast
  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) pursuant to his reply to the right lion. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing on 19 December,Official Report, column 239, when he expects the individual objectives for all 15 of the Network SouthEast route groups to be set under the British Rail passengers charter; and who will be the judge and against what criteria as to whether the service delivered falls significantly short of published standards.

  (2) whether he has set the new performance standards for the Kent coastal services in 1992 that his hon. Friend the Minister for Public Transport said in the House on 12 December, Official Report, column 1143, that he would be setting from 1 January; and whether he will publish those standards.

  Mr. Freeman
  The individual performance targets for each of the 15 route groups of Network SouthEast and the related compensation arrangements will be set out in the BR passengers charter shortly. Monitoring of performance already occurs and the targets will apply from January 1992.

  Job Applicants (Expenses)
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport in what circumstances his Department is willing to pay reasonable travelling expenses for applicants to attend job or recruitment board interviews; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  My Department pays reasonable travelling expenses to applicants for many jobs in the Department. For clerical and secretarial posts, recruitment tends to be from the local area, with less need to pay travelling expenses.

  Channel Tunnel
  Mr. Trotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress has been made in ordering the trains for the north of London daytime passenger services through the channel tunnel.

  Mr. Freeman
  The seven train sets needed for the north of London daytime channel tunnel services were ordered by the railways on 18 December 1991.

  Vehicle Excise Duty
  Mr. Stevens
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the implementation report of the 1990 efficiency scrutiny of vehicle excise duty enforcement will be available.

  Mr. Chope
  I have today placed copies of the scrutiny implementation report in the Libraries of both Houses. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has made good progress in putting into practice the 28 main recommendations. The number of VED evaders caught and penalised through out-of-court settlements has increased by more than 30 per cent. over the past two years and 420,000 offenders will be brought to book in the present financial year. Further efficiency benefits currently under development will be included in a follow up report to be produced in 12 months' time.

  Road Schemes
  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he will be issuing for consultation the criteria he proposes to use in exercising his discretionary power under section 62 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 to acquire property which is seriously affected by his Department's road schemes; and whether he expects to make the criteria public before the end of 1991.

  Mr. Chope
  [pursuant to his reply, 21 November 1991,c. 237.]: My right hon. Friend will use the new power of earlier and wider acquisition to alleviate hardship by buying off-line property which in his opinion is suffering from serious "blight by proximity". Until now property not likely to be needed for a scheme could be acquired only if conditions during construction or after road opening would be intolerable. Acquisition will be from as early as the announcement of the preferred route. Each case will be considered on its merits, but as a guideline we would normally expect qualifying properties to lie within about 100 m of the centre of the road.

  The other guidelines are as follows:

  (a) Where it would be intolerable for the occupier to remain in the property during works or once the
  658
  road is open the vendor must show that he has made reasonable efforts to sell. The property must have been on offer for at least 20 weeks at a reasonable price and have been impossible to sell other than at a price substantially lower than that for which it might have been expected to be sold but for the scheme. Normally the difference should amount to not less than 5 per cent.

  (b) Therre are a variety of reasons why a vendor might need to move without delay, and where they appear cogent, they should be accepted. In the case of owner occupiers of dwellings guidelines set out the following main types of reason which should be accepted:

  (i) acquisition of a job outside reasonable commuting distance when unemployed (what is reasonable under this and the next head will vary with the circumstances, including the means of the individual);

  (ii) acquisition of a different job outside reasonable commuting distance (it is undesirable for blight to impede job mobility);

  (iii) need to move for medical reasons, including need to look after an elderly relative in a different sort of house;

  (iv) need to provide for growing family (primarily to be considered in relation to bedrooms—it is undesirable for growing children of different sexes to share);

  (v) need to realise assets, perhaps because of serious financial difficulties or dissolution of marriage.

PRIME MINISTER

  Oxleas Wood
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Prime Minister when he last visited Oxleas Wood, south-east London; and if he will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  I have not visited Oxleas Wood.

  European Union
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 13 January,Official Report, column 470, concerning the inclusion in the draft treaty of European union of a reference to the role and significance of European parties, when he expects to receive a draft formulation from the presidency; when he expects to lay this before Parliament; and what is the objective of the provision.

  The Prime Minister
  The Portuguese presidency has proposed the following draft treaty article:"Political parties at European level are important as a factor for integration within the Union. They contribute to forming a European awareness and to expressing the political will of the citizens of the Union".

  Discussion is continuing in Brussels as to where this article should appear in the treaty. This is one of a number of technical points which will be settled before signature in early February. The text of the treaty will be published in the normal way after signature.

  Advisory Council on Science and Technology
  Dr. Bray
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the current members of the Advisory Council on Science and Technology; if he will give the date of their original appointment; and what is the date on which their current term of office will end.
  659
  The Prime Minister
  The current members of the advisory Council on Science and Technology are as listed. In addition, the chief scientific adviser, Cabinet Office, Professor William Stewart, attends council meetings. Departmental chief scientists/scientific advisers are also invited to attend most meetings.

  Name

  Date of original appointment

  Appointment ends

  Sir Robin Nicholson (Chairman) Executive Director, Pilkington plc

  July 1990

  July 1993

  Professor Roy Anderson Department of Pure & Applied Biology Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine

  July 1989

  July 1992

  Professor Sir Michael Atiyah President, The Royal Society

  July 1991

  July 1994

  Professor Michael Brady Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford

  July 1990

  July 1993

  Lord Chilver Chairman, Universities Funding Council

  May 1989

  1n/a

  Dr. Peter Doyle Director of Research and Technology, Imperial Chemical Industries plc

  July 1989

  July 1992

  Mr. Ian Harvey Chief Executive, British Technology Group

  July 1989

  July 1992

  Mr. Keith Henry Chief Executive, Brown and Root Ltd

  July 1991

  July 1994

  Sir Graham Hills Past Principal of University of Strathclyde

  July 1987

  2 July 1993

  Dr. Nigel Home Head of IT Practice, KPMG Management Consulting

  July 1990

  July 1993

  Professor Christopher Llewellyn Smith, Chairman of Physics, University of Oxford

  July 1989

  July 1992

  Professor Leonard Maunder Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  July 1987

  July 19932

  Professor Sir David Phillips Chairman, Advisory Board for the Research Councils

  July 1987

  1n/a

  Professor Gareth Roberts Vice Chancellor, University of Sheffield

  July 1989

  July 1992

  Sir Alfred Shepperd Former Chairman and Chief Executive, Wellcome plc

  July 1989

  July 1992

  Dr. David Smith Consultant

  July 1987

  2 July 1993

  Dr. William Wilkinson Deputy Chief Executive, British Nuclear Fuels plc

  July 1990

  July 1993

  Sir Martin Wood Deputy Chairman, Oxford Instruments Group plc

  July 1990

  July 1993

  1 Lord Chilver and Professor Sir David Phillips are ex-officio members in their capacities as chairman of the Universities Funding

  660
  Council and Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils respectively.

  2 Members in their second term.

  Staff Salaries
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the number of those employed in his office, their position and the salary range in each case, excluding secretarial and clerical staff.

  The Prime Minister
  The number of those currently employed in my office excluding Secretarial and clerical staff and paid from public funds are:—

  Positions Held

  Grade

  1 Principal Private Secretary

  Grade 2

  1 Private Secretary—Overseas Affairs

  Grade 3

  1 Private Secretary—Economic Affairs

  Grade 5

  1 Private Secretary—Parliamentary Affairs

  Grade 7

  1 Private Secretary—Home Affairs

  Grade 7

  1 Secretary for Appointments

  Grade 5

  1 Chief Press Officer

  Grade 3

  1 Deputy Chief Press Officer

  Grade 5

  1 Policy Adviser

  Grade 3

  1 Policy Adviser

  Grade 5

  1 Security Co-ordinator

  Grade 7

  2 Assistant Private Secretaries

  SEO

  1 Parliamentary Clerk

  HEO

  5 Special Advisers

  —

  3 Senior Information Officers

  —

  4 Higher Executive Officers

  —

  11 Executive Officers

  —

  It is not our practice to reveal the salaries of individual advisers as they are individually negotiated in relation to previous outside earnings and are therefore confidential. The rest are paid in accordance with the civil service pay scales.

  Televisions
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Prime Minister how many television sets there are at 10 Downing street; and how many television licences are held for 10 Downing street.

  The Prime Minister
  Nineteen television sets are currently in use at 10 Downing Street. No licence fees are payable for television sets on Crown property used for Government purposes.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Research Councils
  Dr. Bray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list the current members of(a) the Medical Research Council, (b) the Science and Engineering Research Council, (c) the Economic and Social Research Council, (d) the Natural Environment Research Council, (e) the Agriculture and Food Research Council and (f) the Advisory Board for the Research Councils; if he will give the date of their original appointment; and if he will detail the date on which their current terms of office will end.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The information is as follows:
  661

  Medical Research Council

  Members

  Date of original appointment

  Date term of office ends

  Sir David Plastow (Chairman)

  October 1990

  September 1994

  Dr. D. A. Rees FRS

  October 1987

  July 1995

  Professor I. V. Allen

  August 1989

  July 1993

  Professor D. T. Baird

  September 1989

  July 1993

  Mr. R. Bauman

  November 1990

  July 1994

  Professor C. L. Berry

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Professor M. Bobrow

  November 1988

  July 1994

  Dr. K. C. Caiman

  January 1989

  —1

  Sir Michael Carlisle

  November 1991

  July 1995

  Dr. J. T. Carter

  July 1983

  July 1995

  Dr. P. Doyle

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Professor C. R. W. Edwards

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Professor J. G. Evans

  January 1992

  July 1995

  Professor R. E. Kendell

  October 1991

  —1

  Sir Aaron Klug FRS

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Emma Nicholson MP

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Professor M. Peckham

  January 1991

  —1

  Professor G. K. Radda FRS

  November 1988

  July 1992

  Professor Sir Michael Rutter CBE FRS

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Professor Sir Joseph Smith

  November 1988

  July 1992

  Science and Engineering Research Council

  Members

  Date of original appointment

  Date term of office ends

  Sir Mark Richmond FRS (Chairman)

  October 1990

  September 1995

  Professor P. Burke FRS

  August 1989

  July 1993

  Dr. R. F. Coleman CB

  June 1987

  July 1994

  Dr. D. A. Davis

  August 1989

  July 1993

  Professor A. Donnachie

  August 1989

  July 1993

  Mr. G. Fairtlough

  August 1989

  July 1993

  Dr. K. W. Gray CBE

  September 1991

  July 1995

  Professor R. E. Hester

  July 1990

  July 1994

  Sir Gordon Higginson FEng

  August 1989

  July 1993

  Professor C. Humphreys

  August 1988

  July 1992

  Dr. S. D. Iverson

  September 1991

  July 1995

  Dr. A. Ledwith

  February 1990

  July 1993

  Dr. J. S. Mason

  July 1990

  July 1994

  Mr. D. P. Nash

  August 1988

  July 1992

  Professor R. Oxburgh FRS

  September 1988

  July 1992

  Professor J. T. Stuart FRS

  August 1989

  July 1993

  Dr. J. O. Thomas FRS

  July 1990

  July 1994

  Professor D. J. Wallace FRS

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Professor A. W. Wolfendale FRS

  August 1988

  July 1992

  Economic and Social Research Council

  Members

  Date of original appointment

  Date term of office ends

  Professor H. J. Newby (Chairman)

  October 1988

  September 1992

  Dr. D. Anderson

  September 1989

  July 1993

  Professor M. Anderson

  August 1990

  July 1993

  Professor J. M. Ashworth

  September 1989

  July 1993

  Professor J. Beaumont

  September 1989

  July 1993

  Mr. M. Bichard

  September 1989

  July 1992

  Mrs. E. J. Filkin

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Nigel Forman MP

  August 1991

  August 1995

  Mr. J. Fox

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Miss C. Hancock

  August 1991

  August 1995

  Professor D. Hargreaves

  August 1991

  August 1995

  Professor A. Hay

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Professor L. C. Hunter CBE

  September 1989

  July 1992

  Professor D. Kavanagh

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Mr. H. Liesner

  December 1989

  July 1992

  Professor S. J. Nickell

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Mr. G. T. Pepper

  December 1989

  July 1993

  Professor D. K. Stout

  March 1989

  July 1992

  Mrs. M. Tuck CBE

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Professor P. Warr

  September 1989

  July 1992

  662 663

  Natural Environment Research Council

  Members

  Date of original appointment

  Date term of office ends

  Professor J. L. Knill (Chairman) FEng

  October 1988

  September 1993

  Dr. P. J. Bunyan

  July 1991

  —1

  Professor W. G. Chaloner FRS

  August 1991

  July 1994

  Lord Chorley

  August 1988

  July 1994

  Dr. R. F. Coleman CB

  June 1987

  —1

  Professor C. D. Curtis

  August 1990

  July 1993

  Dr. W. D. Evans

  December 1989

  —1

  Dr. D. J. Fisk

  September 1987

  —1

  Dr. I. J. Graham-Bryce

  August 1989

  July 1992

  Professor J. S. Gray

  August 1986

  July 1992

  Professor M. P. Hassell FRS

  August 1991

  July 1994

  Professor B. J. Hoskins FRS

  August 1988

  July 1994

  Professor P. S. Liss

  August 1990

  July 1993

  Professor J. G. Ramsay FRS

  August 1989

  July 1992

  Professor D. A. Ritchie

  August 1990

  July 1993

  Mr. D. G. M. Roberts CBE

  August 1987

  July 1993

  Dr. O. Rogne

  August 1990

  July 1993

  Professor J. I. Sprent

  August 1991

  July 1994

  Professor S. A. Thorpe FRS

  August 1991

  July 1994

  Professor D. Wood

  August 1987

  July 1993

  Agricultural and Food Research Council

  Members

  Date of original appointment

  Date term of office ends

  Sir Alistair Grant (Chairman)

  September 1990

  August 1995

  Professor T. L. Blundell FRS

  January 1991

  December 1995

  Dr. P. J. Bunyan

  January 1990

  —1

  Professor E. C. D. Cocking FRS

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Professor J. R. Coggins

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Professor J. M. M. Cunningham CBE

  April 1987

  May 1993

  Sir Sam Edwards FRS

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Dr. D. A. Evans

  October 1989

  July 1992

  Mr. D. F. R. George

  October 1989

  July 1992

  Mr. B. Gill

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Mr. L. P. Hamilton CB

  May 1984

  —1

  Professor R. M. Hicks

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Professor G. Horn FRS

  August 1991

  July 1995

  Roger Knapman MP

  January 1991

  July 1994

  Professor J. R. Krebs FRS

  November 1988

  July 1995

  Professor C. J. Leaver

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Professor T. A. Mansfield FRS

  October 1989

  July 1992

  Mr. J. L. C. Provan

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Mr. G. T. Pryce

  June 1986

  July 1994

  Dr. D. W. F. Shannon

  September 1986

  —1

  Professor W. V. Shaw

  August 1990

  July 1994

  Advisory Board for the Research Councils

  Members

  Date of original appointment

  Date terms of office ends

  Professor Sir David Phillips FRS (chairman)

  January 1983

  March 1993

  Professor Sir Eric Ash CBE FRS FEng

  January 1989

  March 1992

  Professor T. Blundell FRS2

  January 1991

  September 1995

  Dr. A. S. Ganguly

  May 1991

  March 1994

  Professor R. L. Gardner FRS

  April 1990

  March 1992

  Professor M. Hart FRS

  April 1990

  March 1993

  Professor J. L. Knill2 FEng

  October 1988

  September 1993

  Sir Mark Richmond FRS2

  October 1990

  September 1995

  Professor H. J. Newby2

  October 1988

  September 1992

  Dr. D. A. Rees FRS2

  October 1987

  —

  Professor I. A. Shanks

  April 1990

  March 1993

  1 Not more than four members of the Medical Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council and Science and Engineering Research Council are appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science on the nomination of such Ministers of the Government as the Secretary of State shall determine. Up to four members of the Agriculture and Food Research Council are appointed by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and up to two members by the Secretary of State for Scotland. With the exception of the Science and Engineering Research Council, in the case of members who are officials of Government Departments their length of office is not specified.

  2 Ex-officio members.

  664

  Ecstasy
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he has taken to inform drugs education co-ordinators and teachers about ecstasy, its symptoms and its harmful effects.

  Mr. Atkins
  We believe that health (formerly drugs) education co-ordinators are generally well-informed about the nature and effects of ecstasy, and are briefing teachers as necessary. It is not the Department's normal practice to distribute information on particular drugs, but we should be prepared to consider doing so if a need became apparent.

  Education Reform
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list those he has consulted regarding(a) changes to GCSE coursework requirements, (b) the plans for further education in the Further and Higher Education Bill, (c) the plans for the schools inspectorate in the Education (Schools) Bill and (d) the plans for higher education in the Further and Higher Education Bill.

  Mr. Eggar
  My right hon. Friend consulted the School Examinations and Assessment Council (SEAC), which has access to the advice of examining bodies and teachers, on changes to GCSE coursework requirements.

  The plans for further education underlying part I of the Further and Higher Education Bill were set out in the White Paper "Education and Training for the 21st Century" (Cm 1536). This contained an open invitation to interested parties to comment.

  The plans for school inspection were set out in the parents charter, which also contained an open invitation to comment. In addition, the Department of Education and Science wrote to local education authorities and relevant national bodies inviting comments on the inspection proposals. A full list is attached to the Department's letter of 2 October, a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House.

  The plans for higher education underlying part II of the Further and Higher Education Bill were set out in the White Paper "Higher Education: a New Framework" (Cm. 1541). Although the White Paper did not itself invite comments, the Government have since consulted higher education institutions and their representatives on various aspects of the new framework, as foreshadowed by the White Paper.

  Mexico (Ministerial Visit)
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the purpose of his recent visit to Mexico; who accompanied him in any official capacity; and what was the total cost to the Exchequer for him and those with him.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  My visit was in response to an invitation from the Mexican Government. The Mexican Government are giving very high priority to the modernisation of their education system and they wished to share our experience of education reform particularly our policies to raise standards and improve efficiency in post-school education and training. I was also able to assist British suppliers of educational goods and services to 666
  benefit from this expanding market. I had meetings with President Salinas and with the Foreign Secretary and the Education Secretary of the Mexican Government and with several state governors.

  I was accompanied by a departmental private secretary and a senior official of my department. The breakdown of our costs for the visit is as follows:

  —Transport to Mexico and within Mexico: £9,739

  —Accommodation and subsistence in the British Embassy and in hotels: £487

  —Other costs: £453

  I was also accompanied for part of the trip by three British businessmen who covered their own costs.

  Great Britain Sports Council
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the current number of staff employed by the Great Britain Sports Council; and what additional numbers of staff over this number he has assumed in proposing a separate Sports Council for England and the United Kingdom Sports Commission.

  Mr. Atkins
  A total of 542 staff are currently employed by the GB Sports Council. I see no case for additional staff to be employed as a result of its re-structuring.

  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will publish a table setting out the present functions of the Great Britain Sports Council, together with an indication of(a) which of these functions will be carried out solely by the proposed United Kingdom Sports Commission, (b) which of these functions will be carried out solely by the proposed Sports Council for England, (c) which of these functions will be jointly carried out by the proposed United Kingdom Sports Commission and the proposed Sports Council for England and (d) which functions of the proposed United Kingdom Sports Commission and the proposed Sports Council for England are not currently undertaken by the Great Britain Sports Council.

  Mr. Atkins
  The functions of the Great Britain Sports Council are set out in general terms in its Royal Charter. Annexes A and B of "Sport and Active Recreation" published in December set out the functions of the United Kingdom Sports Commission and the Sports Council for England respectively. These are based on the functions of the Great Britain Sports Council.

  School Playing Fields
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science, further to his answer of 13 January,Official Report, column 455, if he will make it his policy to request and consider responses to his consultation letter on the disposal of school playing fields from the Sports Council, the Central Council of Physical Recreation, the National Playing Fields Association and the regional councils for sport and recreation before announcing the conclusions of his consultation exercise on this matter.

  Mr. Atkins
  All these organisations have been sent copies of the consultation letter for information and are free to comment before any announcement is made on the conclusions of this consultation exercise.

  Sport Policy
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science, further to his written answer of 13 January,Official Report, column 454, and the publication of his review of Government sports policy, what calculations he made as to the likely cost of the additional offices required for a separate United Kingdom sports commission.

  Mr. Atkins
  As I made clear in my written answer of 13 January,Official Report, column 454, the United Kingdom Sports Commission and the Sports Council for England will be funded from within the provision made available for the Great Britain Sports Council. The size and location of offices required as a result of this re-structuring will be a matter for discussion with the Great Britain Sports Council and its successor bodies.

  Primary Education
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science on what date he received the report from Professor Alexander, Mr. Rose and Mr. Woodhead on primary education.

  Mr. Fallon
  My right hon. and learned Friend expects shortly to receive the report he commissioned from Professor Alexander, Mr. Rose and Mr. Woodhead. When it is published it will be placed in the Library.

  Virus Research
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will pulish a list of all HIV and hepatitis B virus research laboratories and production facilities in England and Wales.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The main Government agency for funding medical research in this country is the Medical Research Council. Its latest handbook for 1991 gives details of the location of the research which it supports. A copy has been placed in the Library.

  Publicly funded medical research is also conducted in universities and through the health authorities and health Departments. Information on such research and on research undertaken by companies and the medical research charities is not collected centrally.

  Funding Councils
  Mr. Anthony Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of Stale for Education and Science what senior appointments he expects to make to the Further Education Funding Council for England and the Higher Education Funding Council for England to be established under the Further and Higher Education Bill[Lords].

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Subject to the passage of the Further and Higher Education Bill, we intend to make the following appointments.

  For the Further Education Funding Council for England:

  Chairman: Mr. Robert Gunn, former Chairman of the Boots Company plc; and

  Chief Executive: Dr. William Stubbs, currently Chief Executive of the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC).

  For the Higher Education Funding Council for England:
  668

  Chairman(as already announced): Sir Ron Dearing, currently Chairman of the PCFC; and

  Chief Executive: Professor Graeme Davies, currently

  Chief Executive of the Universities Funding Council.

  These will be strong teams to help steer the two new councils in funding the effective expansion of both further and higher education.

  In advance of these appointments, Dr. Stubbs will he seconded to the Department to help prepare for the new further education funding arrangements. Professor Davies is therefore being appointed also as chief executive of the PCFC.

  Open University
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what consideration is given in allocating funds to the Open university, to the teaching and learning difficulties encountered in remote and scattered rural areas.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The Government recognise the special role of the Open university in serving those living at a distance from other higher education institutions. The Government continue to support the Open university and has funded 3,000 additional undergraduate places at the university in 1992.

  The funds given to the Open university are not earmarked to particular areas. However, the university has a commitment to make its services available to those living in all parts of the United Kingdom.

  Funding
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make it his policy to provide an equal level of funding for each school pupil; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Fallon
  The schools component of standard spending assessments (SSAs) is already largely based on pupil numbers, but with an allowance, equivalent to about 20 per cent. of standard spending for schools, for the additional cost of educating pupils in areas of relative deprivation and for the relatively high labour costs of London and the south east. Authorities are not bound by SSAs, but are free to make their own decisions about total spending on schools and the distribution of funding between schools and between pupils, subject to the current LMS requirement that at least 75 per cent. of funds delegated to schools must be distributed with reference to pupil numbers. My right hon. Friend welcomes indications that LEAs are beginning to take action to narrow the gap between spending levels per pupil in the primary and secondary phases.

  Primary Schools
  Mr. Knox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the pupil/teacher ratio in primary schools in Staffordshire in each of the past three years.

  Mr. Fallon
  The "within school" pupil:teacher ratio (PTR) in primary schools in Staffordshire Local Education Authority, for each of the past three years, is given in the following table.
  669

  Staffordshire local education authority

  Pupil: teacher ratio1

  1989

  1990

  1991

  Primary Schools2

  23·0

  23·3

  23·1

  1 Excludes nursery schools.

  2 Based on qualified teachers only in schools.

  Key Stage One Tests
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will publish the information relating to the attainment of children in key stage one tests in English, mathematics and science, and in all three subjects combined, ranking local authorities by attainment in their area at level three.

  Mr. Eggar
  The following table ranks LEAs' combined English, mathematics and science results of the 1991 tests of seven-year-olds by the proportion of pupils attaining level three. The other information requested can be derived from the tables at annex B of the full report placed in the Library of the House on 19 December.

  Key Stage 1 Assessment

  LEA Ranking

  LEA

  Percentage at Level 3

  Bromley

  26

  Haringey

  26

  Harrow

  24

  Richmond upon Thames

  24

  Merton

  23

  Barnet

  22

  Camden

  22

  Hackney

  21

  Sutton

  21

  West Sussex

  21

  Wirral

  21

  Gloucestershire

  20

  Hertfordshire

  20

  Isle of Wight

  20

  Rotherham

  20

  Surrey

  20

  Hillingdon

  19

  Kensington and Chelsea

  19

  Kirklees

  19

  Lewisham

  19

  Redbridge

  19

  Solihull

  19

  Westminster

  19

  Brent

  18

  Buckinghamshire

  18

  East Sussex

  18

  Enfield

  18

  Hampshire

  18

  North Yorkshire

  18

  Nottinghamshire

  18

  Wandsworth

  18

  Avon

  17

  Cheshire

  17

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  17

  Shropshire

  17

  Waltham Forest

  17

  Warwickshire

  17

  Wiltshire

  17

  Bedfordshire

  16

  670

  LEA

  Percentage at Level 3

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  16

  Croydon

  16

  Doncaster

  16

  Hereford and Worcester

  16

  Islington

  16

  Manchester

  16

  Norfolk

  16

  Somerset

  16

  St. Helens

  16

  Stockport

  16

  Trafford

  16

  Wolverhampton

  16

  English, Mathematics and Science combined

  LEA

  Percentage at Level 3

  Barking and Dagenham

  15

  Berkshire

  15

  Cambridgeshire

  15

  Cumbria

  15

  Devon

  15

  Dorset

  15

  Essex

  15

  Gateshead

  15

  Northamptonshire

  15

  Northumberland

  15

  Sheffield

  15

  South Tyneside

  15

  Derbyshire

  14

  Durham

  14

  Ealing

  14

  Greenwich

  14

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  14

  Liverpool

  14

  North Tyneside

  14

  Oldham

  14

  Oxfordshire

  14

  Sefton

  14

  Southwark

  14

  Tameside

  14

  Wigan

  14

  Havering

  13

  Hounslow

  13

  Humberside

  13

  Kent

  13

  Leeds

  13

  Leicestershire

  13

  Lincolnshire

  13

  Suffolk

  13

  Coventry

  12

  Kingston upon Thames

  12

  Bury

  11

  Calderdale

  11

  Rochdale

  11

  Bexley

  10

  Birmingham

  10

  Bolton

  10

  Cleveland

  10

  Knowsley

  10

  Salford

  10

  Sandwell

  10

  Wakefield

  10

  Dudley

  9

  Lancashire

  9

  Newham

  9

  Sunderland

  9

  Walsall

  8

  671

  LEA

  Percentage at Level 3

  Barnsley

  7

  Staffordshire

  6

  Bradford

  5

  Total England

  15

ENVIRONMENT

  Loft Insulation
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what percentage of housing stock has loft insulation.

  Mr. Yeo
  It is estimated that over 90 per cent. of the dwellings in Great Britain with accessible lofts have loft insulation.

  Local Government Commission
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the estimate of the annual costs of the local government commission when it is fully operational.

  Mr. Key
  Provisional expenditure figures for the Local Government Commission will be published shortly in the departmental report.

  Housing Courts, Nottingham
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has had with Nottingham city council regarding the use of housing tribunals or housing courts to process actions against bad neighbours and neighbour nuisance; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  None.

  Urbanisation and Human Settlement
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he has any plans to consider the issue of human settlement in the preparatory work undertaken by his Department for the forthcoming United Nations conference on environment and development;

  (2) what proposals Her Majesty's Government has for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development for addressing the issue of urbanisation and human settlement generally.

  Mr. Baldry
  Early United Nations meetings concerned with drawing up the agenda for UNCED took little account of urban development and human settlements. However the United Kingdom and the other member states of the EC successfully argued that the subject should be dealt with as a major cross-sectoral issue. The secretariat's proposals to be presented to the final preparatory committee in March are expected to reflect the views put forward by the EC.

  Royal Parks
  Mr. Gould
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what initial screening of companies seeking to tender for the maintenance of any of the royal parks took place on grounds of a horticultural quality threshold or the company's financial position;

  (2) what account he has taken of the experience of individual local councils who have awarded horticultural contracts to a prospective tendering company, in drawing up short lists for maintenance of the royal parks.

  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: Companies wishing to tender for garden and landscape maintenance work in the royal parks were asked to complete a pre-tender questionnaire providing details of their company finances and their contracts. This information, together with assessments of the horticultural quality of their current work by site visits and the financial viability of each company, was then considered in drawing up a short list of tenderers for each park. The experience of individual local authorities has been a relevant factor in drawing up these short lists of tenderers for garden and landscape work in the royal parks.

  Mr. Gould
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will disqualify any contractors proposing staffing levels signficantly below the minimum staffing levels for maintenance recommended in the 1989 consultants' report from bidding for the maintenance contract of St. James's park.

  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: No. But my Department has satisfied itself that the chosen contractor will employ enough skilled and unskilled operatives to tend the gardens and grounds to our high standards—and indeed to improve on our present standards in certain respects.

  Environment Policy
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what contribution he made towards the "Manual of Environmental Policy: The EC and Britain."

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: This Department contributed £12,000 towards the Institute for European Environmental Policy's costs in researching the material for this publication.

HEALTH

  Low Income Benefit Scheme
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the cost to his Department of administering the national health service low income scheme for health benefits.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The NHS low income scheme is administered by the Department of Social Security on behalf of the Department of Health, on a repayment basis. Figures are available only for the three years 1989–90, 1990–91 and 1991–92. The repayments for those years have been £8·107 million, £7·180 million and £5·137 million respectively.

  Gene Therapy
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will present to Parliament the report of the Committee on the Ethics of Gene Therapy; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The Government yesterday laid before the House the report of the Committee on the Ethics of Gene Therapy (Cm. 1788).

  The Committee was chaired by Sir Cecil Clothier KCB, QC. The Government are grateful to Sir Cecil and the members of this eminent committee for producing a clear and comprehensive report on a scientifically complex subject.

  The committee's main conclusions and recommendations are:

  Gene therapy offers for the first time in many genetic disorders the prospect of effective treatment and cure. It also has other possible clinical applications. Before introduction into medical practice it must be ethically acceptable and shown to be so.

  Gene therapy raises no new ethical principle but the familiar issues which attend the introduction of any new medical procedure are heightened because of the special qualities of the genetic make-up of individuals. The Committee believe that, all gene therapy treatments should initially be regarded as research and be governed by the existing requirements which already apply in the United Kingdom to research involving human subjects. This is an important safeguard for the patient.

  Gene therapy should be directed to the alleviation of genetic disease in individual patients. It should not be used to change or enhance normal human traits.

  A new expert supervisory body should be established to provide scientific and medical advice on matters germane to the safety and efficacy of human gene modification, and its use. This supervisory body should work in conjunction with local research ethics committees when proposals for gene therapy are made.

  Because there is insufficient knowledge to evaluate the risk to future generations, genetic modification of reproductive cells, or the germ cells which give rise to them, should not at present be attempted.

  As the report says, gene therapy offers for the first time the prospect of effective treatment and cure in many genetic disorders. In such an important and sensitive area, Ministers believe that those with an interest—both professional and lay people—should be given an opportunity to respond to the committee's recommendations. We have therefore decided to consult widely on the committee's report and would welcome comments from organisations and individuals. The Government will decide what steps to take once these views are available. The consultation period will end on 18 May 1992.

  It is not expected that proposals for gene therapy will be made in the immediate future; but it is judged prudent to make arrangements for handling any proposals that may be made before substantive arrangements are in place. Accordingly the Committee on the Ethics of Gene Therapy has been asked to remain in being.

  Copies of the report have been placed in the Library and I am arranging for copies to be available in the Vote Office.

  Fluoridation
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will issue a definitive circular on fluoridation.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The fluoridation of water supplies is a matter for local decision. Procedural guidance was issued 674
  to health authorities in 1987, HC(87)18, a copy of which is available in the Library. There are no plans to issue any further guidance at present.

  Ecstasy
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what guidelines the chief medical officer has issued to consultants and general practitioners on how best to treat those suffering from the use of ecstasy and similar drugs;

  (2) what advice has been given to general practitioners on how best to warn patients on their lists of the risks of illness and death from ecstasy and similar drugs.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Department has recently published updated "Guidelines on Clinical Management of Drug Misuse and Dependence", a copy of which is available in the Library. These are being circulated to every doctor in England, Scotland and Wales. The guidelines include information for doctors on the problems associated with use of ecstasy and similar drugs and recommend a range of treatments for these problems.

  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research he is funding into the medical and psychological effects of use of ecstasy and similar drugs.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Exploratory work is being undertaken by a group of doctors at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Maudsley hospital to determine the possible adverse effects of ecstasy. The Department is keeping a watching brief on this and is aware of some interest in this area among other drug researchers.

  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of illness due to use of ecstasy and similar drugs have been reported by month during 1990 and 1991.

  Mr. Dorrell
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Health Workers (Infections)
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will introduce legislation to require surgeons and dental surgeons to wear masks in combination with eye protection devices whenever splashes, spray, spatter or droplets of blood or other potentially infectious materials may be generated and eye, nose or mouth contamination can be reasonably anticipated;

  (2) if he will place in the Library a summary of those requirements that employers are required to meet to protect their employees who work in hospital premises from being infected with blood or other potentially infectious materials;

  (3) if he will introduce legislation to increase protection for employees working in health premises who have contact with laundry contaminated with blood or other potentially infectious materials;

  (4) if he will introduce legislation to ensure that all health employees who carry out phlebotomies at volunteer blood donation centres are required to wear gloves when (a) the employee has cuts, scratches or other breaks in his or her skin, (b) the employee judges that hand contamination with blood may occur and (c) the employee is receiving training in phlebotomy.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Legislation on health and safety at work is the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.
  675
  All employers have legal obligations under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work for all their employees, and to ensure that persons not employed, but who may be affected by their undertakings, are not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

  Employers are also required by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 1988, to carry out a risk assessment for all activities which are likely to expose any employees to any substance hazardous to health, including pathogenic microorganisms.

  A range of guidance and codes of practice, published by the Health Departments, the Health and Safety Executive, and by health service professional associations, is available to employers and employees to help ensure appropriate standards of hygiene and minimise the risk of any spread of infection as a result of clinical activities. I would refer the hon. Member particularly to the booklet, published in January 1990 by the UK health departments through HMSO, entitled "Guidance for Clinical Health Workers: Protection Against Infection with HIV and Hepatitis Viruses". A copy of this booklet is available in the Library,

  There are no plans for legislation to cover separately the matters referred to by the hon. Member.

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Wolfson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the results of energy management schemes in the national health service over the last 10 years; and what energy efficiency targets have been set for the next five years.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The National Health Service is currently saving £68 million a year through improved energy management. The cumulative savings from this source released to improved patient care in the past 10 years amounts to £379 million. The NHS is committed to achieving further savings of 15 per cent. over the five years from April 1991 as part of the Government's continuing energy efficiency campaign.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make an immediate announcement on the declarations of interest in trust status submitted by the Churchill hospital and the acute services in Oxford.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  I am currently considering a number of possible configurations for trusts in Oxford. My decision will be made public in due course.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will announce a freeze on pending trust applications until after the general election.

  Mr. Dorrell
  There is no intention of freezing the trust programme. The health service reforms are al ready producing benefits to patients and we wish to see the national health service building on the progress already established.

  Cook-chill Catering
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which district health authorities and trusts have cook-chill systems of hospital catering; and which regional health authorities have a region wide policy of cook-chill catering in hospital.

  Mr. Dorrell
  This information is not held centrally. It is a matter for district health authorities and trusts to use catering systems that they consider meet their requirements of quality within their available resources.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will make it his policy to amend the terms and conditions of contract of services for general practitioners to include the provision that medical evidence is supplied free to all claimants where this is submitted in relation to a claim for social security benefits;

  (2) what measures are in hand to consolidate and review the national health service General and Medical and Pharmaceutical Regulations; and if he will bring forward proposals to make it mandatory that all medical evidence needed by social security claimants in support of their benefit claims is available free.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Where medical evidence is expressly required under Social Security legislation to establish entitlement to a particular benefit, GPs are obliged to provide it free of charge to their NHS patients. Such certificates are listed in the National Health Service (General Medical and Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 1974. This obligation will be preserved intact in these regulations which are currently being consolidated.

  Social Security Benefits (Hospital Patients)
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action he is taking to ensure that hospital patients are made aware of any social security benefits to which they may be entitled.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Hospital-based social workers often advise hospital patients about how to claim social security benefits. In addition, depending on local arrangements, hospital staff may sometimes perform this function.

  Mental Health Act
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance is issued to health authorities and trusts with regard to involving the police in returning to hospitals patients subject to compulsory detention under the Mental Health Act 1983 who have absconded.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The code of practice issued under the Mental Health Act 1983 states (at paragraph 21.4) that the hospital should always inform the police if a dangerous or restricted patient absconds. Section 18 of the Act also authorises police officers to detain such patients and return them to hospital.

  Medical and Pharmaceutical Services
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library the second draft of National Health Service (General Medical and Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 1992.
  677
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Once the regulations have been made they will be published and made available to hon. Members in the usual way.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Africa (Assistance)
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much financial support is given to African countries by members of the development assistance committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the most recent available information.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Net official development assistance to Africa were as follows:

  Donor

  US$ million

  Australia

  76·27

  Austria

  47·35

  Belgium

  220·16

  Canada

  514·23

  Denmark

  293·43

  Finland

  252·13

  France

  3,388·55

  Germany

  1,342·41

  Ireland

  12·44

  Italy

  1,208·70

  Japan

  1,206·02

  Netherlands

  552·31

  New Zealand

  0·88

  Norway

  312·90

  Sweden

  534·39

  Switzerland

  167·75

  United Kingdom

  697·89

  United States

  1,853·00

  Total

  12,650·79

  Source OECD.

  Rainforests
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the impact of World bank funded projects for soya bean production on south American rainforests.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The World bank has not funded projects for soya bean production in South America apart from one in Bolivia which was partly concerned with changing the use of existing agricultural land to soya bean production. An overall aim of this project is to develop sustainable agriculture on existing agricultural land, one effect of which would be to reduce pressures for further encroachment into the forest areas.

  Know-How Funds
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the contributions made to date, and planned under the know-how funds for central and eastern Europe; and if he will make a statement on those countries not yet in receipt of the fund.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Expenditure under the fund in 1989–90, 1990–91 and commitments to date in 1991–92 by country are as follows:678

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  Poland

  2·3

  10·9

  11·5

  Hungary

  n/a

  1·6

  6·1

  Czechoslovakia

  n/a

  2·0

  6·4

  Ex-German Democratic Republic

  n/a

  0·5

  n/a

  Bulgaria

  n/a

  n/a

  1·3

  Romania

  n/a

  n/a

  1·3

  Baltic States/Former Soviet Union

  n/a

  n/a

  10·0

  Our total budget for 1991–92 is £36 million which, allowing for a small amount of slippage, we expect to spend in full. The budget for 1992–93 has been increased to £46 million which again we hope to spend in full.

  We have no plans at present to extend the fund to any further countries.

  Czechoslovakia
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the projects and amount of Government aid which have been given to Czechoslovakia since 1989.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Under the know-how fund, which was extended to Czechoslovakia in March 1990, we provided some £2 million in 1990–91 and expect to spend up to £6 million in 1991–92. For details of the projects supported I refer to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) on 18 June 1991 at column 93. Additional activities agreed since then are as follows:

  Financial services and macroeconomic advice

  Title: Assistance for Privatisation.

  Description: A team of privatisation advisers from Ernst and Young, Schroders and Denton Hall are advising on privatisation policy and implementation.

  Status: An ongoing programme of assistance of which the latest phase has just been agreed.

  Cost: £738,000.

  Title: Training courses for the State Bank.

  Description: Courses on banking procedures run by the Bank of England.

  Status: Underway.

  Cost: £10,000.

  Title: Training on bank-lending, credit analysis and credit control.

  Description: Six two week courses on the basic principle and skills involved in lending decision making and credit control for staff of various Czechoslovak banks.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £100,000.

  Title: Banking Training Adviser.

  Description: An adviser to be based at the Prague offices of the State Bank to advise on training needs, policies and programmes for all banks in Czechoslovakia.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £50,000.

  Title: Assistance to the Slovak General Credit Bank.

  Description: A short training programme to raise the level of ability in international banking operations at the Slovak General Credit Bank.

  Status: Underway.

  Cost: £38,000.

  Title: Assistance to Obchodni Bank.

  Description: A treasury management specialist to advise on

  679
  the organisation and staffing of the Obchodni Bank's treasury department.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £60,000.

  Title: Assistance to the Slovak State Insurance Company.

  Description: A five day course, by the Chartered Insurance Institute's College of Insurance, on management development.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £5,000.

  Title: Assistance to the insurance sector.

  Description: Advice on the restructuring of the Slovak State Insurance Company.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £185,000.

  Title: Assistance to Komercni Bank.

  Description: Advice on international trade finance.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £27,000.

  Title: Assistance to Prague Stock Exchange.

  Description: A training programme by the London Stock Exchange in conjunction with D. C. Gardner, for members of the newly established Stock Exchange in Prague.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £50,000.

  Title: Assistance to the Prague and Bratislava Stock Exchanges.

  Description: Advice to the organisers of the Stock Exchange in Prague and the one in Bratislava.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £100,000.

  Title: Assistance to Investicini Bank.

  Description: A treasury management specialist to advise on the organisation and staffing of the bank's treasury department.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £85,000.

  Title: Assistance to Agrobanka.

  Description: A short-term consultancy to advise on corporate strategy and organisation.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £20,000.

  Title: Training for Slovak Securities Market.

  Description: A training course for Securities Market intermediaries.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £50,000.

  Title: Assistance to Slovak General Credit Bank. Description: A programme of training for members of the newly established fund management subsidary. Status: Under way.

  Cost: £130,000.

  Title: Voucher Privatisation—Secondary Market Study.

  Description: A study to analyse existing resources to cover the privatisation programme.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £150,000.

  Employment services

  Title: Training of trainers in labour market assessment and analysis.

  Description: A training course for Job Centre managers and directors, organised by the Department of Employment, in labour market assessment and analysis.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £12,000.

  Title: Seminar on employment and training policy.
  680
  Description: A two day seminar on training needs in a restructuring economy, organised by the Department of Employment.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £8,000.

  Title: Management training in the employment sector.

  Description: Training courses run by the Department of Employment for Job Centre Directors and their deputies.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £4,000.

  Title: Industrial Relations.

  Description: A visit to the United Kingdom by officials from the Federal and Republic Ministries to discuss industrial, employment and trade union policy.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £5,500.

  Title: Assistance with health and safety at work.

  Description: Three projects run by the Health and Safety Executive for Czech and Slovak Labour Inspectors, and officials from the Office of Occupational Safety and the Occupational Safety Research Institute.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £23,000.

  Management training and small business advice

  Title: Assistance to small business development. Description: Pilot project by B'nai B'rith to advise existing small businesses on how to utilise their potential.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £40,000.

  Title: Management training development.

  Description: A distance learning package on management training, developed by the Open University in conjunction with the City University of Bratislava.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £220,000.

  Title: Enterprise Education Seminars.

  Description: A three day seminar by Department of Employment officials and leading representatives from the business/education world to explain the concepts of enterprise education with a view to implementing longer term programmes of assistance.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £12,500

  Title: Management training and development programme.

  Description: A three part programme of training and consultancy aimed at strengthening the capacity of selected management training institutions, management trainers and senior managers.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £740,000.

  Title: Enterprise Europe placement programme Description: Placement programme for selected young Czechoslovak managers with small firms in Britain.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £25,000.

  Title: Industrial training programme

  Description: Programme of attachments to United Kingdom firms for some 40 Czechoslovak managers organised jointly by the CBI and the British Council.

  Status: To be Implemented

  Cost: £200,000

  Environment/Energy
  681
  Title: Environmental Liaison Centre.

  Description: The establishment of an umbrella organisation for various non-governmental environmental bodies.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £42,000.

  Title: Training for Natural Gas Buyers:

  Description: A short training programme, organised by British Gas; on the purchasing of gas on the open market for Czech and Slovak natural gas buyers.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £10,500.

  Title: Pricing and restructuring the electricity industry.

  Description: Provision of advice and assistance to the Czechoslovak government on the implementation of changes to their electricity sector.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £32,000.

  Title: Restructuring the coal industry.

  Description: An initial visit to determine the requirements of the Czech government in respect of their restructuring programme in the coal indus-try.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £4,000.

  Title: Retraining in the coal sector.

  Description: A study visit to the United Kingdom, organised by British Coal Enterprises.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £8,500.

  Title: Restructuring the coal industry.

  Description: A 2–3 week consultancy by British Coal Enterprises to advise the OKD enterprise on the establishment of a job creation and outplacement subsidiary.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £25,000.

  Title: Assistance to the Water Research Institute.

  Description: A programme of assistance by the United Kingdom Water Research Centre to improve management of water resources, waste water, environmental engineering and science.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £20,000.

  Education, ELT, Publishing and Broadcasting

  Title: Assistance to Slovak TV.

  Description: To ascertain requirements for organisational changes at Slovak TV.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: 1,500.

  Title: Assistance to the Czech Bar Association.

  Description: To advise on the establishment of a specialist legal publishing house.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £15,000.

  Title: Assistance to Barrandov Film Studios.

  Description: To ascertain the requirements for improving management structure in readiness for privatisation of the studios.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £1,800.

  Title: Assistance to Slovak Television.

  Description: A restructuring programme.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £35,000.

  Public Administration/Local Government

  Title: Assistance to Federal and National Statistics Offices.

  Description: A programme of assistance involving secondments to the United Kingdom and visits to
  682
  Czechoslovakia by specialists from the United Kingdom Governmental statistical services.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £54,000.

  Title: Assistance to local government.

  Description: A three year programme of assistance, through the Institute of Local Government Studies, to help the Czechoslovaks in their local government reform programme.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £383,000.

  Political projects

  Title: Placement scheme for officials from the Czech and Slovak Ministries of Justice.

  Description: A one month long placement scheme on commercial law organised by Queen Mary and Westfield College.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £3,000.

  Title: Assistance for Czechoslovak parliamentarians.

  Description: A seven day seminar, organised by the Great Britain/East Europe Centre, on all aspects of parliamentary practices and procedures for 12–14 newly elected parliamentarians from the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £15,000.

  Title: Assistance to the Czechoslovak News Agency.

  Description: A programme of placements with United Kingdom media organisations for four key personnel of the Czechoslovak News Agency.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £3,000.

  Title: Assistance to ZTS Martin.

  Description: A pilot project to advise on quality improvement and stock reduction.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £40,000.

  Other projects

  Title: Information Technology.

  Description: An appraisal mission to identify the needs in this sector with a view to providing some form of assistance.

  Status: Completed.

  Cost: £15,000.

  Title: Information Technology.

  Description: Two seminars designed to help information technology decision makers to understand key issues in the building of information systems.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £45,000.

  Title: Restructuring State farms.

  Description: A pilot project to advise the Czech Ministry of Agriculture and the Vlasim State farm to make the transformation to a market based operation.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £150,000.

  Title: Seeds Course.

  Description: A training course for officials and technical experts in production and marketing of agricultural and horticultural seeds.

  Status: To be implemented.

  Cost: £65,000.

  Title: Agricultural Land Management.

  Description: The preparation of an initial study to advise on the best ways to create and manage a system of private ownership, occupation and use of

  683
  agricultural and other rural land.

  Status: Under way.

  Cost: £50,000.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Fire Precautions
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to amend the Fire Precautions Act 1971 to bring into scope all premises other than domestic dwellings; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  Certain hotels, boarding houses, factories, offices, shops and railway premises currently require a fire certificate by virtue of designation orders made under section 1 of the Fire Precautions Act 1971. We have no plans to designate further premises as requiring such certificates.

  We intend, however, to bring forward regulations to implement the fire safety requirements of the European Community Directives 89/391/EEC and 89/654/EEC relating to the health and safety of workers at work. These will generally apply to every place in which one or more persons work and will take effect on 1 January 1993.

  Prisons
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is to be the policy of transfer of prison inmates from privately run prisons to state run prisons; who will decide when such a transfer is to take place; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Wolds remand prison will hold only unsentenced prisoners. On their receiving custodial sentences, Wolds prisoners will be taken directly from court to the appropriate local prison. Blakenhurst prison is to be a local prison, holding both sentenced and unsentenced prisoners. Arrangements for the transfer to other prisons of sentenced prisoners held at Blakenhurst will be set out in the invitation to tender which is in preparation.

  Dog Fighting
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there have been in each of the last 10 years for illegal dog fighting; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  Information collected centrally does not distinguish offences relating to dog fights from other offences under the Protection of Animals Act 1911.

  Criminal Injuries Compensation
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) of 20 December 1991,Official Report, column 351, whether the new level of eligibility for criminal injuries compensation under the criminal injuries compensation scheme will apply to all cases irrespective of the date of the injury for which compensation is sought; and if he will
  684
  make an estimate of the number of claims that will be disallowed annually as a result of the change in minimum award level.

  Mr. John Patten
  The new lower limit for eligibility for compensation under the criminal injuries compensation scheme will apply to all applications received by the board on or after 6 January 1992, irrespective of the date of the injury that led to the application.

  It is estimated that up to an additional 6,000 applications will be excluded by the new lower limit in a full year. However, the old lower limit will apply to all applications received by the board before 6 January 1992.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he intends to reply to the letters of the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East of 17 September 1991 concerning crime prevention in Bolton and 21 October 1991 concerning help for the disabled by his Department; and if he will update his note entitled "Action Against Crime."

  Mr. John Patten
  I wrote to my hon. Friend about crime prevention in Bolton on 15 January. My hon. Friend also wrote to me on 13 January requesting an up to date copy of the note "Action Against Crime". "Action Against Crime" is updated regularly. I have arranged for a copy of the latest version to be sent to my hon. Friend, and a copy is placed in the Library of the House.

  My hon. Friend also asked when he could expect a reply to his letter to my right hon. Friend of 21 October. We can reply only in respect of actions as an employer of people with disabilities and I or my right hon. Friend will do so shortly.

  Ecstasy
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps are being taken to control rave parties and young people's clubs where ecstasy use is likely.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The police have adequate powers to deal with parties of this sort, including common law powers to deal with a breach of the peace or public nuisance. In addition, the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act 1990 has significantly increased the penalties for people convicted of providing music without a licence, where one is required, or being in breach of the condition of such a licence. Any law breaking on such premises, including the misuse of drugs, will of course be dealt with by the police.

  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many deaths from use of ecstasy and similar drugs were recorded for each of the past five years and for that part of 1991 for which statistics are available.

  Mr. John Patten
  The number of deaths mentioning dependence, abuse or poisoning with MDMA—"ecstasy"—and similar drugs registered in England and Wales are as follows:
  685

  Number of deaths registered

  England and Wales

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  11990

  31991

  Deaths attributable to: MDMA (ie ecstasy) or MDA

  —

  —

  1

  3

  1

  2

  Amphetamine (not further described)

  3

  3

  1

  2

  2

  8

  Other hallucinogens

  —

  1

  —

  2

  —

  2—

  Deaths which also mention the above in combination with other drugs

  4

  4

  4

  2

  2

  2—

  Total

  7

  8

  6

  9

  5

  2—

  Source: Office of Population Censuses and Surveys.

  1 Provisional.

  2 Not available.

  3 Figures for 1991 only include deaths registered up to September 1991. Deaths of this nature result in an inquest thus delays of registration of up to one year may occur.

  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what reports of ecstacy use have been identified by local teams operating within the drugs prevention initiative.

  Mr. John Patten
  Fourteen of the 16 local drugs prevention teams have received such reports concerning MDMA—"Ecstasy".

  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information about the drug ecstasy has been passed to police forces in order to assist analysis of material which has been seized and to pass warning information on to those in contact with potential users.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Drugs seized by police forces are sent to the Forensic Science Service, or in the case of the Metropolitan police, their own laboratories, who have the necessary expertise to identify them.

  With regard to the provision of warning information for those in contact with potential users, I will write to my hon. Friend separately.

  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is being done through the Pompidou group of European countries to control and reduce the international trade in ecstasy and similar drugs and in the chemicals used to make them.

  Mr. John Patten
  The report of the G7 chemical action task force adopted by the London Economic summit in July 1991, recommended that the four main precursors used in the manufacture of MDMA—"ecstasy"—should be brought under control. This recommendation is being implemented in the European Community by an amendment to Council (EEC) Regulation 3677/90 and a draft Council directive, which are currently before the Council. The Pompidou Group will hold an expert meeting in March to consider how this and the other task force recommendations can be implemented most effectively at the wider European level; and I have asked the British representative in the Pompidou Group to ask the group to consider what further measures might be taken to curb the international trade in this and similar drugs.

  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been done to inform local drugs prevention initiative teams about ecstasy, its symptoms and its harmful effects.

  Mr. John Patten
  Each local team has been provided with a copy of "Drug abuse briefing", issued by the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence, which 686
  includes information about the symptoms and harmful effects of a wide-range of drugs, including MDMA—"ecstasy".

  Mental Health Act
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance is issued to police authorities with regard to police involvement in returning to hospital patients subject to compulsory detention under the Mental Health Act 1983 who have absconded.

  Mr. John Patten
  Section 18 of the Mental Health Act 1983 provides that where a patient who is liable to be detained in hospital absents himself without leave, he may be taken into custody and returned to the hospital by certain authorized persons, including any police constable. Home Office circular No. 35/1986—"Consolidated Circular to the Police on Crime and Kindred Matters." which was issued to all police forces on 30 December 1986, drew attention to this provision. Further information about it was contained in a memorandum on the 1983 Act issued by the Department of Health and Social Security in 1983.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East will receive a reply to his letter of 19 November 1991 concerning Mr. Twomey, prison number 5W 859.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I wrote to the hon. Member on 23 December.

  Extradition
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his policy on seeking extradition of nationals of another country with which the United Kingdom has no extradition agreement for prosecution in connection with offences committed outside that country.

  Mr. John Patten
  Such requests are very rare but can be made in respect of offences over which the United Kingdom has jurisdiction if it is considered to be in the interests of justice to do so.

  Police Complaints Authority
  Mr. Dickens
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his Department has considered an application for an exhibition relating to the Police Complaints Authority to be displayed in the Upper Waiting Hall.
  687
  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I understand that, under procedures agreed by the Services Committee, arrangements have been made with the authorities of the House for the exhibition to be held in the Upper Waiting Hall from 16 to 20 March.

  Visas
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many people have applied in each of the last five years for visitors visas in(a) Bombay, (b) New Delhi, (c) Culcutta, (d) Dakha, (e) Karachi and (f) Islamabad; how many applications have been refused; and what is the percentage refused.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I have been asked to reply.

  The available information is given in the table.

  Persons applying for a visit visa to the United Kingdom 1987–1991

  Number of persons/percentages

  Newly received

  Refusals1

  Refusals1 as percentage of decisions

  Bombay

  1987

  40,660

  1,100

  3

  1988

  40,500

  1,420

  4

  1989

  41,030

  2,420

  6

  1990

  42,700

  4,870

  11

  1991 (Jan-Sept)

  33,120

  4,460

  13

  New Delhi

  1987

  38,700

  3,610

  10

  1988

  40,910

  4,440

  11

  1989

  45,620

  5,190

  12

  1990

  50,650

  7,400

  16

  1991 (Jan-Sept)

  37,240

  3,100

  10

  Calcutta

  1987

  7,240

  90

  1

  1988

  6,910

  110

  2

  1989

  7,780

  130

  2

  1990

  7,570

  140

  2

  1991 (Jan-Sept)

  5,890

  120

  2

  Dhaka

  1987

  8,790

  1,660

  21

  1988

  10,320

  1,940

  20

  1989

  11,330

  2,390

  22

  1990

  11,260

  2,680

  25

  1991 (Jan-Sept)

  8,620

  1,740

  21

  Karachi

  1987

  25,270

  2,130

  9

  1988

  25,510

  2,590

  11

  1989

  26,530

  2,620

  10

  1990

  28,750

  3,070

  11

  1991 (Jan-Sept)

  18,440

  1,980

  11

  Islamabad

  1987

  31,590

  5,230

  18

  1988

  30,270

  6,560

  22

  1989

  36,420

  6,690

  19

  1990

  43,190

  9,830

  24

  1991 (Jan-Sept)

  35,460

  9,420

  29

  1 Refusals after subtracting applications granted on appeal.

  Poll Tax
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many people have been summonsed for poll tax arrears in England to the latest available date; what is the estimated cost of legal proceedings to date; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  I have been asked to reply.
  688
  During the period 1 April 1990 to 30 September 1991 magistrates courts in England issued approximately 7·5 million summonses. The estimated cost of legal proceedings during this period is £5 million.

  Settlement Applications
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the lengths of each of the queues for settlement applications in(a) Bombay, (b) New Delhi, (c) Calcutta, (d)Dhaka, (e) Karachi, (f) Islamabad, (g)Dar es Salaam and (h) Nairobi; and in each case what is the waiting time for interview.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  I have been asked to reply.

  As at 31 December 1991, the number of people waiting for interview for settlement entry clearances were:

  Q1

  Q2

  Q3

  Q4

  Total

  (a) Bombay

  0

  365

  423

  201

  989

  (b) New Delhi

  0

  222

  286

  108

  616

  (d) Dhaka

  400

  1,345

  187

  455

  2,387

  (e) Karachi

  6

  89

  21

  4

  120

  (f) Islamabad

  77

  1,091

  346

  586

  2,100

  There are no queues in Calcutta, Dar es Salaam or Nairobi.

  The estimated waiting time for interview in months are:

  Q1

  Q2

  Q3

  Q4

  (a) Bombay

  0

  3

  9

  12

  (b) New Delhi

  0

  3

  7

  10

  (d) Dhaka

  3

  5

  6

  10

  (e) Karachi

  1

  2

  3

  6

  (f) Islamabad

  3

  3

  6

  9

  Settlement queues are organised as follows:

  Q1 Persons with a claim to the right of abode, dependant relatives over 70 years, special compassionate cases.

  Q2 All spouses, and all children under 18 years.

  Q3 Fiance(e)s and others applying for first time for settlement.

  Q4 Re-applicants.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Gas Pipeline, Irish Sea
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the implications for fishermen in area VII/A in the Irish sea of the proposed gas pipeline from Brighouse Bay in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, to Loughshinny, north of Dublin in the Republic; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  The proposed route for the pipeline from Brighouse bay to Loughshinny crosses a number of fishing grounds. The main fishing activities are trawling for demersal fish, nephrops and scallops with some seasonal trawling for pelagic species. There is also dredging for scallops, beam trawling and seine netting for whitefish. The implications for fishermen, both during construction and thereafter will depend on the exact route of the pipeline, the time of year it is laid and the practicality of measures, such as trenching, to minimise interference with fishing gear. The company sponsoring the project is discussing these aspects with fishermen before finalising proposals.
  689
  Where the seabed is soft, the pipeline is expected to bury itself and the company sponsoring the project wish to trench as much as possible of the remaining length. Where the seabed is very hard, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will need to insist on rock armouring with a smooth profile to minimise snagging by fishing gear.

  Set-aside
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a further statement on the workings of set-aside and the level of payments to farmers for land which is set aside.

  Mr. Gummer
  I have nothing to add to my recent statements on this subject on 12 December 1991, columns 547–50.

  Beam Trawlers
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many beam trawlers have been inspected at sea within the 12-mile limit to ensure they are complying with a 9m beam length restriction.

  Mr. Curry
  Every beam trawler inspected at sea has its gear, including beam length, checked and recorded. It is not possible to provide a breakdown of the number of such inspections inside and outside 12 miles, but in 1991, 112 British registered and 139 foreign registered vessels fishing with beam trawls were checked at sea by the Royal Navy on behalf of the Ministry, some on more than one occasion.

  Fishing Gear
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to resolve complaints relating to gear conflict within the 12-mile zone off the Sussex coast.

  Mr. Curry
  My officials had three meetings with the industry, in London and Hastings, on 13 January. There is to be a further meeting with representatives of the netsmen and the trawlermen on 25 January. It will be chaired by the Ministry's district inspector of fisheries and will aim to reach an agreement between the industry parties to reduce the risk of gear conflicts in the area.

  Shellfish
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the locations in England where shellfish samples were taken for testing for paralytic shellfish poisoning; and what was the frequency of such sampling at these locations in 1991.

  Mr. Curry
  Following is the reply:

  Mussels

  From April to August 1991, samples of mussels were taken from sites along the North east coast of England at Berwick, Holy Island, Budle Bay, Craster, Croquet, Cresswell, Blyth, Trow Rocks, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Redcar, Saltburn, Staithe Wyke, Whitby, Scalby Mills, Cornellian Bay, Filey, Flamborough and Bridlington.

  Sites were sampled once a week. Frequency of testing was increased to twice weekly samples if certain levels of the PSP toxin were reached.
  690
  Samples of mussels were also taken, approximately monthly, at the Wash, Kings Lynn, Norfolk; Brancaster, Norfolk; Pandora Sands, Norfolk; Poole, Dorset; River Exe, South Devon; River Teign, South Devon; River Avon, South Devon and Heysham, Morecambe Bay.

  Scallops

  A small programme of scallop sampling on a research basis is carried out throughout the year. Also, from April to August, samples of scallops identified as those coming from the North east scallop fisheries were taken twice weekly from the main processing plants. If toxins reached certain levels, sampling was transferred to the major scallop ports at Seahouse and Amble on a twice weekly basis.

  Queens

  During July and August, when Queens were landed at ports along the North east coast at North Shields, Whitby, Scarborough and Bridlington, samples were taken twice weekly.

  Crabs and Whelks

  If certain levels in mussels were exceeded in a two week period then crabs and whelks were sampled twice weekly at Berwick, Holy Island, Amble, Blyth, North Shields, Redcar, Whitby, Scarborough and Bridlington.

  Grant and Advice Schemes
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give the numbers of staff by grade employed in each of his Ministry's divisional offices in each grant and advisory scheme, and the number of staff employed by grade on the same schemes at each of the new regional scheme centres.

  Mr. Gummer
  The information is not available in the form requested. The purpose of the regional reorganisation is to provide a more cost effective and efficient service for customers. It is projected that the new structure will result in a net loss of about 150 posts across the country as a whole. Of these, about 40 are the result of efficiency savings that will arise from the concentration of grant and subsidy processing at fewer, larger centres.

  Czechoslovakia
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what advice and financial aid from his Ministry has been given to Czechoslovakia since 1989.

  Mr. Gummer
  Financial aid to the Czech and Slovak Republics is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. My Department has had many contacts at ministerial and official level concerning advice to the Czech and Slovak Republics, particularly regarding state farm privatisation and training in seeds and plant varieties matters. In addition, my Department has arranged the exhibition and donation of agricultural books to universities in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

  Trawlers
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many inspections his Department has had of individual trawlers who have de-rated engines within the 221 kW limit, to ensure they are complying with existing EC rules and their registration documents.

  Mr. Curry
  Every vessel inspected at sea has its official documents checked to ascertain its recorded engine power. In 1991, 1823 such inspections were carried out by the Royal Navy on behalf of the Ministry of which 735 were on United Kingdom registered vessels.

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  Appeals determined

  142

  93

  122

  126

  143

  152

  141

  130

  110

  128

  Appeals upheld (and Notices quashed)

  65

  29

  48

  48

  63

  83

  85

  54

  54

  65

  In a number of cases where the enforcement notice was not quashed, appeals may have been successful to the extent that the requirements of the enforcement notice may have been varied.

  Health Purchasing Consortium
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will reconsider his decision to set up a West Wales health purchasing consortium.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The hon. Gentleman is in error. My right hon. Friend has made no such decision. The existing health authorities remain. East Dyfed and Pembrokeshire health authorities, together with the Dyfed FHSA, have committed themselves to formulating arrangements for a collaborative approach in meeting the health care needs of their local residents. This is a local initiative which has been welcomed.

  Land Acquisition
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish for each of the last 12 years, the public inquiries that have taken place in Wales relating to the acquisition of land for road construction schemes; and if he will separately distinguish each person who received reimbursement from his Department of costs for representation and appearance at such inquiries, together with the sum disbursed.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The public inquiries that have been held in each of the last 12 years in respect of trunk road schemes in Wales that included land acquisition are detailed in the following table. Information relating to the reimbursement of costs of persons for either representation or appearance at such inquiries is not available.

  Public inquiries relating to trunk road schemes 1980–1991 Year and Scheme

  1980

  Hawarden By-Pass (A55)

  Carmarthen Southern By-Pass (A40)

  Morfa Improvement (A487)

  Pontyfenni Diversion (A40)

WALES

  Leukaemia Research
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what effect he expects the granting of trust status to have in the level of research into leukaemia and associated blood disorders in Wales haematology units.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  None.

  Enforcement Action Appeals
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish, for each of the last 10 years, by district council area, the number of enforcement action appeals that he has(a) determined and (b) upheld.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Information in the form requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Available information, for the whole of Wales, is as follows:

  Abercynon-Pentrebach (A470)

  Pont ar Gothi By-Pass (A40)

  Bangor By-Pass (A55)

  Llanon Village, Centre Section (A40)

  Dolcorsllwyn-Dolysgallog (A470)

  Newbridge/Ruabon, Johnstown (A483)

  1981

  Kilgctty-Stepaside By-Pass (A477)

  Improvement at Cemmaes Road (A470)

  Improvement from RAC Box 487 to Storey Arms (A470)

  1982

  Carmarthen-Bancyfelin Hill Diversion (A40)

  Penmaenbach-Dwygyfylchi Improvement (A55)

  Gresford-Pulford (A483)

  1983

  Holywell By-Pass (A55)

  Bodelwyddan By-Pass (A55)

  1984

  —

  1985

  Pont Rhyd, Llwyncelyn (A487)

  1986

  Road Improvements at Haverfordwest (A40)

  Boundary Terrace, Llandrindod Wells (A483)

  Chirk By-Pass (A483)

  1987

  Cardigan By-Pass (A487)

  Nant-y-Caws By-Pass (A48)

  Aston Hill (A494)

  Travellers Inn Improvement (A55)

  1988

  Llandeilo Northern By-Pass (A40)

  Haverfordwest By-Pass (A40)

  Ty-nant-Dinmael (A5)

  1989

  Malpas Road Relief Scheme (M4)

  Ruallt Hill Improvement (A55)

  Bwlch Cutting Improvement (A40)

  Welshpool Relief Roads (A483)

  693

  Mold By-Pass (A494)

  1990

  Aberdulais-Glynneath Improvement (A465)

  Whitland By-Pass (A40)

  1991

  Glangrwyney Bridge (A40)

  Aber Improvement (A55)

  Sows
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many breeding sows there are in Wales; what were the corresponding figures for 1971 and 1981; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Figures from the June agricultural census are given in the following table:

  Breeding Sows in Wales

  In June

  Number

  1991

  11,950

  1981

  16,256

  1971

  36,129

  Ewes
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many breeding ewes there are in Wales; what were the corresponding figures for each year since 1980; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Figures from the June agricultural census are given in the following table:

  Breeding Ewes in Wales in June

  Year

  Numbers

  1991

  5,222,915

  1990

  5,234,964

  1989

  5,111,490

  1988

  4,893,276

  1987

  4,700,960

  1986

  4,566,884

  1985

  4,460,463

  1984

  4,392,208

  1983

  4,270,282

  1982

  4,125,966

  Night visit fees paid in Wales by family health services authority (FHSA)

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Higher night visit fee

  Lower night visit fee

  FHSA

  Number

  Expenditure

  Number

  Expenditure

  Number

  Expenditure

  Number

  Expenditure

  Number

  Expenditure

  Number

  Expenditure

  (£)

  (£)

  (£)

  (£)

  (£)

  (£)

  Clwyd

  6,089

  98,031

  6,830

  117,482

  6,848

  128,395

  6,938

  154,361

  14,414

  648,616

  —

  —

  Dyfed

  6,649

  107,054

  7,048

  121,220

  7,706

  144,487

  7,492

  166,702

  16,389

  737,515

  164

  2,461

  Gwent

  9,378

  150,985

  9,589

  164,927

  11,381

  213,394

  9,900

  220,266

  15,124

  680,583

  7,489

  112,332

  Gwynedd

  4,561

  73,438

  4,942

  85,002

  5,357

  100,444

  4,736

  105,386

  9,801

  441,036

  —

  —

  Mid Glamorgan

  9,921

  159,734

  11,115

  191,174

  12,172

  228,234

  11,062

  246,136

  17,502

  787,586

  288

  4,324

  Powys

  1,836

  29,559

  2,061

  35,445

  2,160

  40,497

  1,983

  44,132

  4,536

  204,101

  91

  1,364

  South Glamorgan

  9,094

  146,419

  10,619

  182,642

  10,788

  202,277

  11,320

  251,863

  11,446

  515,056

  9,286

  139,293

  West Glamorgan

  10,170

  162,203

  10,601

  182,333

  12,148

  227,783

  10,691

  237,875

  9,473

  426,288

  8,068

  121,021

  Note:

  Prior to 1 April 1990, a night visit fee was payable for each visit requested and made to a patient between the hours of 11 pm and 7 am.

  Since 1 April 1990, the night visit fee period lies between the hours of 10 pm and 8 am (ie an extension of two hours).

  Ecstasy
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what has been done to inform all of those concerned with drugs misuse about ecstasy, its symptons and its harmful effects.
  694

  Year

  Numbers

  1981

  4,015,836

  1980

  3,898,352

  Fluoridation
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will issue a definitive circular on fluoridation.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  I am considering this matter and I will write to the hon. Gentleman.

  GPs (Night Calls)
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps his Department has taken to investigate the extent to which night-time calls pose a problem for general practitioners in Wales.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  All aspects of the GP contract are kept under continuous review by Health departments. It is for the General Medical Service Committee (GMSC) as the body properly representative of the profession, to raise any specific concerns through the normal negotiating channels. They have not done so on this matter.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what evidence he has regarding variations in night-time calls made to general practitioners in Wales; and if he will provide the figures for each family health services authority area for each of the past five years.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Requests for night visits reflect patient demand and this will vary between different GP practices. Although a GP is a responsible for his patients 24 hours a day he is nevertheless free to exercise his clinical judgment on deciding whether a night visit is necessary.

  The new GP contract which came into effect on 1 April 1990 introduced a two tier night visit fee payable to GPs by their local FHSA. The higher fee (£45) is payable in respect of night visits made by a doctor from the patient's own practice or from a small rota of local GPs. A lower fee of £15 is payable in all other circumstances. Prior to 1 April 1990 a single fee was payable.

  The amounts paid to GPs for night visits in each FHSA area in Wales for the last five financial years are as follows:

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The Department already has a comprehensive non-specific prevention programme as part of its initiative to combat drug misuse through which information about ecstasy will be disseminated.

  In respect of the medical profession, health departments have recently published updated guidelines on

  695
  clinical management of drug misuse and dependence. These are being circulated to every doctor in England, Scotland and Wales. The guidelines include information for doctors on the problems associated with use of ecstasy and similar drugs and recommend a range of treatments for these problems.

  Welsh Development Agency
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what changes he has made to the terms and conditions of employment of the chairman of the Welsh Development Agency subsequent to the appointment of Dr. Gwyn Jones as national governor for Wales on the British Broadcasting Corporation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave him on Tuesday 14 January 1992 at col.549–50.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his reply of 14 January,Official Report, columns 549–50, if he proposes any alterations in the terms and conditions of the deputy chairman and chief executive of the Welsh Development Agency.

  Mr. David Hunt
  No.

  Shellfish
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the locations in Wales where shellfish samples were taken for testing for paralytic shellfish poisoning; and what was the frequency of such sampling at these locations in 1991.

  Mr. David Hunt
  During 1991, no specific programme of sampling shellfish for paralytic shellfish poisoning was carried out in Wales. Maritime environmental health departments routinely monitor shellfish for a variety of microbiological and chemical contaminants.

  Apprentices
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what action he intends to take to assist apprentices in their final year of training to obtain employment.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The Employment Service offers a range of services aimed at helping people to find employment.

DEFENCE

  Union Flag
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence why the Union flag was not flown on the flag poles at Drumadd barracks, Armagh on Christmas day 1991; what new arrangements will be made to fly the Union flag on appropriate dates at this location; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The flying of flags at Army establishments is governed by Queen's regulations for the Army. Drumadd barracks, Armagh is not one of the locations in Northern Ireland which is listed in Queen's regulations as authorised to fly the Union flag. The list has not been revised for some time however, and it is now being reviewed.

  Nuclear Convoys
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what policy and precautions his Department implements when a convoy carrying nuclear warheads travels on United Kingdom public roads in adverse weather conditions; and what other public authorities and emergency services are informed.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  It is our policy not to undertake nuclear weapon convoys when adverse weather conditions are forecast along the route. Local police forces are always informed in advance when convoys will enter their area of responsibility, and close contact is maintained throughout a convoy movement.

  Injury Insurance
  Mr. John Browne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will obtain an estimate, on the open insurance market, of the approximate annual premium required to provide blanket insurance cover against injury whilst on duty—equivalent to that generally accepted in industry—for(a) all armed service personnel, and (b) all civilian personnel under the command of the Ministry of Defence.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No. Service and civilian personnel are eligible for benefits under the Armed Forces pension scheme and principal civil service pension scheme respectively where injury or illness results in premature retirement. In addition, the war pensions scheme administered by the Department of Social Security provides benefits to former service personnel who experience disability attributable to their service in the Armed Forces. Civilian personnel are eligible for an enhanced pension for loss of earning capacity resulting from injury or illness attributable to their employment. All personnel are eligible for compensation when the injury or illness results from MOD negligence. A voluntary personal accident insurance scheme is available for service personnel and a similar scheme is likely to be offered to civilian personnel.

  Simon Britten
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to decide on the release from medical cadetship of Simon Britten, currently a senior house officer in accident and emergency at Queen Alexandra hospital, Portsmouth.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The earliest that a decision can be made on Captain Britten's application for premature voluntary retirement is 7 February 1992.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Terrorist Firebomb Attacks
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table to show for each year or financial year since 1972 in(a) Belfast and (b) the rest of Northern Ireland, the number of terrorist firebomb attacks, the amount of damage, the number of persons who have (i) been arrested, (ii) charged and (iii) convicted in respect of the attacks and the rate of convictions.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I regret that the information requested is not available from existing records.
  697
  The best available relevant information is set out in the table. This shows, for each year since 1974, the number of incendiary devices which have exploded or have been defused in Northern Ireland. It also shows the number of persons charged with and convicted of explosives offences (it is not possible to identify separately explosives offences in which an incendiary device was an ingredient).

  Incendiaries exploded/ defused

  Persons charged with explosives offences

  Persons convicted for explosives offences

  1974

  270

  161

  1—

  1975

  56

  100

  91

  1976

  236

  215

  80

  1977

  608

  146

  146

  1978

  115

  79

  78

  1979

  60

  40

  72

  1980

  2

  39

  50

  1981

  49

  39

  28

  1982

  36

  41

  39

  1983

  43

  48

  31

  1984

  10

  21

  18

  1985

  36

  37

  33

  1986

  21

  31

  32

  1987

  9

  22

  28

  1988

  8

  29

  33

  1989

  7

  24

  30

  1990

  33

  22

  21

  1991

  237

  24

  2—

  1 Not recorded.

  2 Not yet available.

  Note:

  (a) Statistics on charges and convictions are kept according to the most serious offence with which an individual has been charged. The figures above do not therefore include persons convicted of explosives offences who have also been charged or convicted of a more serious offence, eg. attempted murder.

  (b) A person convicted in a particular year was not necessarily charged in the same year.

  Disability Allowances
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what work is being considered or begun, or for which funding is earmarked by the Department or the Social Security Agency for publicity in connection with the introduction of disability allowance and disability working allowance.

  (2) how much money will be allowed for public education to be undertaken by his Department and/or the Social Security Agency prior to and following the introduction of the disability allowance and disability working allowance so that those who are disabled, informal carers and advice workers with caring professions are aware of the changes; and how the funds available will be spread over the number of staff/hours, print and broadcast media work, and printed materials on the benefits.

  Mr. Hanley
  A comprehensive publicity programme is planned to launch disability living allowance and disability working allowance in Northern Ireland. This will complement national advertising and will include local television commercials, advertisements in both the press and specialist publications for general practitioners, consultants and other health professionals. Education and awareness programmes aimed at carers, advisers, health professionals and the social security office staff will also run throughout 1992.
  698
  The Social Security Agency has established a communications team to take forward the publicity and education and awareness programmes. Leaflets explaining basic entitlement and eligibility criteria for the new benefits and the dates from which new claims will be accepted have been sent to organisations concerned with disabled people. A special disability living allowance leaflet for potential claimants with a tear-off coupon to obtain the claim pack will be available in post offices and social security offices from the end of January 1992. The disability working allowance claim pack will be available from the same sources from February 1992.

  The Social Security Agency will be writing to people who are currently getting mobility allowance and/or attendance allowance to tell them that they will be transferred automatically in April to disability living allowance at the same rate of benefit and to inform them how to claim extra help if they think they are eligible. A benefits inquiry line will be established to provide specific information about the new benefits and where a caller is experiencing difficulty completing a claim form arrangements can be made for an officer to visit his or her home.

  Information about the cost of these measures is not readily available.

  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what are the projected targets of people to be in receipt of disability working allowances in 1992, 1993 and 1994.

  Mr. Hanley
  It is estimated that by October 1992 approximately 1,700 people in Northern Ireland will be in receipt of disability working allowance and that this will increase to around 1,900 by October 1993. A further increase for 1994 is not anticipated at present.

  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people he expects to be in receipt of disability living allowance on its introduction in April; and how many people currently receive attendance allowance and mobility allowance.

  Mr. Hanley
  The total numbers of people in Northern Ireland in receipt of attendance allowance and mobility allowance at the latest date for which information is available are 37,991 and 16,600 respectively.

  It is estimated that some 32,600 attendance allowance and mobility allowance recipients will transfer automatically to disability living allowance when it is introduced on 6 April 1992. Additionally it is estimated that in the first year around 9,500 disabled people who currently do not get either attendance allowance or mobility allowance will qualify for the new benefit.

  Terrorism
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table to show for each year since 1 January 1968 the number of terrorist incidents by category in which they were recorded in police records, the sums of(a) criminal damage and (b) personal injury, assessed by his Department in each year as arising from those incidents, the sums claimed, and the sums paid in each year to the latest available date.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [holding answer 14 January 1992]: It is not known precisely how many terrorist incidents there have been since 1968. However, information about

  699
  terrorist crime is published in the annual report of the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and his 1990 report, a copy of which is in the Library, provides information for the years 1969–1990. Information about criminal damage and criminal injury claims is not held in the form requested but such information as is readily available is set out in the following table:

  Total compensation paid in settled claims which were terrorist related

  Financial year of settlement

  Criminal Damage £ million

  Criminal Injuries £ million

  1979–80

  24·8

  1·2

  1980–81

  34·2

  5·1

  1981–82

  26·4

  3·5

  1982–83

  24·4

  3·9

  1983–84

  21·4

  4·6

  1984–85

  22·0

  5·5

  1985–86

  15·9

  7·9

  1986–87

  18·0

  4·2

  1987–88

  9·9

  4·3

  1988–89

  16·2

  5·6

  1989–90

  15·3

  6·3

  1990–91

  17·3

  7·5

  11991–92

  14·6

  7·1

  1To 18 December 1991.

  Amounts exclude costs paid to applicants for making out and verifying their claims.

  Shellfish
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the locations in Northern Ireland where shellfish samples were taken for testing for paralytic shellfish poisoning; and what was the frequency of such sampling at these locations in 1991.

  Mr. Hanley
  In 1991 samples were taken from the northern and southern sides of Belfast lough between May and September at intervals of a week to a fortnight. Strangford lough, Carlingford lough, Dundrum bay and Lough Foyle were sampled on two occasions during this period and the North coast at Portrush once.

SCOTLAND

  University of Dundee
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many undergraduates entered the University of Dundee in the 1991–92 academic year; and how many of these were from(a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Northern Ireland, (d) the Republic of Ireland and (e) Scotland.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The latest available information, which relates to 1990–91, is given in the table:

  Undergraduate entrants to Dundee university 1990–91

  Domicile

  Full-time entrants

  Part-time entrants

  England

  317

  —

  Wales

  8

  —

  Northern Ireland

  116

  —

  Scotland

  623

  14

  Republic of Ireland

  8

  —

  Other overseas

  102

  0

  Total

  1,174

  14

  Ecstasy
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what has been done to inform all of those concerned with drugs misuse about ecstasy, its symptoms and its harmful effects.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  A comprehensive programme of information and education to prevent and discourage drug misuse is undertaken by the Health Education Board for Scotland. Material is regularly updated and contains information about "ecstasy". The Chief Medical Officer recently issued to every doctor and final year medical student in Scotland revised guidelines on the clinical management of drug misuse and dependence, which include information on the problems associated with the use of "ecstasy". The Scottish Office Education Department makes specific grant available for the in-service training of teachers in health education, including education about drugs, which keeps abreast of trends in drug misuse. Training for police officers covers aspects of drug misuse including current trends in drug taking and symptoms and harmful effects. The Scottish Drugs Forum, which is funded by the Scottish Office Home and Health Department, has produced a comprehensive guide to drugs currently used by drug takers, for use by drug workers.

  Royal Parks
  Mr. Gould
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the companies that have tendered for each of the royal parks maintenance contracts.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The issue raised concerns operational matters within Historic Scotland, the executive agency within the Scottish Office which maintains the royal parks at Holyrood and Linlithgow Peel, and I have therefore asked the director to write to the hon. Member. A copy of the letter will be placed in the Library.

  Shellfish
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the locations in Scotland, outside Orkney waters, where shellfish samples were taken for testing for paralytic shellfish poisoning; and what was the frequency of such sampling at these locations in 1991.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The basic programme for monitoring for PSP toxins around the Scottish coast which began in April 1991 was based on 46 primary sampling sites (listed). In addition, secondary sites were included if certain levels of PSP toxin were detected.

  The frequency of sampling necessarily varied from site to site according to local conditions, but areas where PSP problems were detected were targeted for intensive weekly sampling. Between April and September an average of 64 sites per week were tested (this figure includes Orkney, since data on sampling frequency at individual sites cannot readily be disaggregated). After September, sampling was largely confined to primary and secondary sites in areas which had known PSP problems.

  List of Sites

  1. Eyemouth

  2. Musselburgh

  3. Elie/Pittenweem

  4. Eden Estuary, St. Andrews

  701

  5. Montrose

  6. Aberdeen

  7. Fraserburgh

  8. Macduff

  9. Lossiemouth

  10. Tain

  11. Moray Firth scallop grounds

  12. Wick

  13. West Shetland

  14. East Shetland

  15. Loch Eriboll/Kyle of Tongue

  16. Kinlochbervie

  17. Lochinver

  18. Ullapool/Loch Broom

  19. Little Loch Broom

  20. Loch Ewe

  21. North Minch scallop grounds

  22. Stornoway/Loch Erisort

  23. Loch Roag/West Lewis

  24. Uists

  25. North Skye

  26. Loch Eishort

  27. Loch Gairloch

  28. Loch Torridon

  29. Kyle

  30. Mallaig

  31. South Minch scallop grounds

  32. Ardtoe

  33. Loch Sunart/Loch Teacuis

  34. Tiree Passage

  35. Loch Spalve

  36. Oban/Loch Etive

  37. Seil/Loch Melfort

  38. Islay scallop grounds

  39. West Loch Tarbet

  40. Campbeltown

  41. Tarbert/Loch Fyne

  42. Inveraray

  43. Cumbrae

  44. Ayr

  45. Loch Ryan

  46. Solway cockle beds

  1992

  1991

  Draft register

  Final register

  Constituency

  Total

  Attainers

  Total

  Attainers

  SCOTLAND

  3,909,185

  46,101

  3,914,590

  47,275

  Aberdeen North

  59,056

  430

  60,219

  457

  Aberdeen South

  58,583

  402

  58,681

  453

  Angus East

  63,461

  488

  62,769

  706

  Argyll and Bute

  48,493

  558

  48,068

  677

  Ayr

  66,190

  925

  66,126

  882

  Banff and Buchan

  65,781

  853

  64,136

  868

  Caithness and Sutherland

  31,227

  304

  31,120

  338

  Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley

  55,833

  799

  55,999

  879

  Central Fife

  56,069

  391

  56,307

  380

  Clackmannan

  49,392

  536

  49,140

  497

  Clydebank and Milngavie

  47,567

  585

  47,861

  738

  Clydesdale

  62,529

  915

  62,325

  811

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth

  46,911

  704

  46,895

  752

  Cunninghame North

  55,222

  774

  55,390

  770

  Cunninghame South

  49,601

  843

  49,728

  794

  Dumbarton

  57,398

  750

  57,730

  724

  Dumfries

  61,696

  727

  61,235

  689

  Dundee East

  58,787

  400

  58,935

  387

  GP Contracts
  Sir Nicholas Fairbairn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the effect of the introduction of the new general practitioner contract on general practitioners' incomes and the service offered to the public.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  In the first year of the new contract GPs average incomes have risen substantially.

  Despite the reservations expressed by the profession there has been a positive and impressive response to the new contract which was designed to encourage and reward improved performance by GPs. It is already clear that the range of services offered to the public has expanded. In particular, the introduction of new target payments has proved very successful in helping to stimulate high levels achievement by practice teams; as at 1 April 1991 over 97 per cent of GPs in Scotland had achieved target levels for primary immunisation, over 88 per cent. for pre-school boosters and over 96 per cent. (excluding Greater Glasgow where comparable figures are not available) for cervical cytology. Where GPs undertake their own night visits, for example, or offer a wider range of services such as a minor surgery, health promotion or child health surveillance, this has been reflected in their income; during the year ended 31 March 1991 GPs in Scotland undertook over 76,000 minor surgery procedures and over 69,000 health promotion clinics. And most importantly of all, we are seeing high levels of patient satisfaction

  Electoral Registration
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the number of electors in the 1992 provisional electoral register for each constituency in Scotland and the equivalent number on the 1991 register.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: The information requested by the hon. Member is set out in the table. I must emphasise, however, that the numbers in the draft registers are likely to differ from those in the final registers because of late returns. The final registers will be published in a few weeks' time.
  703

  1992

  1991

  Draft register

  Final register

  Constituency

  Total

  Attainers

  Total

  Attainers

  Dundee West

  59,499

  475

  60,218

  419

  Dunfermline East

  50,187

  313

  50,369

  363

  Dunfermline West

  51,020

  411

  51,186

  482

  East Kilbride

  64,685

  849

  64,365

  873

  East Lothian

  67,133

  1,060

  67,223

  1,004

  Eastwood

  64,344

  991

  64,276

  983

  Edinburgh Central

  55,486

  354

  56,048

  336

  Edinburgh East

  45,577

  543

  46,800

  601

  Edinburgh Leith

  56,040

  638

  57,415

  569

  Edinburgh Pentlands

  55,863

  998

  56,453

  825

  Edinburgh South

  60,886

  747

  61,682

  665

  Edinburgh West

  59,357

  841

  60,556

  789

  Falkirk East

  52,353

  537

  52,307

  541

  Falkirk West

  50,589

  579

  50,479

  484

  Galloway and Upper Nithsdale

  54,868

  576

  54,855

  596

  Glasgow Cathcart

  45,120

  516

  45,835

  558

  Glasgow Central

  48,094

  302

  48,862

  328

  Glasgow Garscadden

  41,340

  418

  42,270

  408

  Glasgow Govan

  45,959

  412

  46,720

  445

  Glasgow Hillhead

  56,621

  346

  56,003

  460

  Glagow Maryhill

  48,277

  392

  48,393

  469

  Glasgow Pollok

  46,487

  580

  47,206

  498

  Glasgow Provan

  37,082

  473

  37,838

  432

  Glasgow Rutherglen

  53,277

  706

  53,777

  724

  Glasgow Shettleston

  52,319

  525

  52,129

  517

  Glasgow Springburn

  46,047

  410

  45,873

  410

  Gordon

  80,914

  1,136

  78,438

  1,074

  Greenock and Port Glasgow

  52,281

  638

  53,267

  710

  Hamilton

  62,220

  933

  62,543

  1,036

  Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber

  69,891

  784

  68,848

  781

  Kilmarnock and Loudoun

  62,576

  883

  62,513

  911

  Kincardine and Deeside

  67,468

  679

  65,660

  828

  Kirkcaldy

  52,050

  272

  52,419

  370

  Linlithgow

  61,749

  1,053

  61,812

  1,061

  Livingston

  61,628

  1,220

  62,070

  1,247

  Midlothian

  60,774

  1,079

  60,875

  1,002

  Monklands East

  48,904

  761

  49,226

  847

  Monklands West

  49,723

  754

  50,132

  869

  Moray

  64,325

  786

  63,357

  729

  Mortherwell North

  57,780

  920

  58,215

  929

  Mortherwell South

  50,600

  709

  51,236

  727

  North East Fife

  53,521

  504

  53,399

  500

  North Tayside

  56,027

  421

  55,252

  475

  Orkney and Shetland

  31,749

  420

  31,355

  409

  Paisley North

  46,872

  525

  47,770

  546

  Paisley South

  48,236

  555

  49,091

  658

  Perth and Kinross

  65,548

  436

  65,135

  588

  Renfrew West and Inverclyde

  58,700

  860

  58,460

  901

  Ross, Cromarty and Skye

  56,088

  660

  55,174

  648

  Roxburgh and Berwickshire

  43,915

  472

  43,758

  525

  Stirling

  58,723

  630

  58,296

  651

  Strathkelvin and Bearsden

  61,493

  898

  61,806

  946

  Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale

  39,923

  484

  39,608

  485

  Western Isles

  23,199

  253

  23,073

  241

  704

  HLCA
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the average length of delay in 1991 and 1990 respectively for the dispatch of hill livestock compensatory allowance applications forms; when he hopes this year's application forms will be sent out; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: Application forms for the 1992 HLCA scheme were issued to producers on 13 January. The corresponding dates in 1991 and 1990 were 8 February and 28 December respectively.

  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he intends to review the administrative arrangements governing the sending out and subsequent processing of hill livestock compensatory allowance applications; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: We aim to ensure that 85 per cent. of HLCA payments are made by the end of March each year. That remains our target for the 1992 scheme.

  Committee of the Regions
  Sir Russell Johnston
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many of the places allocated to the United Kingdom in the Committee of the Regions will be allotted to Scotland; how he intends to ensure fair geographical distribution and fair political balance; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: Membership of the Committee of the Regions will be determined unanimously by the Council of Ministers acting on a proposal from each of the member states. The committee is not expected to be established until 1993. Over the coming months the Government will be considering how the 24 United Kingdom seats will be allocated as between the different parts of the United Kingdom and how those seats should be filled.

THE ARTS

  Lyceum Theatre
  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Minister for the Arts if he has any plans to assist towards the establishment of a dance theatre on the present Lyceum theatre site; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  The Foundation for Sport and the Arts has given a grant of £65,000 to the Lyceum theatre dance house project for a preliminary study on the possible operation of the theatre as a national dance theatre. We must now await the outcome of that feasibility study.

  I look forward to the eventual restoration of this magnificent, but sadly deteriorated, theatre. Although it is a splendid idea, I understand that the dance house project is not the only possibility for the future of the Lyceum.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  VAT
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list those goods and services which the Council of Ministers of the European Community currently agrees can be subject to a reduced rate of 15 per cent. VAT, showing those that are currently exempt from value added tax, or zero rated respectively, in the United Kingdom and any commodity of each category not featuring in the Council's current list.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  There has been no discussion by the Council of Ministers on the application of a reduced rate of VAT of 15 per cent. However, a political agreement was reached at ECOFIN on 24 June 1991 to apply a minimum standard rate of VAT of 15 per cent. from 1 January 1993. Agreement was also reached providing for the retention of existing United Kingdom zero rates. It was further agreed that member states may apply either one or two reduced rates of VAT below their standard rate, and that these reduced rates may not be less than 5 per cent. The reduced rate shall only apply to supplies of goods and services defined in a list of categories, the basis of which was agreed at ECOFIN on 18 March 1991. The list is as follows. Items included in each category which are zero-rated in the United Kingdom under schedule 5 of the Value Added Tax Act are identified by reference to the group number of that Act.

  Category

  Number and Description

  Zero-rated under Schedule 5

  1.

  Foodstuffs for human and animal consumption (excluding alcoholic beverages).

  Group 1

  2.

  Water supplies.

  Group 2

  3.

  Pharmaceutical products.

  Group 14

  4.

  Medical equipment for the disabled.

  Group 4 and Group 14

  5.

  Passenger transport.

  Group 10

  6.

  Books, newspapers and periodicals.

  Group 3

  7.

  Admissions to shows, theatres, circuses, fairs, concerts, museums, zoos, cinemas, exhibitions, libraries and access to television.

  8.

  The output of writers, composers, performers etc. and copyright

  9.

  Social housing.

  Group 8

  10.

  Farm inputs.

  Group 1

  11.

  Hotel accommodation.

  12.

  Hire of camping sites.

  13.

  Admission to sporting events.

  14.

  Use of sporting facilities.

  15.

  Welfare and charitable activities.

  Group 16

  16.

  Funeral undertakings, cremation.

  707

  Category

  Number and Description

  Zero-rated under Schedule 5

  17.

  Medical care in hospitals, spas etc., dental services.

  Group 14

  18.

  Street cleaning, refuse collection.

  At ECOFIN on 24 June 1991 Ministers agreed that the list of categories be extended to include supplies of natural gas and electricity.

  Ministers also agreed that for supplies of restaurant services, young children's clothing and footwear, and all housing; a reduced rate may continue to be applied by those member states applying a reduced rate 1to these products on I January 1991; and for Spain and Luxembourg a reduced, or super reduced rate may be applied.

  The goods and services which are zero-rated in the United Kingdom and which are not included in the list of reduced-rate categories are sewerage services; fuel and power for domestic and charity use; housing not provided as part of a social policy; reconstruction, and supplies of services in connection with the alteration, of protected buildings; residential houseboats and caravans; clothing and footwear for young children; protective boots and helmets for industrial use; motor-cycle helmets.

  Negotiations are continuing on the reduced rate list.

  The inclusion in a reduced rate list of goods and services which are specifically exempted from VAT, or for which a

  Monthly interest payment1

  Region

  Average new building society mortgages quarter 2. 1988

  June 19882

  Current3

  Increase

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Northern region

  22,200

  135·98

  159·56

  23·58

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  23,000

  140·88

  165·31

  24·43

  East Midlands

  27,000

  165·38

  194·06

  28·68

  East Anglia

  34,800

  222·95

  261·63

  38·68

  Greater London

  54,900

  387·10

  454·25

  67·15

  South East

  44,500

  302·17

  354·58

  52·41

  South West

  34,900

  223·77

  262·58

  38·81

  West Midlands

  28,100

  172·11

  201·97

  29·86

  North West

  24,300

  148·84

  174·66

  25·82

  Wales

  23,900

  146·39

  171·78

  25·39

  Scotland

  24,200

  148·23

  173·94

  25·71

  Northern Ireland

  24,300

  148·84

  174·66

  25·82

  United Kingdom

  32,900

  207·43

  243·42

  35·99

  1 Assuming endowment mortgage, net of basic rate tax relief.

  2 At an interest rate of 9·8 per cent.

  3 At an interest rate of 11·50 per cent.

  Company Cars
  Mr. Lawson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the income tax, and where applicable, national insurance contributions, payable on the benefit conferred by possession of a typical company car in each of the financial years(a) 1979–80, (b) 1984–85, (c) 1989–90 and (d) 1991–92; and what would have been the amount payable (i) in 1984–85 if the car scale benefit rates had remained those applicable during 1979–80, (ii) in 1989–90 if the car scale benefit rates had remained those applicable during (1) 1979–80, (2) 1984–85 and (iii) in 1991–92 if the car scale benefit rates had remained those applicable during (A) 1979–80, (B) 1984–85), (C) 1989–90.
  708
  technical zero rate may apply, by provision in the 6th VAT directive is not necessary. Other exemptions are provided for by derogation under article 28(3) of the 6th VAT directive.

  1Note: Zero rates do not fall within the definition of reduced rates.

  Energy Tax
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to receive results of Treasury models of the social effects of the EC energy tax proposals; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  The European Commission has yet to produce a formal proposal for a carbon/energy tax and the communication presented to the Council was not specified in sufficient detail to allow the likely social impact of the measure to be estimated. The effects would depend both on the specification of the tax and the use made of the revenue it would generate.

  Mortgage Payments
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will update the letter on mortgage payments given in his answer of 18 July 1991,Official Report, columns 251–52, and give the information on a monthly basis.

  Mr. Maude
  The current costs net of basic rate tax relief for average new building society mortgages in the second quarter of 1988 are shown in the table.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: The information requested is as follows:

  Basic rate of tax

  Scale charge for a typical company car1

  Per cent.

  £

  1979–80

  30

  250·00

  1984–85

  30

  480·00

  1989–90

  25

  1,850·00

  1991–92

  25

  2,650·00

  709

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Income tax charge at basic rate due on car scale charge applicable for:

  1979–80

  75·00

  75·00

  62·50

  62·50

  1984–85

  —

  120·00

  120·00

  120·00

  1989–90

  —

  —

  462·50

  462·50

  1991–92

  —

  —

  —

  662·50

  1 A typical company car is taken as one which is less than four years old, in the middle range of cylinder capacity (1301 cc to 1800 cc for 1979–80and 1984–85, 1401 cc to 2000 cc for 1989–90 and 1991–92) and with an original market value below the relevant limit (£8,000 for 1979–80, £16,000 for 1984–85 and £19,250 for 1989–90 and 1991–92). It is also assumed that business mileage is between 2,500 and 18,000.

  Employers' national insurance contributions on the car scale benefits rates were introduced from 1991–92. The contributions payable in respect of 1991–92 for the car scale benefit rates at levels applicable in 1979–80, 1984–85, 1989–90 and 1991–92 for a typical company car would be £26, £49·92, £192·40 and £275·60 respectively.

  Iraq Supergun
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make it his policy to investigate the business connections between the British firms Walter Somers (Halesowen) and Forgemasters (Sheffield) and the Swiss firm Von Roll Steel Products, regarding the provision of recoil systems and breechblocks to Iraq for its supergun project.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: The hon. Member should be aware that the business activities of Walter Somers (Halesowen) and Forgemasters Engineering Ltd. (Sheffield) in relation to the Iraqi supergun project were the subject of an investigation by Customs and Excise in 1990 which was brought to a halt when criminal charges were withdrawn in the magistrates court on 15 November 1990. Customs and Excise will take account of any new information not already covered in their investigation in deciding what, if any, further investigation would be appropriate.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

  Southwark Diocese
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, what is the net income over expenditure or expenditure over income contributed to the funds of the Church by the diocese of Southwark for the last year for which records are available.

  Mr. Alison
  The total cost of ministers' stipends in the diocese of Southwark in 1991–92 is expected to be nearly £6 million, 46 per cent. of which is likely to be met through giving by Church people in the diocese, 40 per cent. by Church Commissioners' allocations and 14 per cent. from fees and other local income.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Sri Lanka
  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans there are to review economic or military aid to Sri Lanka in light of its record on human rights.

  Mrs. Chalker
  As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs stated in his written reply of 24 July 1991 to a question from the hon. Member, following the Sri Lanka Government's expulsion of our previous high commissioner in Colombo we took a number of measures including delaying consideration of major new aid commitments pending the appointment of a new high commissioner and a further review of the human rights situation.

  Our new high commissioner took up his post in November, and the review will take place in the near future, with the benefit of his advice.

  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has received on the Students for Human Rights organisation in Sri Lanka; and what efforts he has made on behalf of its secretary Camunu Yasus Senviratne who disappeared on 9 December 1989.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  We are aware of the Students for Human Rights organisation but have had no recent contacts with them. Our High Commissioner and other heads of mission in Colombo made representations to the Sri Lankan authorities about Mr. Senviratne's disappearance at the time. The Sri Lankan Government are in no doubt about our deep concern at the number of disappearances in recent years.

  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many political prisoners he estimates to be in Sri Lankan jails; and if he will call through the United Nations for the abolition of the emergency regulations.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Authoritative figures are not available, and estimates vary considerably. We have regularly encouraged the Sri Lankan Government to review the need for all its emergency regulations, but have no plans to raise the matter in the United Nations.

  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has regarding human rights abuses in Sri Lanka in the past three months.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  I receive regular reports on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. The most significant recent development has been the Sri Lankan Government's undertaking on 12 December to implement most of the recommendations made by Amnesty International in its September 1991 report on "Sri Lanka—The North East". We welcome this and will continue to watch the situation closely.

  Visa Office (Tehran)
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to provide a full-scale visa issuing office in Tehran, and when the facility will be opened.
  711
  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Visas for some categories of visitors from Iran are already issued by our embassy in Tehran. I do not envisage a full scale visa operation at the embassy in the near future, but it may be possible to expand the operation in stages as circumstances allow.

  Visa Office (Taipei)
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many visas have been issued in Taipei since the visa handling office has been established there; and whether the income received equals or exceeds the cost of operating this facility in Taiwan.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  The numbers of visas issued by the visa handling office in Taipei from 1989–1991 was 78,782. The income during this period was:

  £

  1989–90

  824,456

  1990–91

  1,019,975

  11991

  689,903

  1 April-October.

  The total cost of the visa operation was:

  £

  1989–90

  56,917

  11990–91

  206,030

  1 April-October costing figures not yet available.

  Cambodia
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance Her Majesty's Government are giving to the Cambodian Government with clearing their minefields.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  UN Security Council Resolution 728 of 8 January expanded the mandate of the United Nations advance mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC) to include training in mine clearance and the initiation of a demining programme. The United Kingdom will contribute financially through payment of our assessed contribution (6·1 per cent.) to the costs of UNAMIC and later to the costs of the UN transitional authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).

  In response to a request from the UN Secretariat, we have agreed in principle to provide additionally a number of experts to UNAMIC's mine clearance training unit. We have also donated £60,000 to the Halo trust, a British non-governmental organisation, to help its mine survey work in Cambodia on behalf of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

  New Embassies
  Sir Russell Johnston
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with his European Community partners with a view to sharing the responsibilities in the new embassies to be established in eastern and central Europe.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  We favour practical co-operation between EC missions in third countries. EC missions are already co-operating practically in fields such as emergency planning and medical care. We hope that the 712
  responsibilities opening in central and eastern Europe will extend the scope for practical co-operation. We are therefore discussing this with several of our EC partners.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the new Turkish Government on a new initiative for a settlement to the present dispute in Cyprus; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Garel-Jones
  We remain committed to the search for a solution in Cyprus, and continue to work actively in support of the UN Secretary General's mission of good offices. We maintain regular contact with all parties to the dispute. I have had valuable discussions recently with both the Turkish and Cyprus Foreign Ministers and also discussed the next steps with the UN Secretary General.

  Lockerbie
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to support the efforts of the Government of Libya to prosecute the Libyan nationals alleged to have committed offences in connection with the Lockerbie bombing; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No. We believe that Libyan intelligence services are heavily involved in the functioning of the Libyan judiciary. As is clear from the Lord Advocate's announcement on 14 November, it is alleged that the Libyan intelligence services are implicated in the bombing of Pan Am 103. There can therefore be no confidence in the impartiality of a Libyan court.

  Libya
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what extradition agreement exists between the United Kingdom and Libya.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  There is no extradition agreement between the United Kingdom and Libya.

  Foreign Affairs Council
  Sir Marcus Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Foreign Affairs Council held between 10 to 11 January.

  Mr. Hurd
  My hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, represented the United Kingdom at the Foreign Affairs Council on 10 January.

  The Council agreed that the Community and member states should play a full part in the Washington conference on help to the former Soviet Union planned for 22–23 January. The Council had a preliminary discussion on the Community's relations with the newly-independent states of the former Soviet Union and invited the Commission to make specific proposals.

  Ministers issued a statement welcoming the reconvening of the peace conference on Yugoslavia in the presence of all parties to the conflict. They noted the contribution by Montenegro towards creating the conditions necessary for the continuation of the conference. Ministers expressed

  713
  their readiness to apply positive measures to Montenegro, similar to those agreed for Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzogovina and Macedonia.

  Ministers also discussed my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's proposal to hold a special meeting of the UN Security Council on 31 January. In a brief discussion of South Africa, Ministers confirmed their agreement that the EC ban on imports of iron, steel and krugerrands should be lifted and invited the Commission to submit a proposal to this effect to a future Council for formal adoption.

  After the Council, Trade and Agriculture Ministers had an informal discussion on the GATT Uruguay round and reviewed the prospects for a successful conclusion of the round in the light of the draft agreement proposed by Mr. Dunkel, the GATT Director-General.

ENERGY

  Sizewell B
  Mr.Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what discussions he has had with the chairman of Nuclear Electric regarding the extension or amendment of the existing nuclear plant operating agreement to cover Sizewell B PWR nuclear power station; and if he will place a copy of the agreement in Library; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no such discussion. He is unaware of any agreement with the title "existing nuclear plant operating agreement".

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy whether he has given guarantees to the chairman of Nuclear Electric concerning the relationship of the Sizewell B PWR nuclear power station with the National Grid Company and the electricity generator and distributor pool and operating arrangements on completion of the Sizewell B station.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  There will be no unique arrangements in respect of output produced at Sizewell B. The non-fossil fuel obligation and levy arrangements will treat the output from Sizewell B in the same way output from Nuclear Electric's existing portfolio of stations. The arrangements run until 1998. The Government will undertake a wide ranging review of the future prospects for nuclear power in the United Kingdom in 1994.

  Energy Management assistance Scheme
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy how many small and medium companies he anticipates will be assisted under the energy management assistance scheme—EMAS—what provisions he is making for publicizing the availability of consultancy advice under EMAS; what steps he is taking to ensure an even distribution of awareness of the availability of EMAS grants in each United Kingdom region; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  My energy efficiency office has set itself the target of 500 successful applications for grants under the energy management assistance scheme during the 1992–93 financial year, with 1,000 grants in each of the subsequent two years. The Scheme will be open to 714
  applicants throughout Great Britain and I understand that the Department for Economic Development is considering a similar scheme for Northern Ireland.

  There was some preliminary publicity about EMAS at the national energy management exhibition and conference in December, when consultants and equipment suppliers from throughout the United Kingdom were able to learn about the principles of the scheme. This information was reported in four trade journals, leading to over a hundred inquiries from all parts of the United Kingdom.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy will launch the scheme formally through the technical press in February and detailed guidelines and application forms for EMAS will be printed in preparation for this. The Energy Efficiency Office's own journal "Energy Management", which has a very wide circulation, will also publicise EMAS.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Rubber (Recycling)
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assistance his department is giving to United Kingdom firms in recycling used motor tyres into rubber granules.

  Mr. Leigh
  Companies engaged in recycling activities, including firms recycling used motor tyres into rubber granules, are able to apply for grant aid from a number of schemes run by the Department. For example, the Department offers, on a regional basis, assistance via its enterprise initiative. The Department also operates two specifically environment-related schemes: the environment technology innovation scheme—ETIS—which aims to support pre-competitive industrial research on a collaborative basis; and the DTI environmental management options scheme—DEMOS—which encourages the wider adoption of proven best practices in environmental technology.

  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assistance he is giving to market United Kingdom produced rubber granules to substitute for imports.

  Mr. Leigh
  It is open to United Kingdom manufacturers of rubber granules to apply for assistance for marketing consultancy under the Department's enterprise initiative.

  EC Regional Assistance
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the regional share of successful applications for assistance under SPUR, support for products under research, SMART, the small firms merit award for research and technology, LINK and other innovation schemes, for each United Kingdom standard region in 1989–90, 1990–91 and up to 31 October this year.
  715

  Department of Trade and Industry Innovation Budget Share of successful applications by United Kingdom region

  Region

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1 April 1991 to 31 October 1991

  per cent.

  per cent.

  per cent.

  SMART

  East Midlands

  8

  8

  5

  North East

  6

  4

  5

  Northern Ireland

  4

  3

  5

  North West

  10

  10

  10

  Scotland

  9

  11

  11

  South East

  25

  27

  26

  South West

  11

  11

  12

  Wales

  10

  9

  6

  West Midlands

  11

  9

  11

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  6

  8

  9

  TOTAL

  100

  100

  100

  SPUR

  East Midlands

  0

  0

  9

  North East

  0

  0

  9

  Northern Ireland

  0

  0

  0

  North West

  0

  0

  13

  Scotland

  0

  0

  17

  South East

  0

  0

  22

  South West

  0

  0

  2

  Wales

  0

  0

  4

  West Midlands

  0

  0

  11

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  0

  0

  13

  TOTAL

  0

  0

  100

  LINK, EUREKA, ATP, GICP

  East Midlands

  9

  10

  8

  North East

  2

  1

  3

  Northern Ireland

  0

  0

  0

  North West

  9

  7

  8

  Scotland

  3

  3

  8

  South East

  51

  50

  52

  South West

  6

  7

  5

  Wales

  0

  2

  3

  West Midlands

  16

  15

  11

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  4

  5

  2

  TOTAL

  100

  100

  100

  Notes:

  1. SPUR was not launched until 1991–92
  716
  2. Figures for the year to date are not necessarily representative of the expected full-year picture.

  3. Figures for LINK, EUREKA, ATP (Advanced Technology Programmes), and GICP (General Industrial Collaborative Programmes) have been aggregated because they share the characteristic of collaborative schemes that information is recorded on the region of the lead organisation but not on the location of other collaborators. Care needs to be taken therefore in interpreting the regional significance of the figures.

  4. Other activities under the innovation budget—notably technology transfer—do not have the location of the work recorded because they are conducted on a national scale.

  5. Support for activities in Northern Ireland is largely provided through other budgetary mechanisms by the Northern Ireland Department.

  Iraq (Military Nuclear Programme)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make it his policy to investigate the links identified by the United Nations special investigation commission in Iraq between the London-based Meed International Company and the Technology and Development Group and the German companies H. N. Metalform of Drensteinfurt, Machinenbau Technikhandel Magdeburg, Dieburg, Schenk Werkzeug Machinenbau and Rittal-Werk Rudolf Lok in supplying high technology equipment to the Iraqi military nuclear programme.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 15 January 1992]: I am aware that the inspections in Iraq by the United Nations Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency has revealed the names of many companies around the world which have traded with Iraq, including some from Britain. It is possible that more names will he revealed as time goes on.

  Any indications of wrongdoing will be investigated urgently.

  Sunday Trading
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will refer the opening of large stores on Sundays to the Office of Fair Trading.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 16 January 1992]: No. Competition legislation is not designed to apply to the opening of large stores on Sundays.

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by
the Lord Bishop of Chichester.

Trident
Lord Mayhewasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether a Trident submarine could be used, if necessary, in a sub-strategic role.
Earl Howe: My Lords, Trident is a strategic system. NATO's new strategic concept approved at the Rome Summit in November 1991 made clear that sub-strategic forces are an essential link between conventional and strategic forces. There are many technical and operational reasons for not relying on Trident to discharge sub-strategic roles too.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, will the noble Earl confirm that Trident could have many advantages? Does he agree that it is less vulnerable than air-to-surface systems; it is probably more accurate; and if it could combine the two roles it would save the country well over £2 billion?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the reason why the Government disagree with that view can be summed up in two words: flexibility and security. If we were now to rely solely on submarine-launched systems we should be putting all our nuclear eggs into one basket for decades ahead. A separate capability is a hedge against the possibility of unanticipated technical or operational advances which could threaten Trident's capability. Advances in anti-submarine warfare techniques are one example.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, will the noble Earl confirm that Trident is a minimum deterrent? Does he agree that it is to the credit of this Government and the nation that we continue to rely on nuclear deterrents while the world is in its present state?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that this is a highly uncertain world and that it is the task of the Government to plan for the long term.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that with the variable yield warhead the Trident missile could indeed be regarded as sub-strategic? How can one measure sub-strategic by any means other than by the size of the explosion?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the best way to describe what we mean by a sub-strategic strike is that it would be a measured but unmistakable warning in the face of aggression against us that we were unwilling to yield. The aim would be to induce an enemy to end his aggression to ensure his continued survival. That is very different from an all-out strike.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that at present there is a possibility that the breakup of' the USSR has created a more dangerous situation than when the Soviet Union existed? Does he further agree that we therefore have to be cautious and give great thought to any changes made in any form of our armaments?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I fully agree with the noble Lord. Control over a nuclear arsenal is only as good as the commitment and dependability of the forces which guard it.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the noble Earl agree that his definition of a sub-strategic strike lends credence to the idea that Trident could be used in such a capacity if necessary? That is not to say that there should not be a strategic role as well. But if a sub-strategic strike is to deter a possible aggressor with a limited strike, could not Trident do that perfectly easily?
Earl Howe: My Lords, Trident is a system designed to fulfil a strategic role. The Government fully subscribe to NATO's policy of maintaining separate sub-strategic forces in Europe.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that a previous Answer on this subject showed that the Government regard Trident as extremely flexible and quite capable of firing not only a single missile but a single warhead from a single missile? Is he further aware that the arguments that it cannot use the sub-strategic role are not satisfactory?
Earl Howe: My Lords, doubtless a missile of any kind could be launched from a submarine, but that is not the point. The Government believe that it would be unwise to rely on the noble Lord's premise as the basis for the country's defence in time of war.

Wind Turbines
11.10 a.m.
Viscount Hanworthasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they decided to discontinue funding for an experimental wind turbine out to sea.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I believe that the question refers to a proposal by the former Central Electricity Generating Board to build a wind turbine in the North Sea, off the coast of Norfolk, which the board subsequently decided not to proceed with. Following the Central Electricity Generating Board's decision the Department of Energy commissioned a feasibility study, which is due to be completed by the end of this year, to identify the costs of an off-shore experimental machine.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very full Answer. Does he agree that we may be limited on the number of wind turbines that we can put on land and therefore the possibility of putting them out to sea—for example, in the Wash— must and should be investigated? While the costs

475
appear to be much greater, does he consider that they could be reduced if we had a programme of development?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the noble Viscount is quite right to say that there are limits to on-shore generation. If 1 per cent. of our electricity needs were to be generated from wind, we should need turbines occupying some 300 square kilometres of land. Our present estimates—they are only estimates—suggest that to put generators off-shore would about double the cost. In view of that, we are first making a priority of studying on-shore generation.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, is the Minister aware —I am sure he is—that in 1990 the Watt Committee Report on energy renewables warned that it was not possible to support large-scale renewable energy projects from private funding alone? I hope that the House will be tolerant if I quote its recommendation for:
"a measure of public sector funding in all such major projects and continuing support for R&D across all the renewable energy technologies".
The report concluded that:
"With a sustained programme of research and development the working party predicts a technical abundance of renewable energy resources which could more than satisfy our needs".
In the light of that, is it not unfortunate that we are apparently withdrawing from serious endeavours in the offshore wind area, given what has been said about the social limitations there are bound to be with regard to onshore wind turbines?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for quoting that. I broadly agree with the Watt Committee's suggestions. The renewables budget in 1991–92, as I have quoted before in this House, is £24.3 million, which is an increase of 20 per cent. There is no area of renewables that we neglect altogether. Like every programme, we have to make our priorities.
The Government have given a major boost to renewables through the non-fossil fuel obligations. The First and Second Renewables Order under the Electricity Act 1989 resulted in a total installed capacity of about 642 megawatts being contracted.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the phrase quoted from the Watt Report "more than satisfy our needs" discredits rather than credits the credibility of the report? It is an exaggerated phrase. No source of energy can be said to more than satisfy our needs.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, qualified the expression by saying "a technical capacity" which is the correct way to describe it. It would be possible to envisage that all generation could come from offshore—the subject of this Question—but it is unlikely, being intermittent, that it would ever satisfy our needs in reality.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, is that irrespective of cost?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, indeed.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, does the noble Lord recall in evidence to your Lordships' Select Committee on renewable energies, which reported a year or two ago, that the CEGB stated that technically it would be possible to provide 100 per cent. of the country's electricity needs through offshore wind turbines but that clearly the economics are wrong at present? Is it not a fact that sooner or later the economics will come right? It may take 10, 20, 30 or 40 years, but would it not be totally wrong not to investigate the matter fully? If we can achieve such provision it will avoid all the difficulties of North Sea oil running out and the environmental problems associated with some wind farms on land.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I cannot quarrel with anything that the noble Lord said. We are currently undertaking a thorough study. The point of giving priority to onshore development is that there are still technical matters to be dealt with in regard to turbine technology—for instance, vertical as opposed to horizontal technicalities. However, there is encouraging evidence that we shall be generating more from renewables and a real expectation of one day being able to generate 20 per cent. of our generating needs from renewable sources.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, following the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, does the noble Lord agree that we should therefore also spend a lot of money on fusion research over the next 50 years, which is the most expensive but the most hopeful research?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, into this argument must come the question of diversity. If we are to feel secure in our energy needs we must conduct that research within our means on many different fronts.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Lord boasts about spending £24.3 million a year on research and development of renewables. How does that compare with the figure that is being spent on research and development on the nuclear industry? Is it not essential that we move more towards the use of renewables in view of the environmental disasters forecast with the continuing use of carbon fuels?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, as I have said previously to the noble Lord, there is no reason why research and development expenditure on renewables should have a proportional relationship to the expenditure on nuclear research. I have spoken already about the need for diversity. We shall continue to commit research to both areas.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, will the noble Lord answer my question? If he is boasting about spending £24.3 million a year on research and development of renewables, what are the Government spending on research and development in the nuclear industry?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the subject of nuclear research is not on the Order Paper. Nor have I done any boasting.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, what my noble friend said about offshore generation being more expensive than land generation is true. However, is that not offset by the fact that it is windier at sea than on land and that therefore sea wind generators would be able to generate electricity for a higher proportion of the time?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, my noble friend makes a perfectly correct point. The potential offshore is almost limitless.

Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority
11.19 a.m.
Lord Ezraasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied with the procedure adopted for the privatisation of the port of Tees and Hartlepool.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, on 18th December my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced in another place that he was minded to give his formal consent to the recommendation of the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority board that its undertaking should be sold to Teesside Holdings. Since then THPA Consortium, the management-employee buy-out team which bid for the port, and honourable Members in another place have put forward representations that there were defects in the THPA board's consideration of the bids. My right honourable friend will consider carefully the matters which have been raised before making a final decision on the sale.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, does the Minister agree that considerable confusion has surrounded this first bidding process for a trust port to be privatised under the 1991 Act? Does he also agree that some of the bidders in this case submitted revised bids while others did not? Is it correct that the successful bidder, still to be confirmed by the Minister, did not submit the highest bid; nor did it represent the interests of the management even though that was supported in the Act? Will the Minister confirm press reports that, because of the confused situation, a news blackout has been imposed on the bidding processes for other trust ports?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I should not regard what has happened as confusion within the bidding process. As I stated in my Answer, the THPA board recommended to my right honourable friend that the bid should go forward. Since then various allegations have been made, upon which I do not intend to comment today. It is true that it was not the highest bid but my right honourable friend said in answer in another place:
"the THPA board concluded that the bid by Teesside Holdings Limited, although not the largest in monetary terms, was the most consistent with the authority's
478
privatisation objectives and, taken overall, the most beneficial to the port, its employees and the Teesside community generally". —[Official Report, Commons. 18/12/91; col. 163.]
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the allegations that are being considered by his department in relation to the Teesside bid involve allegations that Teesside Holdings Limited offered inducements to the port authority which was handling the bid; that it was given a degree of favouritism; that conflicts clearly arose vis-à-vis Teesside Holdings Limited and the port authority; and that there was an omission on the part of two directors to disclose their involvement in malpractices relating to redundancy payment issues under the Dock Labour Scheme some time ago? In view of those serious allegations, will the Minister indicate whether the police are being called in to investigate the matters?
Secondly, would he not think it appropriate, since after all justice must not only be done but be seen to be done, that this port authority should not handle the issue again and that, in the interests of fairness as perceived by the other bidders, there should be a renewal of the whole proposal?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, as I have already said, I do not intend nor would it be right for me to comment on the allegations which the noble Lord has wrongly repeated in the House today. When the time is right my right honourable friend will respond in full to the allegations that have been made. I have no knowledge of whether police involvement will be necessary.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in another place these allegations were made most specifically because otherwise no one would be any the wiser about why the matter was being reviewed? In my submission it is perfectly proper to advert to those issues now. Can the Minister indicate whether the police are being called in? After all, in the interests of public information about the matter that issue is absolutely crucial.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I do not intend to reply to the allegations—it would not be right for me to do so. They must be properly considered. As I have already said, I do not know whether there is police involvement.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the Minister has said that the Government will investigate the whole matter in detail. Will he give the House an undertaking that the results of their inquiries into these serious allegations will be made fully available to the public and to the House?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, when my right honourable friend responds to the allegations he will undoubtedly wish to publicise them in some way. They were made by honourable Members in another place who are entitled to a reply.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, would the Minister care to comment on the suggestion made by my noble

479
friend Lord Ezra that a news blackout has been imposed on any bids made in similar circumstances? If that is the case it is most serious.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I believe that to be the result of a misunderstanding. The department has asked trust ports seeking privatisation to delay making any public announcement about their boards' recommendations on the successful bidder for the port until my right honourable friend has had an opportunity to consider the recommendations and to decide whether to give his consent. The request was made because my right honourable friend might not give his consent to a recommendation. Should he not do so it would be misleading and unhelpful both to the recommended bidder and to the other bidders if the port announced its recommendation publicly. There is no reason why we should try to prevent bidders for a port from making public whatever information they choose about their bids and we were certainly not seeking to do so. The only confidentiality clauses that bidders are being asked to sign relate to commercially-sensitive information which they receive from the port for which they are bidding.

Local Government Finance Bill
11.26 a.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, subject to one amendment occasioned by a printer's error. Between "Schedules 1 to 4" and "Schedule 8" there should be inserted "Schedule 6". I trust that the House will agree to the Motion subject to that amendment, which originates purely from a printer's error.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Local Government Finance Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order-

Clauses 1 to 4,

Clauses 70 to 73,

Schedule 5,

Clauses 5 to 10,

Clauses 74 to 78,

Clauses 11 to 38,

Clauses 79 to 93,

Clause 97,

Schedules 1 to 4,

Schedule 6,

Schedule 8,

Clauses 39 to 69,

Clauses 94 to 96,

Clauses 98 to 99,

Schedule 7,

Clauses 100 to 102,

Schedule 9,

Clauses 103 to 118,

Schedules 10 to 14.—[Earl Howe.]

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Bill
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I beg to move that the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Bill be read a second time.
The Bill strengthens the law against criminals who take other people's cars illegally and then drive them dangerously or cause injury or damage. This practice has sometimes been called "joy riding" but, of course, there is nothing remotely joyful about these activities. As last year's events in Oxford, Newcastle and elsewhere showed, the illegal taking of cars leads to danger to other road users, the destruction of property, and injury or even death. So much for joy!
The practice is an appalling menace and one which, up to now, the criminal law has had some difficulty in dealing with adequately. The basic mischief of taking a vehicle is, of course, already an offence under Section 12 of the Theft Act 1968. And, at least in theory, there are offences such as manslaughter, criminal damage, reckless driving and causing death by reckless driving which are available to catch other mischiefs which are connected with the original offence. Sometimes these offences can be enforced; but sometimes they cannot.
Let us consider for a moment the problems which there may be in proving the offence of criminal damage. Data from the British Crime Survey shows that at least 40 per cent. of illegally-taken cars are damaged by the time the owners get them back. But Home Office statistics indicate that only 6 per cent. of those charged with illegal taking are also prosecuted for criminal damage. All too often it is just not clear which member of a gang caused the particular damage, or who actually had his hand on the wheel when the car crashed and someone was killed or injured as a result. They might all have had a turn; it might have been dark; the car might have been travelling too fast for clear identification; or perhaps the vehicle was found abandoned and burnt out in a wood and the taker simply denies having had any responsibility for it.
But none of these things would have happened if the vehicle had not been taken in the first place. If the takers are prosecuted only for the basic offence of "taking" their punishment will just not be sufficient to reflect the havoc which they have wrought, the misery which they have caused, or the moral culpability which they bear.
This Bill therefore provides that, when a basic offence of taking a vehicle without consent is accompanied by dangerous driving, by injury, by damage either to the vehicle or to other property, or by any combination of these aggravating circumstances, those who are guilty of the basic offence will be guilty in addition of an aggravated offence and they will be liable to increased penalties.
It is important to stress that the circumstances to which I have just referred are treated in the Bill as aggravating events. The Bill does not seek to convict anyone of the separate offences of criminal damage, reckless driving, dangerous driving or any offence against the person. They will continue to be covered

481
under other legislation. This Bill simply recognises an aggravated form of what is an existing Theft Act offence.
As with the basic offence in the Theft Act 1968, the new aggravated offence will apply not only to whoever takes the car initially, but to anyone who drives it or who is driven in it, provided that they know that the car has been taken illegally. This means that the prosecution will not have to show which of the gang was actually driving at the particular time, or who was responsible for a particular piece of vandalism. The whole episode will be viewed as one offence and all those who are involved will be equally liable to punishment for the aggravated offence. That seems to me to be not only a realistic solution to a problem of enforcement, but it also represents a moral position.
If a gang takes a car and tragedy results, it is invidious to attempt to single out just one member of the gang and to say that he alone is to blame. All members bear moral responsibility and all should be criminally liable both for taking the vehicle and for the consequences of that offence. Of course, if it is clear in a particular case that one gang member was especially culpable, it will still be possible to prosecute him individually for criminal damage or for reckless driving or for other offences as appropriate as well.
Clause 1 provides that the aggravated offence will carry a maximum penalty on indictment of two years' imprisonment, or an unlimited fine or both, or five years' imprisonment in a case where death has been caused.
These penalties are in line with those for the existing offences of reckless driving and causing death by reckless driving, and for the new offences of dangerous driving and causing death by dangerous driving which was created by the Road Traffic Act of the last Session.
The maximum penalty for the basic offence of "taking" is six months' imprisonment or a £2,000 fine or both. That is clearly an inadequate response to the more serious cases which are the concern of this Bill.
Some of your Lordships may recall that the maximum penalty for the basic offence used to be three years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine or both. Your Lordships may wonder why this was reduced in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and why the Government do not simply reinstate the old penalties. The fact is that when the basic offence was made summary only and when the penalty was reduced to six months, that was simply a recognition of what was in fact already the practice of the courts. We should wish to avoid returning to the situation before 1988 when any vehicle taker, however minor his mischief might have been, could elect for a Crown Court trial.
That is why the Bill creates an aggravated offence with an appropriate penalty, and why it does not simply raise the penalty for the existing general offence of unlawful vehicle-taking. The Bill makes it clear which cases are to be viewed more seriously.
Clause 1 is the most important, and the most substantial, part of this Bill. Clause 2 provides that, if the only aggravating event was damage below the value of £2,000, then the aggravated offence has to be
482
tried summarily, and it provides the formulae by which the court will determine the value of any damage which has been done.
These provisions reflect those which have been made for the substantive offence of criminal damage by the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980. They are designed to prevent the Crown Court from becoming clogged up with less serious cases.
Clause 3 means that the courts must normally disqualify everyone convicted of the new offence from driving for at least 12 months. If, for some exceptional reason, disqualification is not appropriate, the court must endorse his licence and impose penalty points. Clause 3 also provides that the fact that an offender was only a passenger in the car concerned is not to be treated as a special reason for letting him off a ban. Of course, the length of the ban is at the determination of the court.
Clause 4 provides for the Short Title, commencement and scope of the Bill. The law is different in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so this Bill will not apply there. However, I understand that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will consider whether there is a need for similar legislation in the Province.
This Bill has been generally welcomed and it received a good measure of support from all quarters in another place. I hope that it will receive equal, if not enhanced, support in this House.
There have been suggestions that the Bill may create an undesirable precedent by making an offender liable for the actions of others, or even by reversing the usual burden of proof in criminal cases. Some of the press reports about the Bill concentrated on these two alleged departures from principle, so it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I were to deal with those misunderstandings now, at the beginning of this debate.
The Bill is, in fact, less novel than has been sometimes suggested. In order to obtain a conviction for aggravated vehicle-taking, the prosecution will have to prove both that the accused committed the basic Theft Act offence, either as a driver or as a passenger, and that an aggravating event occurred during the time when the car was taken.
Both elements of the offence must be proved beyond reasonable doubt in the usual way. There is no question of a defendant being presumed to be guilty unless he can prove his innocence. It is true that the prosecution need not prove that a particular defendant was personally responsible for a particular aggravating event but, if that could readily be proved, there would, of course, be no need for this Bill. A defendant could simply be prosecuted for a free-standing offence of manslaughter, dangerous driving, criminal damage or whatever.
The Government believe that anyone who deliberately involves himself in an episode of illegal car-taking incurs moral responsibility for whatever happens—whether or not he was in the driving seat at the time. If things go wrong, he should take the legal consequences, and he has no one to blame but himself.
Far from being too draconian, the Bill provides defences for defendants who can show that an

483
aggravating event occurred before they committed their basic offence, or at a time when they were not in, on or near the vehicle concerned. As with most other statutory defences, these will be for the defendant to establish on the balance of probabilities. As your Lordships will appreciate, there is a substantial difference between providing a defence of this sort and reversing the usual burden of proof, and that the Bill does not do.
The Government accept that this Bill is not the complete answer to the problem of car crime. It is just another weapon in the armoury of measures against crime. That is why we are encouraging local probation services, the police, voluntary groups and others to work to reduce motor offending, and why the Home Office is providing nearly £200,000 this financial year for motor projects, working with young offenders and others. That is also why my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is engaged in a series of meetings with leading manufactures to try to encourage them to make improvements in car security, and why, on 11th February he will inaugurate Car Crime Prevention Year to increase public awareness of ways in which car crime can be prevented. Nevertheless, some element of cure is needed when prevention fails. This Bill provides it. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(Earl Ferrers.)
11.40 a.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, those of your Lordships who benefited from a classical education may well recall the words of the satirist Juvenal when he wrote, "Galeatum sero duelli poenitet", or, "It's too late to shirk the fight when you've got your helmet on". Recent Home Office policy seems to have been to put a helmet on, if I may say so, at the drop of a hat, and only then to consider how to fight the legislative battle on half a dozen different fronts at the same time. Even so, and not otherwise is it with this Bill.
For the past year and more Her Majesty's Government, and particularly the Home Secretary, have identified one painful problem after another and tried to defend themselves against press and public outrage by a bit of speedy footwork in the legislative ring. There were media headlines regarding dangerous dogs, prison mutinies and car crimes and there were panic reactions in the Home Office—"The public must be protected; something must be done". So legislation was dreamt up, brought in, and rushed through to cover up a basic lack of planned policy.
The Bill is a partial answer to part of a problem. It represents short-term thinking and it seems to have been devised far more to impress the newspapers than to depress the potential criminal. It is certainly unlikely to do much to stem the rising tide of car crime. To be fair to him, the Home Secretary recognised its limitations when he said —and the words were echoed by the noble Earl this morning —that the Bill is not the whole answer to car crime,
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nor does it pretend to be. But it is the only measure currently before us and we must evaluate it as it stands and for what it is worth.
It stands unsteadily. It offers little that is new. In itself it will achieve little because it duplicates powers which already exist to deal with taking and driving away a car and with many aggravating factors. Any driver who recklessly drives and causes damage or injury, or any passenger who encourages him to do so, is liable, upon conviction, to two years' imprisonment under the Road Traffic Act 1991. To cause death by reckless driving carries a maximum sentence of five years; manslaughter carries a maximum of life imprisonment. Even the offence of deliberately damaging a vehicle attracts a possible 10-year sentence.
Powerful penalties already exist and the Bill duplicates many of them while adding only a few new ones, mostly concerned with people other than the driver, who will now be required to establish their innocence if they are to avoid sentence. It hardly gets to the root of the problem. As I said, the Bill is a knee-jerk Home Office reaction to some well publicised, horrific events which took place last summer and autumn. Children and adults were killed or maimed by young villains driving stolen cars, usually high-performance vehicles. What was variously described as "joy-riding", "ram-raiding" or "hotting" was a sudden, short lived, fashionable behaviour cult which only highlighted the vastly greater, longstanding, steadily growing problem of car crime, incorporating everything from the gravest of manslaughters to the more venal escapades of so-called joy-riding.
It is significant that the word "joy-riding", however inaccurate, is no new invention. The Oxford English Dictionary records it as early as 1908 and includes in its definition,
"a pleasure trip in a motor car, aeroplane etc., often without the permission of the owner of the vehicle".
It has been with us for a long time. The point is that in recent years it has grown to horrific proportions. Car crime offences, as it is better to call them, have increased steadily and alarmingly to proportions which are little short of monstrous. That is the real heart of the problem.
In 1990 there were 494,000 recorded offences of theft or unauthorised taking of motor vehicles; that is a 25 per cent. increase on the previous year. That followed a 7 per cent. increase in such offences between 1988 and 1989. We can rely on those figures because one thing is clear—that owners of cars almost invariably report the loss of their vehicles.
The Bill is the Government's response to that situation. In considering the problem of car crime as a whole we must ask three questions. Who commits it? Why do they do it? What will stop them? The answer to the first question is easy. The majority of known car crime offenders are teenage boys. Thirty-four per cent. of offenders are aged 15 and 16, and 39 per cent. are aged 17 to 20. The result of these offences is, at the minimum, distress and inconvenience and at least temporary loss of the use of the vehicle; often damage is caused to the vehicle and in all too many cases injury

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and even death are caused to innocent parties and, tragically, to the young offenders themselves. Research suggests that the driver of a stolen car is 200 times more likely to be injured in an accident than the authorised driver.
Comparatively few adults steal cars except for other criminal purposes, and hardly any women steal cars at all. It has been reported in many research papers and articles that the young men who form the bulk of offenders usually cease to offend in this way when they marry or settle down in a steady relationship. I admit that I am being imaginative, but not wholly facetious, when I say that we could eliminate much of the car crime in this country by lowering the age at which one can qualify for a driving licence to 14 and making the penalty for subsequent car crime offences immediate compulsory marriage.
The second question regarding why young men commit this crime is no more difficult to answer. They do it for excitement, for thrills, for kicks. They do it to achieve status in the peer group; to relieve boredom in a society where unemployment is high and many people have little to do and where the excitement of the as yet unattainable car of one's own is elevated by so many television police programmes, often American in origin, which culminate in high speed car chases demonstrating impossible driving skills as though they were within the reach of everyone.
There is a secondary reason why young men in this country commit car crimes. They know perfectly well that if they do so they are unlikely to be caught. Of the 400,000 offences that occurred in 1990 only 5,000 offenders went to prison or to a youth offenders' institution. Of those, 4,000 went in for six months or less and only 1,000 out of 400,000 cases were caught and given sentences of six months or more. The bored boy living in an urban high-rise flat, excited by the fast cars he sees belonging to other people and envious of their freedom and lifestyle, knows that the odds are heavily on his side if he simply takes that vehicle and drives it away, regardless of the hideous damage that he may do.
The third question regarding what will stop them from committing this crime is more complex. However, one thing is clear. This Bill is unlikely to do so. I cannot for one moment believe that the new penalties it introduces will act as any sort of deterrent. Deterrents are irrelevant. Deterrents are only effective when people coolly and rationally consider the odds and the penalties. Most car crimes are impulse actions done on the spur of the moment; hardly any of the offenders would be able to give an accurate account of the present penalties. Even if a potential offender of 15, 16 or 17 made a careful study of the new penalties proposed, he would rightly conclude that he had no means of calculating the additionality of the danger in which he stood should things go wrong and his stolen car damaged property or killed or injured someone.
Nor will the threat of obligatory disqualification deter those young men and boys. Thirty-four per cent. of recent offenders were too young to qualify for a licence and there is no terror in the thought that in two or three years' time one may not be able to obtain one. Of the 39 per cent. aged between 17 and 20 a fair
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proportion had never bothered to obtain a licence in the first place and had absolutely no intention of doing so. Licences mean little to the lawless.
Above all, the possibility of swingeing and unlimited fines will not deter this group of people above all other groups. The majority of the offenders are either too young to have an income or too poor to pay even the modest fines which magistrates deem it sensible to impose. It has been argued elsewhere that since last year's legislation the parents of such young people will now be liable and the sins of the children will be visited upon the fathers. That may be true in some cases. But in many more the parents themselves will be unemployed or living on social security. The courts know full well that heavy fines in such cases are simply unrealistic. They do not get paid.
The one small step forward which the Bill does take and which may influence the actions of potential car crime offenders is that it makes everyone in the car, not merely the driver, liable for the aggravated offence. That is not very likely to reduce the number of offences, but it may deter some young people from simply "going along for the ride". That would be a good thing.
That is the best I can say for this Bill. I must point out the opportunities which have been missed. Car crimes will not decrease until it is made much harder to steal cars. For many years the Government have been discussing car safety with the manufacturers and next to nothing has come of it. Modern technology can produce a means of immobilizing a car, and a Bill to compel the manufacturers to alter their priorities and put safety before in-car entertainment would go a long way towards solving that problem. It has been said that we cannot legislate on this safety matter; progress must be by consultation and by consent. Why so? We legislated over seat belts and great good it did to us.
Similarly, the Government should introduce tax concessions and the insurance companies should reduce premiums for motorists who can show that their cars are as fully protected as possible. It has been suggested in another place that we should buy and use our own wheel clamps and that is not a silly idea. Leicestershire, Warwickshire, South London and other areas have introduced vehicle watch schemes to very good effect. Such schemes should be given Government encouragement and support. But above all research has shown that motor schemes run by local authorities for offenders or for volunteers dramatically reduce the rate of re-offending: 9 per cent. re-offended in the South London area as opposed to 80 per cent. in the surrounding areas. What greater proof do we need! Young people, permitted to explore the forbidden mysteries of powerful engines under supervision, are manifestly less likely to do so unlawfully.
All such opportunities have of course been missed in this very modest and misdirected little Bill before us today. We on these Benches shall not oppose it because there is very little in it which is going to have very much effect. We shall try if we can to improve it, but without very much hope that any real good can result however we amend it. The problem that it

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attempts feebly to address is large and growing at a frightening rate. It is far more pervasive in our society than the short-lived spectacular events of last autumn in Oxford and the North East of England. Yet it is in a panic reaction to those events that this largely irrelevant little Bill has been conceived.
Faced with the glaring newspaper headlines, all the mighty legislative machinery of Queen Anne's Gate was cranked into action and the result is these four strange little clauses which offend many and which will deter few. One recalls the words of that other Latin poet, Horace,
"Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus".
The mountains will go into labour and will bring forth a ridiculous mouse.
11.53 p.m.
Lord Meston: My Lords, a first reaction to a Bill such as this ought to be to ask how life would be if we had to do without it. The fact is that for all practical purposes the armoury of the criminal law is already quite strong enough to deal with the offences that this Bill tries to tackle by putting yet another criminal statute on the book.
There is nothing new about the nature of the offence itself. It can be met with a whole range of criminal charges starting from the basic offence under Section 12 of the Theft Act and going on to include criminal damage and the more serious dangerous driving offences which have been introduced in their modernised and workable form in the Road Traffic Act 1991. The noble Earl the Minister described those as theoretical possibilities. I suggest to your Lordships that those are practical possibilities to meet the requirements of a particular set of offences. The law has always had this flexibility. As long ago as 1955 the then Lord Chief Justice recommended that theft of petrol could be included as a charge in a taking and driving away offence, as it then was. I recall an ingenious university lecturer suggesting that abstraction of electricity from a car battery could be charged, but perhaps that is a little fanciful. It is noticeable that the proposed new offence in this Bill is apparently not needed to supplement the law of Scotland. I read and re-read the debate in another place and I still do not understand what the law of Scotland has that we apparently lack.
We can all see the impulses which produced this Bill following the events of last summer. Those events simply demonstrated what anyone who has spent a little time in a magistrates' court or a Crown court knew all too well. The offence of taking a vehicle can simply be an offence which is little more than an anti-social nuisance, but at its worst it can be a terrifying crime with dreadful results. Of course the public must be protected from unqualified, uninsured young men driving dangerously in other people's cars. If it is right that the existing law is essentially adequate one has to try to see what this Bill adds. It adds more for the prosecution to have to prove. It gives new maximum penalties. The irony is that, until Section 37 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 was passed, the basic
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offence of taking a vehicle contrary to Section 12 of the Theft Act carried a maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment. The noble Earl referred to that.
Re-reading those debates of 1988 it appears that what became Section 37 was agreed on all sides. Until the downgrading by the 1988 Act, the offence was triable in the Crown Court as an "either way" offence. Until then the Court of Appeal had upheld quite stiff sentences for repeated and serious offenders. Indeed, in the The Times' law report only yesterday the Court of Appeal approved a custodial sentence on a juvenile passed for a typical combination of charges at the more serious end of the scale. I doubt whether this Bill will do much to prevent such offences. It certainly will not cure the problems of a culture which glamorises fast cars and trivialises most motoring offences. If the Government want to produce a tough deterrent measure they do not require a new criminal offence which will make little or no impression on the youngsters behaving in the way we have heard about. They may achieve a wider range of penalties to enable the public to be safeguarded from the worst offenders, but that is all.
This Bill creates an offence which requires the prosecution to prove something about the conduct of the driver, the standard of the driving and the consequences of the driving. In reality those are all matters which can be, and traditionally have been, raised at the sentencing stage and reflected accordingly. This Bill adds complication as well as duplication. It exposes those who take cars or who are carried in them, to liability for the aggravated offence caused by damage they themselves did not directly cause. It is presumably said that people who take and abandon cars should be responsible for the consequences of that action even if they were not the direct cause of such damage and even if the damage was not foreseen or foreseeable.
The noble Earl referred to moral culpability. The sad truth is that young offenders do not foresee the consequences of those activities and will not be made to do so by this Bill. Reference has been made to penalty points and disqualification. As the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, said, those matters simply will not deter 15 year-olds in the situations which he described and neither will fines. The reality is that the courts will be unable to impose fines which have any significant effect on such people or probably any significant effect on their parents. The person charged can defend himself by trying to prove a negative under the proposed new Section 12A(3). I look forward to trying to argue what the phrase "in the immediate vicinity" means, but that is something for future litigation.
Noble Lords: Near, my Lords.
Lord Meston: My Lords, near might be good enough I suspect. The nature of the offence is such that the person will probably be tempted to plead guilty and try to establish his subsection (3) defence, whereas without this new provision the consequences of the basic Section 12 offence could be more usefully analysed by the court at the sentencing stage and any gravity appropriately marked.

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Having expressed the rather negative view that the Bill is likely to have minimal impact on the problems that the Government quite properly want and need to deal with, I welcome the indication from them that the Bill is not seen as the complete answer. We on these Benches would certainly support any initiatives to improve vehicle security—though preferably not car alarms going off louder and longer in the middle of the night—and we would support any initiatives for projects to create a more mature attitude to the use and care of cars; for example, projects which have already been established under the probation service.
I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to confirm our understanding that those projects do have a good record in preventing reoffending, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said. The attitude from these Benches is the same as the attitude expressed by the previous speaker. The Bill will do little harm, but it will probably do little good. It may need some attention at Committee stage.
12.2 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I must confess to a somewhat uneasy and nostalgic feeling of playing truant. Fridays, as your Lordships know, is when all good and true Lords of Appeal in Ordinary apply themselves assiduously to drafting their reserve judgments, viewing critically those provided by their "brothers" and preparing for the rigours of the coming week. It is not this Bill, with its somewhat unattractive title, that has provided a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion which has caused me to be diverted from my usual Friday activities. It is his Honour Alfred Blennerhassett QC—a former circuit judge, chairman of a government committee on drink and driving (an expert on that subject) and an old friend and fellow Bencher of the Middle Temple—who has drawn to my attention a point which I think it is my duty to draw to the attention of the House.
I have taken the great advantage of the courtesy and kindness always shown by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, to discuss the problem with him despite his crushing programme which he has had this week.
The point arises in this way. Section 22 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 requires a court to notify the Secretary of State for Transport whether, in any proceedings committed in respect of a motor vehicle, it appears to the court that the accused may be suffering from any relevant disability or prospective disability within the meaning of Part III of the Road Traffic Act 1983.
In a case where an offender has been disqualified then unless he can satisfy the department's medical advisory branch—that is, after a reference—that he is no longer suffering from the disability, his licence is not returned at the end of the period of disqualification.
The problem arises out of the definition of the word "disability". Section 92 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 is headed "Physical Fitness" and has the side note,
"Requirements as to physical fitness of drivers"
Subsection (2) states:
"'disability' includes disease,
'relevant disability'… means
(a) any prescribed disability"
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that is prescribed by regulations made by the Minister, and,
(b) any other disability likely to cause the driving of a vehicle by him in pursuance of a licence to be a source of danger to the public".
Regulation 24 of the Driving Licence Regulations 1987 has described as disabilities, among other things, epilepsy, severe subnormality, mental deficiency, sudden attacks of disabling giddiness or faintness. I was not in any way surprised to learn in relation to the offences to which this Bill relates that drink and drugs play a major part. I do not suggest that those who suffer from alcoholism—that is, a dependency on alcohol—or those who suffer from a dependency on drugs are not suffering from a disability within the meaning of the section. But according to the medical evidence sent to me by His Honour Alfred Blennerhassett, the majority of offenders are not alcohol or drug dependants but merely resort from time to time to what is called mis-use or abuse of alcohol or drugs. Probation officers' reports frequently refer to the defendant as having a drink problem in the sense that although perfectly capable of withstanding the urge to drink, from time to time he will behave irresponsibly, over-imbibe, and then take someone else's car and drive in a highly dangerous way.
Mr. Blennerhassett has taken up this general problem with the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Transport in the hopes of persuading them, or one of them, to amend Section 92 but has failed in his endeavours. Among the many letters he has sent to me is one from the Minister for Roads and Traffic dated 31st July 1991 which I have drawn to the attention of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. It states inter alia:
"It remains the Department's view, and one which is supported by the Medical Advisory Panel on Driving Alcohol and Drugs, that alcohol misuse represents a relevant or prospective disability".
With the greatest respect, that just cannot be right. Alcohol mis-use is an activity, not a disability. That it can lead to a disability when it results in alcoholism —that is, a dependency on alcohol—is not to be doubted.
Yesterday, when considering how to present my submissions to your Lordships, I happened to come across the case of the Queen and the Chichester Justices, ex parte Crouch, decided in February 1981, but only reported very briefly in the journal Justice of the Peace. I have, however, managed to get faxed to me from the Crown Office a photostat of the decision—the decision of the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division presided over by Lord Justice Waller and Mr. Justice Kilner Brown—a copy of which I have given to the noble Earl. It concerned an application for judicial review of a decision made by the Chichester magistrates who made a reference to the Secretary of State under Section 92 of the Road Traffic Act 1972 which was in similar terms to Section 22 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 to which I have already referred.
Mr. Crouch pleaded guilty to a drink-driving offence and as a result was fined and disqualified for 21 months. His solicitor, in the course of what I

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imagine he thought was likely to be a successful mitigation, said words to the effect that his client had a drink problem, or something of that sort. At the conclusion of the mitigation the justices' clerk said that the solicitor had impliedly indicated that his client was an alcoholic and that in the circumstances the justices should notify the Secretary of State. In his affidavit provided to the Divisional Court the chairman of the magistrates said:
"My colleagues and I took the view that because the applicant appeared to have a drink problem in the past and because he admitted driving a vehicle with a high concentration of alcohol in his blood, suggesting a significant 'tolerance' to alcohol, he may be suffering from alcoholism. The Clerk confirmed to us that suspected alcoholism is reportable to the Secretary of State as being a disease or disability under the Act. The Justices directed the Clerk to write to the Secretary of State".
Having recited the relevant facts Lord Justice Waller giving the leading judgment with which Mr. Justice Kilner Brown agreed said:
"Nothing that I say should be taken to suggest that magistrates could not properly take account of something said in mitigation on behalf of the accused person. Clearly there might be an admission of a specific relevant disability but in this case all that was said by the solicitor acting for the applicant was that the applicant had a drink problem and this was a first conviction for an offence of this nature. In my judgment, that does not suggest at that stage either that he was suffering from a relevant disability or prospective disability".
The Lord Justice referred to the Secretary of State's letter:
"It appears that during the course of the proceedings in Chichester Magistrates' Court on 29 September, it was disclosed by or on behalf of the defendant that he is an alcoholic".
The judgment continues:
"It appears from the papers that is not so. A statement that he had a drink problem does not go far enough to suggest that the applicant is in fact an alcoholic, and, in my judgment there was not sufficient material in this case on which the magistrates could properly refer the matter to the Secretary of State".
I very much doubt that either the Home Office or the Department of Transport is aware of that decision since in the guidelines issued to magistrates, seeking to encourage them to refer more cases, it is stated:
"A driver who has an alcohol or drug misuse problem may properly be regarded as suffering from a relevant or prospective disability within the meaning of Section 92. Guidelines cannot of course extend the meaning of words used in an Act of Parliament".
The noble Earl most helpfully advised me that it would be going outside the scope of this Bill to make the appropriate amendment to Section 92 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. So be it, but that still leaves it within your Lordships' powers to make provision in the Bill that when a person is convicted of an offence under Section 12A of the Theft Act 1968—the very offence which this Bill is creating—then the relevant or prospective disability referred to in Section 92 shall be deemed to include the misuse of alcohol or drugs.
I thought it right that I should give notice of my intention to submit to your Lordships an appropriate amendment to be considered in Committee. Perhaps before that event occurs the Minister for Roads and Traffic might consider cutting the Gordian knot
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generally by making appropriate use of his powers to prescribe disabilities under Section 105 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
12.14 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, noble Lords will understand if I do not follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, in dealing with a particularly narrow point of the Bill. It was upsetting to me that the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, should be so grudging in his acceptance of the principles of the Bill. His concluding remarks, in which he echoed the view of my noble friend the Minister that the Bill is in effect but a small weapon in the armoury against car crime, did little to undo the damage caused in his opening remarks. I should have thought that the noble Lord, speaking as he did from the Opposition Front Bench, might have given greater support to the forces of law and order in an area of crime which seems to be unique to the United Kingdom, has grown in proportion over recent years and needed immediate action—not headline action —on the part of the Government. At least one can say about the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, that though it may have been lukewarm it certainly was not grudging. We should be grateful to him for that.
This is not a new crime. That there have been, sadly, deaths and injuries reported in recent months has merely highlighted the crime of taking away a motor car. It has merely highlighted the crime of reckless and dangerous driving. We have been through all of that with the North Report. It is regrettable that it took some five years for the recommendations of the North Report to be brought to Parliament in the form of law. It came in two parts. Many sections of the the Road Traffic Act 1991, with which we dealt at some length, have still to be brought into force.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris, said that he would like to see legislation introduced to force motor manufacturers to make their vehicles more difficult to take away. That may be useful but I do not think that it is of any value in that it begs the main question. One has first to get into a motor car before one can take it away. That is not very difficult. We have all read reports. Some of us know how to get into a motor car fairly easily. If the motor vehicle is immobilised by an electronic or mechanical gadget—that is not difficult to devise—the frustration of the potential taker may cause him to do immense and irreparable damage. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, shakes his head. Although anecdotal evidence to the House is not necessarily good evidence I can tell him that I know what I have said to be true. I have spent enough years in the motor business and in the repair of motor cars which have been taken away or damaged by frustrated thieves —thieving is what it is — to know that what I have said is right.
Why is it that while motor cars built in this country are substantially the same as those built in Western European countries the offence to which this Bill directs itself is not apparent in those countries? It has

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little to do with motor cars. It is to do with attitudes towards them. The Bill has not attempted to deal with those attitudes; nor should it.
Motor manufacturers have done a great deal, but on reading reports I learn from the police authorities that 20 per cent.—that is one-fifth—of cars that are found in streets, in car parks, whether public or private, are left unlocked, with windows open, and many of them have the keys inside them. It reminds me very much of what my late father said to me about the encouragement of crime; that if you leave £5 on a desk you encourage someone whose level of temptation is low to take that money. In other words, you are a contributor towards the cause of a crime and the making of a criminal. I suggest that much of the problem devolves upon the owner of the property.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, that perhaps the insurance companies may take a rather different view of the safety of property when they are considering premiums, as indeed they do in the event of a damage claim where seat belts have not been worn. But, again, I think that that is a different issue. We have before us a very small Bill designed to bolster that which Parliament agreed to do in the 1991 Act as a result of the North Report. I think that we should give it support. When the Bill becomes enacted I believe that the magistrates will have a responsibility to represent in sentencing the feelings not only of the public but also of Parliament. In my view it is fairly useless to impose a fine of £500 where there is no £500 to be found either from the defendant or indeed from his family.
As regards the family, there are cases, which have not been mentioned in your Lordships' House this morning, of men in the age bracket of 27 to 32 of previous good behaviour and good standing who are guilty of taking away motor cars and driving them for the sheer hell of it. Therefore, I do not say that it is entirely young people who are involved.
As I said, I welcome the Bill. However, I should much prefer to see those measures in the Road Traffic Act 1991 which have not been included brought in quickly. I have a case at the back of my mind which took place two years ago which concerns me, upon which I should like to see a successful prosecution. So far as I can see all the evidence in the case—and I am only a layman in such matters—was portrayed in the car, on the pavement and in the shop window into which the thief drove the motor car. However, so far as I can trace, no prosecution has yet taken place.
I should like to encourage my noble friend the Minister to pursue with diligence this little extra piece of legislation to deal with an unhappy and unwarrantable crime.
12.23 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, two weeks ago a young man who was a passenger in a stolen car being chased by police died when that car hit a tree close to my home in rural Buckinghamshire. The problem of young people who take cars and then cause damage, injury and even death with them is not a problem, sadly, confined to estates like Blackbird Leys, the
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Barton Estate in Oxford or to inner-city areas. Car crime of that sort has now become nationwide and increasingly is a curse in small country villages.
There is obviously mounting public concern and it is entirely appropriate for the Government to react and respond to it. But that reaction ought to be carefully considered first and the response that they make should be an effective one. To react hastily and inappropriately, in the way in which I fear that the Bill does, is to indulge in a mere public relations exercise, to lose an opportunity to tackle the problem in an effective way and, perhaps even more seriously for reasons which I shall outline to your Lordships if I may, to introduce an element of potential injustice into this area of the criminal law.
In 1988 the Government effectively sent out a message to young men tempted to take cars belonging to others that that offence was no longer to be regarded as a serious one. It became a summary offence triable only in the magistrates' court with a maximum penalty of six months' imprisonment. The reason that that was done was purely and simply to save money in terms of legal aid and court time. They did not want cases of that nature taking up time in the Crown Courts when the outcome almost inevitably was a sentence which the magistrates could have imposed.
While I do not suggest that those setting out to take cars went off with copies of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 tucked into their back pockets, thereafter it became increasingly obvious to those young men that, on the rare occasions when their friends or acquaintances were caught taking cars, nothing much could happen to them. It is not purely coincidental that there has been an explosion in this type of crime since that date.
As my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris has already said, existing legislation provides more than adequate penalties for each of the aggravating factors which are incorporated in the Bill—not just in theory, but also in practice. Those who cause damage to cars, or are with them, can face heavy penalties under the existing criminal damage legislation, as they do under the existing regulations and legislation in connection with reckless and dangerous driving, causing death by those two actions and also, of course, manslaughter. The law is already in place to deal with those who commit such aggravated acts while taking cars.
I suggest that the appropriate response to what has happened since 1988 and to current public concern in terms of legislation would have been two-fold: first, to increase the maximum penalties for the basic offences of taking a vehicle without the owner's consent and allowing oneself to be carried in such a vehicle; that is, those very sentences which were reduced back in 1988; secondly, to consider carefully, not hastily, and then to produce appropriate legislation along the lines suggested by my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris which would require motor manufacturers to fit as standard effective security devices. It is no good simply talking to and requesting manufacturers to take those steps because, unless they see some economic benefit, they are not about to do so. Noble

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Lords may remember that the former Prime Minister did just that six years ago, receiving promises and assurances from the motor manufacturers which have, as yet, failed to be translated into proper action.
I should also like to see a government initiative on public car park security involving the police, local authorities, private car park firms and so on, together with the manufacturers and insurers, to ensure that car parks whether at stations, whether they are multi-storey car parks or whether they are park-and-ride areas—and it should be noted that most of those Blackbird Leys cars to which I referred come from the Oxford park-and-ride system—are fitted with adequate surveillance equipment and proper security. The cost involved must be justified when set against the cost to the criminal justice system and the insurance industry, let alone the cost in terms of injury and death.
The Bill before us goes beyond simply raising penalties with which, as I have already indicated, I have no quarrel. First, it extends criminal liability for the aggravating features of dangerous driving, damage or injury to anyone who is involved with the vehicle beforehand, even in the taking and even when that person plays no part in the aggravating features himself. That is a classic illustration of how hasty legislation is ineffective and, ultimately, bad law. The reasoning behind it, which the Minister has outlined, is clear, and the intention is commendable: to make the offender responsible for the consequences of his acts. But the result in practice is that the CPS will have to consider, before it launches any prosecution, whether there is at least a 50 per cent. chance of a successful prosecution. That, as I understand it, is how cases are approached.
If there is not such a chance of success, it is clearly a waste of public money to proceed. The CPS knows well, as do all those who practise in the criminal courts, that juries do not like convicting accused people where, in effect, vicarious liability is alleged. While juries will willingly convict the man who, they are sure, drove dangerously or caused the injury or the death, they will be reluctant in the extreme to convict of those aggravating features the man who originally stole the car but who played no part in the driving, the damage, the injury or the death which occurred subsequently.
In virtually all cases, in reality, no prosecution can be properly advised on that basis, and the provision will become ineffective, because if there is insufficient evidence to prove existing offences, there will not be sufficient to prove the new offence against those who are not directly responsible.
Further, a law which makes a defendant guilty of the aggravated offence, even though he does no more than commit the basic offence, and the event which makes the crime aggravated is outside his control, surely offends against commonsense and justice. It is, in effect, bad law.
If the Bill deceives the public into thinking that it enacts stronger measures when, in reality, they will rarely, if ever, be effective, it also contains a minefield of potential unfairness to those who are accused under
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its provisions. Those on the receiving end of this legislation are likely, in almost all cases, to be young. These offences are usually committed by two or more people acting together. By reversing the normal burden of proof so that the defendant has to prove that the aggravating features occurred before he was involved with the car or after he had left the scene, instead of requiring the Crown to prove he was present at the time, the Bill opens up an area fraught with potential for the miscarriage of justice.
In the environment in which these offences usually occur, young and easily intimidated witnesses, likely to be motivated by friendship, loyalties and often by fear, who may well be accomplices themselves, are likely to present a defendant, who should rightly be acquitted, with great difficulties in discharging that burden of proof. To reverse that burden runs counter to the traditional principles of English criminal law. Of course it has been done in other legislation, but in cases like these, with offences of this nature, almost exclusively the prerogative of the young—often juvenile offenders—I hope that the Government will feel on reflection that it would be wrong to impose such a provision.
The Bill as presently drafted, will, I am afraid, do little to meet public anxiety, and, sadly, nothing to tackle the deep-seated causes of this type of crime.
12.34 p.m.
Earl Nelson: My Lords, I congratulate the Government on bringing forward the Bill, which I consider to be reasonably powerful and certainly worth while. It will clear up some of the ambiguities of years ago where when offences allied to taking and driving away were charged all sorts of problems arose. While I welcome the increased penalties that the Bill imposes, it appears to me that a considerable emphasis is being placed on longer terms of imprisonment. That idea might be misplaced. Perhaps I may quote some rough figures: during 1990 in the Metropolitan Police district, for example, about three-quarters of the people charged with taking and driving away and with allowing themselves to be carried in stolen motor vehicles were under the age of 21. Such offenders are, for the most part, unlikely to be sentenced to terms of imprisonment, given the ramifications of the Children Act. It follows therefore that the deterrent effect of an increase in the length of sentence is likely to be limited.
There are one or two words in the Bill to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention. The first word is "dangerously" in Clause 1(2)(a) on Page 1. As many of your Lordships will be aware, the word "dangerously" was removed from the offence of dangerous driving under the road traffic legislation because of the difficulty experienced in specifying what it meant. I wonder whether we shall fall into the same trap with this Bill. I am aware that "dangerously" is explained in subsection (7)(a) and (b) but I can only refer to the problem encountered under the road traffic legislation. Is the definition of "road" and "public place" in Clause 1(2)(a) the same as that in the Road Traffic Act 1988? I ask that because under that Act the words have a wider definition which may fit well into the Bill.

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I was delighted that a number of your Lordships mentioned vehicle projects, because I believe that they work. The police support them and I wonder whether we could introduce them on a statutory basis with proper funding, allied to probation or supervision orders. That is a point worth considering, for some offenders at least.
As I have said before, one of the major encouragements to commit this type of crime and some others, especially among the younger elements of our society, is the ease with which offenders obtain bail and then go on to commit more and more offences while on bail. If any of your Lordships like reading horror stories they should read the reports of the Northumbria police and the Avon and Somerset police. They are horror stories in their own right.
I welcome and support the Bill, but unless the scope for refusing bail is widened considerably, legislation, no matter how well conceived, will not, in itself, stem the rising tide of motor vehicle crime or indeed other —I use the word advisedly—"popular" crimes. When my noble friend replies, perhaps he will comment upon the subject of bail as well as the other matters that I have raised.
12.38 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his clear exposition of a Bill which is plainly necessary. I sat practically open-mouthed in front of the television set watching a Range Rover reverse into a shop in Newcastle: this was filmed by the security camera. I wondered whether the people who did that were ever caught. The crime we are discussing is serious. It has shown up weaknesses in public order and in the construction of buildings.
As we have heard from various speakers on both sides of the House, vehicle theft is far too common and is becoming more common. Figures approaching 500,000 offences per year known to the police are a serious matter. Much of that crime is motivated by the prospect of gain from stealing the vehicle, or objects within it, or from the using the vehicle, as in ramraiding, to assist in a major robbery.
Another aspect which worries people is much more difficult to understand: why should so-called joyriding be so much more prevalent in this country than it is reported to be in the rest of Europe and elsewhere? It is easy to see how it happens if there is a group of people with scant regard for the established order. They may have gone to an indifferent or even worse school, and their parents may also have done so. There is clearly a real possibility of gaining status within the peer group by acts of daring and defiance, no matter how reckless or stupid they may appear to others of more mature judgment.
I read in the papers recently that a remand centre had been wrecked by those sent to it because they wanted to get back to the dismal and dreadful Armley Gaol at Leeds. People got brownie points in street cred if they had been there, whereas they were reckoned to have had something of a holiday if they went to a newly established place. That clearly illustrates the dilemma and to some extent the pressure that exists
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within these groups. I find it hard to imagine that, should any noble Lords find themselves in a relatively commodious gaol, they would wish to exchange it for one of the more dire types merely to establish greater credibility among others. It defies reason, but there it is, it happens.
I agree with noble Lords who have said that—although no doubt eminent sociologists of every degree will dispute the fact—if we reduce the sentence the crime becomes more prevalent. Perhaps attention should be paid to that aspect of the matter. The problem needs to be attacked on a wider front than under this Bill and I am sure that my noble friend will be able to assure us that, apart from the present Bill, the other educational and social problems will be addressed with vigour—if necessary, by the expenditure of money.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris, mentioned a point, which particularly interested me, about reducing the age limit for driving. I live in the country and have some mileage of private roads. I was therefore able to teach my two children to drive at what would have been a wholly illegal age had they ventured outside on to the public roads, however defined. I had special insurance. The car cost £20 and the children each contributed a fiver out of their accumulated savings. I believe I am right in saying that it was a useful move. That was about 20 or 25 years ago and they have both driven blamelessly since then. I hope that that will continue because early training in a good family environment contributed to that success. However, were this to be adopted on a wider scale I fear that the old Whitehall excuse that the public would not stand for it would be in the forefront of reasons for inactivity. Perhaps some middle way can be found. I merely mentioned my experience in one case with two sensible boys.
I thank the Minister for introducing the Bill and I wish it well. In conclusion, perhaps I may ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, whether he is satisfied that, as the Minister claims, the provision would not reverse the onus of proof in a damaging way.
12.43 p.m.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I wish to raise a small point as an addendum to the speech of my noble friend Lord Meston about the Bill not being applicable in Scotland. The Minister told us that it applied to England and Wales and that Northern Ireland was considering it but it did not apply to Scotland. I believe that my noble friend said that he had not been able so far to discover what it was about the law of Scotland that made it unnecessary for the Bill to apply there. It may be that the Scottish people are more successful in controlling their car hooligans, if I may call them that, than we are in England.
What I believe to be true is that within England and Wales the car hooligans in the north of England are just as tiresome and numerous as in the rest of the country. I do not know whether the Minister will be sable to answer the point this afternoon, but it needs to be considered. It occurs to me that the following is what may happen. Car hooligans will steal a car in

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Newcastle or some other northern town. They will have discovered that in England and Wales the law is more severe on car hooligans than apparently in Scotland. They will have realised that the thing to do is to turn north and drive sensibly until they get to the border and then all hell can be let loose. They can drive the car to destruction, smash it about and do exactly what they like because the penalties in Scotland will not be so severe as those which will apply in England.
I do not know whether the Minister can answer the point now, but the Secretary of State for Scotland had better consider carefully whether to make the Bill applicable in Scotland.
12.46 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to your Lordships for most of what has been said on the Bill this afternoon and particularly to my noble friend Lord Cochrane of Cults for saying that he supported it and that he hoped that the Government would continue to deal with the other aspects of the whole social problem. I can give him the assurance that this is a matter which greatly worries us. The whole problem of vehicle taking and misbehaviour with vehicles as well as theft of and from vehicles is enormous and one to which the Government pay great attention.
I am bound to say that I found the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, quite astonishing. He said that it was a misdirected little Bill. If he will forgive me saying so, I thought his was a miserable little speech. My noble friend Lord Lucas said—and he was quite right—that he would have expected a speech of rather more substance and responsibility from one who occupies the position of authority which the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, does in his place on the Front Bench opposite. I can only say that if the views he expressed represent the attitude of his party towards law and order, then heaven help the government of the country if that party gets in. If it does not represent his party's view on law and order, then he may regret having made that speech.
The noble Lord said in a somewhat scathing way that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary attacks one problem after another, first dangerous dogs, then prison mutiny, then car crimes, as if there were something wrong about doing that. These are matters of huge public concern and it is the Home Secretary's quite proper right to do something about them. If the Government do nothing then everyone says that the Government are doing nothing, they are paying no attention at all. If they do do something then the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris—I wish he had chosen an easier title to say—claims that the Government should not have done it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, differed from the noble Lord, Lord Morris. She said that the Government were quite right to do something, but then turned round and said that they should have taken longer to think about it. That is an old chestnut: if you do nothing everyone says, "You're not doing
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anything"; if you do something then everyone says, "You shouldn't have done that, you were in too much of a hurry". I believe that there must be a balance.
When the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, said that the Bill was a knee-jerk Home Office reaction, I found that quite astonishing. He knows perfectly well that this matter has caused enormous concern throughout the country. I suggest to your Lordships that it is quite right that the Government should do something to try to make this offence, which is causing so much disquiet, one for which the offender is not necessarily more capable of being caught but when caught is capable of being dealt with.
The noble Lord minimised the importance of the Bill. He claimed that this aggravated offence of taking a vehicle was merely an inconvenience to the owner and resulted only in the temporary loss of a vehicle. I believe that is a totally unsympathetic view to take. The noble Lord was frankly frivolous in his ensuing remarks. He said that the majority of offences were carried out by children who were younger than the age when one is permitted to drive. He said that many of the offences were committed by children of 14 and 15 years of age. The noble Lord suggested we should lower the age at which one is permitted to hold a driving licence to the age of 14. He said that a licence should be issued only when an undertaking had been given that an immediate marriage was in prospect. Frankly if the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, treats this matter in that frivolous manner, he will not gain the sympathy of the country.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving way. The suggestion that the age at which one is permitted to hold a driving licence should be lowered came from a chief constable who is reported as having made that suggestion. That suggestion was reported in a debate in another place. It was not a frivolous remark.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord cannot try to pass off his own remarks by claiming that someone else has made them. The noble Lord makes his own speech and he is responsible for his own remarks and for any innuendo his remarks imply. However, the noble Lord made a number of points in his speech. He said that the majority of those who take vehicles without consent are juveniles. Home Office figures show that 95 per cent. of those who are convicted of the basic offence of taking a vehicle without consent are 15 years of age or over, while half of such offenders are 18 years old or over. Therefore they will be liable for the new increased penalties.
The noble Lord also questioned the objective of imposing an endorsement and penalty points on someone who has no licence. I believe he claimed that boys were not interested in licences and there was no point in attempting to remove licences when they did not have them anyway. The noble Lord also questioned the objective of fining such offenders as he said they had no money anyway. The Government have said that parents should be responsible for their children and the noble Lord said that the parents

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probably would have no money either. According to the noble Lord, one might as well do nothing about this problem.
Endorsements and penalty points will be recorded by the DVLA in Swansea and placed on any licence which an offender may subsequently apply for until four years after the expiry of the endorsement and the penalty points. Driving in defiance of a ban is a further offence. I should remind the noble Lord that the courts are free to impose a period of disqualification of any length. That can extend way beyond the offender's seventeenth birthday, which means he cannot then acquire a licence on that birthday. It is of course for the courts to decide how long such a ban should last.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, said little progress had been made by manufacturers on this matter. I do not agree. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has had meetings with manufacturers which have proved fruitful. I accept that more needs to be done, but nevertheless progress has been made. Central locking is now fitted as standard on 74 per cent. of vehicle models. Alarms are standard or are available at the point of sale for 95 per cent. of new models. Immobilisers are fitted as standard or are available at the point of sale for 60 per cent. of United Kingdom produced models and 42 per cent. of imported models. That progress is encouraging.
The noble Lord said the Government were doing little to combat car crime. However, I suggest that many strands are being pursued. We are encouraging manufacturers in this matter and they are responding in the ways I have described. We are also encouraging the insurance industry for the first time to take security features fitted by manufacturers into account. We are taking the lead to improve the European Community directive on vehicle security. This year has been designated car crime prevention year and the Home Office is spending £5 million on advertising and promotion in a campaign to mobilise the public to take measures against car crime and to emphasise the need for security. Major contributions are expected from manufacturers, insurers, car park operators and retailers. Therefore a great deal is being done in this area.
I now turn to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lucas when he said that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, was a little more encouraging towards the Bill. We must be grateful for small mercies. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, was concerned about motor projects. The Home Office is providing nearly £200,000 for motor projects in the current financial year, including over £150,000 through the young adult offenders grant scheme. That scheme supports voluntary organisations that offer supervision, in partnership with the probation service, to a wide range of offenders. Its funds are set to increase by £1 million during the next financial year. The noble Lord then addressed a tricky problem where he was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. For some reason the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, seems to have disappeared into vapour. He
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referred to a problem as regards Scotland. The law in Scotland is different and I am no expert on it. I hope the noble Lord will understand that.
Joyriders are normally charged under Section 178 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. My following point would have surprised the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, had he been sitting in his seat in the Chamber. However, as he is not sitting in his seat, he will not be surprised. The offence of joyriding under the terms of that Act carries a maximum penalty of 12 and not six months' imprisonment. That does not apply to England and Wales. In serious cases joyriders can also be charged under Scottish common law with theft and other common law offences such as malicious mischief for which there is no maximum penalty.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, made an important, and as always, penetrating contribution. I am sorry to think that the normal Friday activities of the noble and learned Lord—whatever they may be in his exalted profession—have been disturbed. However, as his attendance today is an inconvenience to him, I hope I may assure him that that inconvenience is shared by others including myself. As the noble and learned Lord has suffered such inconvenience, I hope he will prolong it and join in the discussions on the Sunday trading Bill later this afternoon. He might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat, as it were. However, that is not a good simile as the noble and learned Lord is of course neither. However, he has spent a considerable period in the House today and I hope we shall see him a little later this afternoon and that he will be able to give us the advantage of his knowledge.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I can assure the noble Earl that I have always enjoyed playing truant. When I get the opportunity to do so, I usually take it. This has been such an enjoyable opportunity.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the speech of the noble and learned Lord was also enjoyable. He referred to the problem of His Honour Judge Blennerhassett. The noble and learned Lord was concerned that we should take this opportunity to amend Section 92 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 in order to make it clear that a relevant disability which should be notified to the Secretary of State includes alcohol dependency or alcohol abuse. Whatever the merits of the suggestion —I appreciate that the noble and learned Lord spoke to me about this and has given me time to think about it—I believe this modest Bill which simply inserts a new offence into the Theft Act 1968 and makes a few consequential amendments to other legislation is not the right place to make a change which would affect the whole range of road traffic offences. As I explained to the noble and learned Lord, I shall be glad to consider his remarks and I shall draw them to the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport to discover what his views are.
I was also grateful to the noble and learned Lord for drawing my attention to the judgment in the case involving William Charles Crouch. I shall undertake to draw that case to the attention of my right honourable friend.

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I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, considered that the Government were right to introduce this Bill. She was concerned about mandatory car crime security. Of course we cannot legislate unilaterally to impose stricter requirements than those which are laid down in the existing European Community directive on vehicle security. To do so would create a barrier to trade with other European Community member states. We are therefore pressing to have the voluntary British Standard on vehicle security adopted as a compulsory European directive.
I do not accept that the Bill's aggravated offence is without precedent or is bad law. The noble Baroness was worried that it reversed the burden of proof. I do not think that it does. It says that the offence, when it is created, is a whole offence in which all those who are involved are equally to blame. That is not a reversal of proof. It is up to the defendants to show that they were not involved and it is up to the prosecution to show that is what happened. That is a normal pattern of law, as I need not remind the noble Baroness, who is far more familiar with legal matters than I ever shall be. It is not unprecedented to hold somebody liable for the acts of others when they arise from joint criminal enterprises. For example, if a gang of robbers goes out to rob and someone is killed in the process, all those involved may be guilty of manslaughter, not just the one who pulled the trigger.
A case of vehicle taking which results in death, injury or damage is objectively worse than one which does not and it is right that the law should distinguish between the two cases to make stiffer maximum penalties available for the more serious offence. I do not believe that that would make innocent people liable to punishment for what is not their fault. By committing the basic offence they incur moral responsibility for what happens. If people want to be sure that they will not pay the legal penalty for the aggravated offence they should make sure that they do not commit the basic offence. That is a matter which is entirely within their control. The fact that an offender can be held criminally liable for unintended consequences of his actions is a well-established legal principle, as I am sure the noble Baroness will agree.
I was very grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for his support for the Bill. He asked when the new offences in the Road Traffic Act would be implemented. The Government are gradually implementing the provisions of the 1991 Act and will bring the offence provisions into effect as soon as is practicable. However, as yet the date has not been decided.
My noble friend Lord Nelson suggested that the word "dangerous" was unclear and pointed out that it had been removed from the Road Traffic Act. I believe that my noble friend is incorrect on that point. "Dangerously" is defined in the Bill and is designed to avoid the pitfalls of the term "reckless driving" in the Road Traffic Act 1988. That is why last Session's Road Traffic Act created a new offence of dangerous
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driving. "Dangerous" is defined objectively and does not depend upon proving a driver's state of mind as recklessness does.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, referred to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and said that she thought that it was wrong to have reduced the penalties in that Act. We reduced the penalties for taking a vehicle without consent to reflect the practice in the courts. I doubt whether any young criminal was aware of the change. We have not returned to the old penalty simply because it was not effective in practice.
My noble friend Lord Nelson was anxious about what happened to joyriders who are on bail. Government policies are already directed towards reducing the likelihood that people on bail will commit crimes. That is achieved through bail information schemes which allow magistrates better to identify defendants who can be released on bail and by increasing the provision of places in bail hostels where people on bail can be monitored to minimise the risk of further offending without the need to remand to prison. The Home Office has a programme to provide 1,200 additional bail places at approved hostels by 1994; 500 of those have already been delivered and 600 to 700 places are already occupied by defendants who were on bail before the programme began.
I should like to conclude by making a point which was made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in another place. It is a simple one. The law has to be judged by its results. There is general agreement that the criminal law is not dealing adequately with those who take other people's cars and who thereby cause damage, injury or even death. When I opened the debate I explained what those problems are and how the Bill will remedy them. It is designed to fill an unacceptable gap in the law. There are those, including some in this House, who say that it is inadequate, that it does not do all that it should and it has not been properly thought out. Everyone is entitled to their views, but in my judgment it would be wrong if the Government had seen this kind of malpractice occurring—a malpractice which creates fear, creates damage and sometimes even causes death —and had done nothing about it. I suggest that this is a modest Bill and I commend it to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Dog Control and Welfare Bill [H.L.]
1.6 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill is the one to which I referred in my speech on the humble Address in November. I informed the House then that I intended to bring the Bill forward in the hope of improving and strengthening the machinery of consultation which Ministers would wish to have on the growing complexity and political controversy over problems relating to dogs.
The Bill is short and it is simple. Its Long Title is confined to a single purpose. That purpose is to

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provide Ministers with a sound base for representative and responsible advice on controversial but nonpolitical matters, which seems to be strikingly absent at present.
When noble Lords have asked me what the attitude of the Home Secretary might be in relation to the Bill I have said that the Bill should be the answer to any Home Secretary's prayer. However, one cannot be sure whether Home Secretaries say their prayers. When they do not they get into serious trouble.
The provisions of the Bill will be familiar to all noble Lords who have any contact with the Farm Animal Welfare Council. The purpose is to bring the problem of dog control and welfare, with all its growing significance, controversy and social interest, into line with farm animal welfare, which has been subject to a similar advisory body for many years past. It is familiar territory in the field of government procedure and public administration.
Another link with the advisory system is provided through the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 which established a statutory procedures committee, which the Home Secretary of the day badly needed. The 1986 Act gave the Home Secretary powers of decision on the relative value of certain experiments in the light of the purpose of the experiment and the amount of suffering that would be caused to animals in the research. He felt that he needed some expert and responsible committee reporting in public, and especially to Parliament, to protect him by advising him on what decisions he should take in difficult cases. I am not suggesting that anything quite so difficult may arise in connection with dogs, though we got dangerously near it last year.
I do not need to go through the Bill in detail. It is almost a copy of the Farm Animal Welfare Council constitution, which incidentally is not a statutory body. It is to establish a body of up to 18 or so people representative of expert opinion, such as veterinary surgeons, lawyers, intelligent lay people and dog breeders: those who know what they are talking about and who can provide between them the kind of advice on which Ministers can rely.
The question arises: is there a case for bringing into operation machinery of this formalised character in place of the rather sporadic and disconnected kind of consultation that Ministers may be having on their difficult tasks? One of the complications here—and I ought to refer to it right away—is that this advisory council would cover an interdepartmental area. The Farm Animal Welfare Council is responsible to the Minister for Agriculture. But in this case we have the Secretary of State for the Environment, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, the Minister for Agriculture, and, as a separate matter, the Secretary of State for Scotland, all interested in the position of dogs.
The long discussions that took place two years ago on a national registration scheme were frustrated by the fact that those talking to officials had to talk to representatives of three separate departments. That is a difficulty in moving that a committee be appointed by a Secretary of State. But the Bill envisages that the Government themselves would find ways and means
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of appointing an advisory committee that would be representative of the boundaries of the departments concerned.
The question is whether this Bill is needed. First, I am bound to say that what is proposed in this Bill does not require legislation at all. It is a non-statutory advisory committee that I have in mind, but I am introducing a Bill on the subject in order to establish a claim for the attention of the House and outside the House to the worries that I have had—and I have been deeply worried in the last couple of years—about the way in which the dog question is being handled. However, if the Ministers were so disposed, there would be no need to have a Bill at all. I shall come in a minute or two to the future of the Bill.
In the meantime I want to make out, to the satisfaction of your Lordships, the case for this form of formalised advisory machinery. Surely it lies in the experiences that we all so vividly remember in the last couple of years. I am not going to take your Lordships back over the controversy concerning the dog registration scheme, or indeed the Dangerous Dogs Bill of last year, but surely we all realise how distressing it was to see the Government in the kind of situation in which they found themselves.
Certainly the Home Secretary cannot have taken any responsible advice about his first announcement of what he regarded as the remedy for the danger of the pit bull terriers. He was of the opinion that they should all be destroyed, and he made his intention to set about doing that public. It was only when those whom he should have consulted insisted on seeing him to tell him that it was not on, that this was outrageous and could not possibly stand as part of government policy on animals, that he had to begin the retreat. That should never have arisen, no matter what the emergency at the time. The emergency was a press emergency. It was a tabloid splash, and there is not the slightest doubt that it disturbed the cool and the temper of Ministers at the time.
It may be argued that, however bad things were then, they have been remedied since. For one thing the Dangerous Dogs Act of last year provides a statutory requirement for consultation between the Home Secretary and others on questions arising from that Act. There is a section in the Dangerous Dogs Act which requires that the Home Secretary undertake certain consultations. This Bill in its last clause provides that those consultations would be channelled into the proposed Dog Control and Welfare Council.
There is one aspect concerned with existing arrangements to which I should refer. Ministers may be satisfied that there can be adequate consultation and that they would exercise proper discretion in seeking the help that they might need. But what about the public? What about Parliament? The great advantage of formalised committees of advice and consultation is that they receive evidence, they make reports, and all concerned are told who was advising, and some account is given of the consideration that the committee gave to the problems before it. It is not enough for the Home Secretary or any other Minister

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to say, "I have consulted with representative bodies". One does not know how he has done so or what ground was covered in such consultations.
One cannot always be satisfied that the range of consultation should be confined to organised opinion whether in charitable or campaigning welfare organisations or in professional bodies. It is as well that it should be known by the public, whose dogs after all are involved in this, who gave evidence, what they said, and what attention was paid to it. It is much better, if one is going to establish a firmer foundation for democratic government and consultation, to get one's machinery reasonably formalised, well understood and commanding confidence; whereas consultations between Ministers and societies which are not made public, and are not required to be made public, do not always give people that confidence.
Therefore there is a strong case for this Bill. However, I do not think that I can ask the House to impose on Ministers a form of machinery that they are perfectly well able to provide for themselves, unless it is felt that it is in the public interest to do so. I should much rather that it were done by persuasion, as in the Farm Animal Welfare Council, or by ready acceptance, as in the Procedures Committee under the 1986 Act, and with general accord where advisory committees have been appointed in every field of public administration and ministerial contact, which have smoothed the path of administration and legislation. If the Government intend to say that they are satisfied that the present informal state of consultation with representative bodies is adequate and satisfactory, that proposition needs some examination.
In the time available to me I have not been able to complete all the necessary research into attitudes toward the problem. I have worked very much on my own because I did not want to feel that this proposal must have the consent of a large number of organisations before being introduced. I feel very strongly that it is in the interests of Parliament, the government and the public that matters of such deep concern to so many people should come to the surface and be openly discussed. There is much lacking in the field of information at the present time. There is an almost total absence of reliable statistics.
I read the Veterinary Record avidly every week and I should like to refer to two matters which I saw in a recent issue of that magazine. First, the verdict on dogs in relation to the events of the past two years is described as "unedifying", which is perhaps a dignified reproof from a veterinary body to Her Majesty's Government. Secondly, there is a reference to a report made by the Birmingham Casualty Centre on incidents in the past few years in which people who have been attacked by dogs have required plastic surgery.
The relative delinquency of different breeds of dog was examined. The statistics, which cover the serious cases and a particular area, are somewhat surprising. The kind of tabloid shock tactics used about pit bull terriers, for example, were not supported by statistics over that limited area of statistical record. Other dogs,
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such as Jack Russells, were involved. Pitbull terriers were not the principal culprits; yet they were the dogs which were marked down for execution. It so happens that the Staffordshire bull terrier came out top of the league in the Birmingham area. They probably had a near miss for execution but at least at the present time they do not feature in the Dangerous Dogs Act and there is no move to put them in it. Other dogs, such as rottweilers which bite now and then and get a lot of attention are not on the hit list.
One expects from advisory machinery of this kind proper statistical information. I am told that no such information will be available earlier than the end of this year because it has not been collected. Nobody knows how many dogs there are in this country. Since the abolition of the dog licence fee nobody has known or cared how many dogs there are. There was no chance given to the public to have their dogs brought within the scope of "reasonable appreciation of danger" or welfare or anything else. Statistical information is badly needed and this advisory committee could set about obtaining it.
But there is much else which needs attention and which does not come within the scope of the Home Office or the Department of the Environment. That includes education in dog care. Where is dog welfare in the administration of government at the present time? Who is responsible for dog welfare? There is no dog welfare ministry. There is probably a very strong case to be made for a minister for animal welfare, but that is a different constitutional matter. I suggest that such a council would have standing and a range of operations which would be much more adequate for our requirements than anything we have at the present time.
I wait to hear what the Minister says before I make my comments on what is to be done subsequent to today's debate. I confidently hope that no noble Lords wish to obstruct the Bill's Second Reading in the House this afternoon and that we can go on from there. How we go on is a matter which will require my attention a little later, after the Minister has spoken. I have various ideas on what might be done in the near future to advance this matter in circumstances which probably could be more fruitful than banging at the door of legislative opportunity in the final session of a Parliament.
We all believe that there will be many matters of pressing importance coming before us between now and the general election. We must be realistic, especially about a Private Member's Bill in the House of Lords, which has no right of entry into the House of Commons. I shall not be surprised if the Home Secretary says, "For heaven's sake, don't let us have a dog Bill in the House of Commons at this stage in this Parliament. Let sleeping dogs lie". While the lying dogs are sleeping and while there is something of a lull on dogs in the sense of mental disturbance ministerial-wise, I want to see a little more rational consideration of the problem. I beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.)
1.28 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, if there is one matter that the Government have failed to address or on which they do not have any coherent policy, it must be dog welfare and control. Certainly that must come top of the list for ineptitude. When I say "the government", I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, will agree that that does not mean simply the government in power today but governments in the past. Therefore I welcome the noble Lord's endeavours today, and indeed over a long period of time, to try to drive a little sense into the Home Office's incompetence regarding dog control and welfare.
My criticism is considerably more fierce than the veterinary publication from which the noble Lord has just quoted. My noble friend Lord Astor may say that there is no need for either this Bill or the formation of a Dog Control and Welfare Council. I agree that there is no need for the Bill for the reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has just given. However, I very much hope that my noble friend will be able to say that the Government will give serious consideration to setting up such a council.
There is a need for a continuing long-term look at our dog problem. Certainly the public are and have been demanding it. The last time that I was involved in your Lordships' House on issues concerning dogs, I received over 500 letters criticising the Government's ineptitude. It is absolutely no good for my noble friend to say that everything is fine, that the Home Office understands the problem and receives plenty of advice. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The actions taken by the Government each time have been of the knee-jerk type. The latest horror was the Dangerous Dogs Act. The noble Lord described its weakness. Indeed, some of the reactions by Ministers and departments over dogs have suggested to me that there must be a rabid dog wandering around their department.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has suggested a Dog Control and Welfare Council to provide continuing advice. The council would be able to warn of problems and suggest a sensible way forward. I hope that my noble friend will give the noble Lord's suggestion careful and sympathetic consideration.
1.31 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, we on these Benches support the philosophy behind the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, today. Most of the speakers in the debate today have spoken at some length on the subject of dogs on various occasions. The last occasion was during the passage of the Dangerous Dogs Bill through your Lordships' House.
Criticisms of the Dangerous Dogs Bill were made during debates on the Bill which arose out of public reaction. The Bill was conceived in haste and as a reaction to some regrettable incidents which took place in which people, notably children, were attacked
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by dogs which had not been kept under proper control. Most legislation on dogs originates from Private Bills in Parliament.
The Government take little notice of problems relating to dogs in our country unless there is some public commotion which prompts immediate action. The Dangerous Dogs Bill was one such example. Effectively it dealt with only one breed of dog, the pit bull terrier. Most of us know of the problems with regard to the pit bull terrier, but it does not mean that all pit bull terriers are a menace to society. In retrospect that restriction has been shown as one of the drawbacks to the Bill. There was a sad case with regard to a pit bull terrier which was owned by a young person who, unwisely as it turns out, took the muzzle off that bitch in order for it to have a drink from a puddle in a street. He was observed by a police officer who took the correct action. The owner of the dog was taken to court and under the conditions of the Act the magistrates could take no action other than to order the dog's destruction. That seems to be a drawback of the Bill. Contrary to justice in this country, the Bill allows no discretion by magistrates with regard to infringements of that law. That factor was anticipated only by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, as I recall, in his speeches during that Bill.
We welcome the idea of a council, whatever may be the fate of the noble Lord's Bill. There are various aspects of dog life in this country, not the least being the education of people on the problems of owning dogs. The control of the population of dogs is important. We have dealt with various other aspects: for example, puppy farming and the potential evils of that trade.
If I quote the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, correctly, he said that what is required more than anything else is rational consideration of the problem. I agree with that. I believe that steps suggested in the Bill would lead to a more rational consideration of the problem of dogs and the ownership of dogs in this country. For anyone who reads Hansard or who listens in your Lordships' House, I hope that the debate will add to an understanding of the problem. Perhaps we have moved a small way towards a rational consideration of the problem.
1.35 p.m.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, began his speech by saying that no Bill was really necessary. I hope therefore that he will not press the matter. However, he is quite right—it has been echoed by the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, and my noble friend Lord Stanley—that dog control is a subject which has been ignored. We have made many attempts in this House to do something about that subject. The dog licence was abolished. However, the price of the dog licence should have been increased enormously. That would have been a single, simple issue. Inspired by my noble friend Lord Stanley, we attempted to introduce a dog register and the Government failed to do anything about it. I believe that they are culpable in that matter and will be for a long time to come.

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The issue needs to be addressed. Dogs are a problem, especially in the urban environment. The Bill has been couched in consideration of the agricultural scene. It has been based on the animal welfare scheme. One of the biggest single problems relates to dogs in the urban environment. On many occasions in your Lordships' House we have had discussions about the problem of dogs fouling pavements. It is not only insanitary and unsightly, it is extremely unpleasant. As it stands, the law seems incapable of doing much about the problem, which continues. I believe therefore that something has to be done about such problems. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, said that today provides an opportunity for rational discussion. I do not believe that it is an opportunity for introducing more legislation. The statute book is cluttered with a great deal of unnecessary legislation. Some of us seek from time to time to get some of it taken off the statute book. On occasions we feel a little like King Canute in our failure to get legislation off the statute book.
The issue of dogs in the urban environment in particular needs to be addressed. The only way to tackle it is either to have an increased dog licence fee at the proper price or to have a dog register. The cost of keeping dogs in particular in the urban environment is high. Anyone who owns a dog has to spend an enormous amount of money on feeding it. One has only to look at television to see the volume of advertising which is devoted to dog food. It indicates that that is a multi-million pound business. People who own dogs wish to look after them. They should be protected. No one would mind paying a fee for a dog registration. That is what we should have done in the first place. It is a great tragedy that it never happened. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has done the House a service by drawing our attention to the matter today. I hope that the Government will pay some attention to his ideas.
1.39 p.m.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, one should not doubt for one moment the sincerity of purpose with which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, brings forward the Bill on dog control and welfare. It is well acknowledged that he is associated with a large number of organisations concerned with the welfare of' animals, in particular with the welfare of dogs. Indeed, as has been mentioned by other noble Lords, there is a plethora of organisations concerned with the welfare of dogs such as the British Veterinary Association, the Kennel Club, the RSPCA, the National Canine Defence League and so on.
There is also an abundance of legislation. According to present reckoning, there are about 30 pieces of legislation dealing with dogs and that makes life difficult in terms of understanding the law. When I first read the Bill I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, wished to add another piece of legislation to that number. Although he wishes to create a body which is non-legislative it would add to the mass of directions that already exist on the statute book or in a non-legislative form. The noble Lord said that there
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would be a similarity between it and the Farm Animal Welfare Council. I submit that the circumstances that led to the setting up of the FAWC were somewhat different from those which now pertain. When the FAWC was set up there were few if any bodies concerned with farm animals as opposed to domestic animals or domestic pets. It was necessary for the FAWC to draw up guidelines and codes of conduct for the treatment of farm animals. Those have been particularly effective. I am not sure that the situation now relating to dogs is the same as that which then related to farm animals. One wonders about the wisdom of adding another body to the list in order to do the type of work that is already done by a variety of voluntary organisations.
After reading the brief that the noble Lord kindly provided in respect of the Bill I wish to emphasise certain points that are already being attended to. For example, there is mention of the need to monitor and review the emergency measures for rabies control in the event of an outbreak. They already exist under legislation relating to the diseases of animals and extensive programmes will be put into operation should rabies enter this country. The Ministry of Agriculture's animal health division is well prepared for that event. Similarly, there is an extensive programme of spaying and neutering of dogs by the RSPCA, another issue mentioned in the noble Lord's brief for the new body to take up. Again, that is already under control and the aims and objectives of the RSPCA coincide with those of the noble Lord.
Nevertheless, there is a substantial amount of common ground in the general philosophy put forward in the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. A particular point which curiously he has not mentioned but which has been mentioned by other noble Lords in the debate is the need to consolidate the legislation dealing with dogs in this country. There are already some 30 pieces of legislation. They are widely disparate and urgently need bringing together. An effort to do so would clarify the situation in respect of dogs. We could then go forward and see what needs to be done because it is difficult to find one's way through the mass of legislation.
That area of common ground does not extend to a level at which I could give full support to the noble Lord's proposition for a welfare council for dogs. However, I believe that certain action should be taken by the Minister concerned in order to solve some of the problems identified in the Bill, in his speech which introduced the Bill and by other noble Lords. Although not being able to support the Bill in full, I believe that action must be taken in respect of some of the issues. I hope that that will be done.
1.45 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, this is a Private Member's Bill. Therefore I do not speak on behalf of the Labour Party which maintains a neutral stance on such matters—I speak for myself alone. The Bill appears to me to be necessary. To be more precise, I believe that something should be done about the situation which the Bill seeks to address. For example, recent legislation on dangerous dogs has made it clear

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that a far wider and more comprehensive overview needs to be taken on the whole issue of dog control and welfare. That point was made clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, and the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery.
Your Lordships will recall that last year in our debates on dangerous dogs we ranged far and wide beyond the immediate questions before us. We wandered all over the place and became tangled up with issues such as local and national registration schemes, breed definition, import control regulations and so forth. We might easily have lost our way and lost sight of the original issue were it not for the wise and calm guidance given to us by the Minister, which I recall with considerable admiration. Our confusions and excursions were clear evidence of the need for an advisory body of some kind. The model put before us is the Farm Animal Welfare Council. I take seriously the reservations of the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, who has forgotten far more about veterinary science than I shall ever know.
What little I know of the FAWC and what little I have seen with admiration proves that it was needed at the time. It can point to real and helpful activity in pursuit of its aims and objectives. Advisory bodies of that kind, provided that they are never allowed to swell and develop into some bloated quango which they were never originally intended to be, are a useful and characteristic feature of our national life. They allow voluntary expertise to be at the disposal of government departments. That can be achieved over a reasonably extended period of time. Therefore they can be more valuable than the type of quick, professional consultants employed for specific tasks who are here today and gone tonight.
Perhaps your Lordships will pardon a personal example. I have had 15 years' experience of a successful advisory body called the Museums and Galleries Commission. It assisted the Government in planning and legislating for the art galleries and museums of the United Kingdom. Although trying to achieve a united opinion among the nation's 3,000 and more museums is closely akin to the problem of trying to herd cats, successive governments were kind enough to say that they found our reports, our monitoring and our suggestions useful. Above all, the commission was remarkably cheap and excellent value for money. The same would obviously be true for the proposed dog control and welfare council.
I believe that it is necessary for some such body to be set up to look at our partial and piecemeal legislation. It should be proactive in suggesting cohesive and coherent ways ahead in the matters of planning and policy. Clearly there is no body already in existence—not the Kennel Club nor even the RSPCA—which goes anywhere near fulfilling that kind of role. Yet stray dogs roam our streets, dangerous dogs attack and kill small children, research into health problems caused by dogs is in its infancy and there are frequent allegations that dogs are stolen and maltreated in the interests of so-called research into cosmetics and tobacco. As my noble
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friend pointed out, no one can give adequate and accurate statistics showing how many dogs this country has.
I point briefly to three areas in which a Dog Control and Welfare Council would be helpful. First, there is the vexed and difficult matter of a national dog registration scheme. If I remember correctly, our debates last year were enlivened by the history of the dog belonging to the noble and learned Lord Lord Hailsham. That sticks in my memory and I am sorry that he is not here to tell us more about his dog today. Those debates showed that on that issue we are divided about the advisability of a national scheme. Surely it would be advantageous for a highly qualified, expert, well-informed, objective, dispassionate body to take away that question, to consider it in depth and, if necessary, at length. We could then return to the matter with the relevant research evaluated and the options considered. We may then reach a sensible conclusion.
Secondly, the council would be best placed and well able to build up a relationship with the local authorities, many of which have introduced various dog warden schemes with varying degrees of success. The council could well devise guidelines and descriptions of best practice which would extend the scheme, lower the cost and go a long way towards solving the problem of stray and unwanted dogs at a national level.
Thirdly, the council could act if not as a policeman then as a kind of traffic warden to help to regulate some of the dangerously unpleasant abuses to which dogs are liable. I am thinking in particular of abuses in breeding and selling practice, especially in the matter of puppy farming. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, referred to that and I have some experience of it. In west Wales a year or so ago reports flooded the newspapers of unbelievable cruelty and neglect on puppy farms which had obviously been set up by hard-pressed owners of farms and small holdings purely and simply as a means of avoiding bankruptcy, to make a quick profit and to keep the wolf from the door. They were run by people who had no professional training, no professional veterinary advice, no expertise, ludicrously inadequate facilities and no love for animals. It may well be that a Dog Control and Welfare Council could prevent abuses of that kind, to say nothing of the commercially arranged dog fights about which one hears so much in rural areas—and they are far more common than we know. It would be a signal service to the community if a Dog Control and Welfare Council were able to sponsor research into those scandalous matters which are at present the concern only of the police and the understaffed inspectorate of the RSPCA.
As proposed, the council would be an expert and professional body. It would be effective and cheap. As regards dogs, the need is great. It is clear that the Government have, by their recent legislation on dangerous dogs, accepted a degree of responsibility for the welfare and good treatment of dogs kept as pets. The establishment of a council for control and welfare seems to me an obvious and praiseworthy next step forward. At all events, I suggest that the onus is

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on Her Majesty's Government to propose solutions to the problems which confront us here and to tell us, if they do not like this proposal, their suggestions and when should they be implemented.
1.52 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, this is a day in your Lordships' House which is very much a Home Office day. Fortunately, no noble Lord has yet suggested a Bill to prevent car theft with a dog on a Sunday so we are lucky that we can deal with those three matters separately. I suppose that the Sunday trading law discriminates against dogs because one can sell horse fodder on a Sunday but not dog food. However, that is a different matter.
The commendable interest of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, in animal welfare is well known to your Lordships' House. Indeed, it is less than two months since I last had the opportunity to discuss animal related matters with him. That was in the context of the annual report of the Animal Procedures Committee. Last year we also discussed badgers and, of course, dangerous dogs at some considerable length.
Turning to the Bill before us today, it is only right to say at the outset that the Government have some reservations about the need to create a statutory council as the Bill proposes. Many of our reservations were raised at the Committee stage of the Dangerous Dogs Bill when the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, tabled an amendment requiring the Home Secretary to consult with a body along the lines of the Dog Control and Welfare Council before deciding whether to use the reserve powers in Section 2 of the Act to apply controls on types of dog which he considers present a special danger to the public. I will not, therefore, rehearse our anxieties at great length on this occasion. However, I should just like to bring a few points to the attention of your Lordships' House.
The Bill appears to us to be unnecessary in that it would create a statutory body to fulfil functions already carried out effectively through existing channels of consultation. As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has already outlined, the Bill provides for the establishment of a council to advise the Secretary of State on matters concerning dog welfare and control.
The Home Secretary already seeks and receives advice from bodies such as the RSPCA, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the British Veterinary Association and the Kennel Club. All those bodies, and others, were consulted during the passage of the Dangerous Dogs Bill. Both before and since then there has been frequent constructive consultation on dangerous dogs and other animal matters. I am not persuaded that the creation of the new Dog Control and Welfare Council would improve upon the flexible non-statutory arrangements that are already in place and which work well as they stand. Rather, I fear that the establishment of a permanent committee could lead to a great deal of additional administrative work and unnecessary expense. Indeed, all that might actually make the process of consultation overly
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bureaucratic and reduce its effectiveness. It could result in the loss of some of the flexibility that characterises the current arrangements. That would not be desirable.
The current scheme of things works well as it is and I can assure your Lordships' House that we have every intention of continuing our practice of consulting expert bodies as necessary on a whole range of dog and animal welfare issues generally. We shall also continue to receive, with interest, representations from such bodies if they wish to bring matters to our attention.
As an example of recent co-operation I am able to advise noble Lords that it was partly as a result of representations from the British Veterinary Association and other animal welfare bodies that it was decided to give owners of pit bull terriers, and other specially exempted dogs, an extension to arrange for their dogs to be tattooed in view of some problems which had been reported to us. The British Veterinary Association was able to pass on the anxieties of its members directly to the Home Office. There was no need to wait for the next pre-arranged meeting of a council or to organise hastily an extraordinary meeting. Instead, those most closely involved made direct representations and recommendations which were received, considered and acted upon. That seems to be an eminently sensible way of going about matters.
I should also say that animal welfare issues prompt one of the largest post bags of the Home Office and a good deal of these letters from the public are about dog-related matters. All these letters are read and the views expressed in them are noted. We are, therefore, very much in touch with what the public think and say on dog issues.
I turn now to the amendment to Section 2 of the Dangerous Dogs Act, which this Bill proposes. As noble Lords will be aware, Section 2 already requires the Home Secretary to consult bodies concerned with breeds of dogs, animal welfare, veterinary science and practice before deciding whether to impose restrictions such as muzzling and leashing on a whole breed or type of dog which he considers presents a serious danger to the public. Section 2(4) of the Act, therefore, acknowledges that specific consultation is desirable before decisions about a particular breed are taken.
Moreover, the sort of interests that he must consult as envisaged by the proposed amendment to the 1991 Act are virtually identical to those which the Home Secretary must consult under present arrangements as set out in Section 2(4). All this indicates to me that when considering the Bill Parliament had in mind consultation with the same group of experts as is proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. That leads me to conclude that it would be unnecessary to amend Section 2 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
To conclude, while I understand the intentions of this Bill, which I take to be to ensure that the Government continue to be fully briefed and properly advised on matters concerning dog control and welfare, I do not think this Bill is necessary to achieve those ends. As I said, consultation with relevant bodies already takes place as necessary. I can assure

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your Lordships that we will continue to consult and receive representations from the kind of bodies which the Bill proposes will make up the council, and many others.
It has been a useful debate and, as always, your Lordships have been most eloquent on the subject. My noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley attacked, if I may call it that, the Government's record on dogs brandishing what I might call a "verbal Bonio". He was a little unfair. The Dangerous Dogs Bill was brought in to meet the valid anxieties and problems that are arising in the dog world.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, referred to unmuzzled dogs. Obviously I am unable to comment in detail on the specific case referred to by the noble Viscount. However, I understand that the owner has appealed against his conviction under the Dangerous Dogs Act and it is yet to be decided whether that appeal will be heard. The noble Viscount also said that the Dangerous Dogs Act only applies to pit bull terriers. It is important to remember that Section 3 of the Act, which creates criminal offences of having a dog dangerously out of control in a public place, applies to all dogs whatever the breed. That is an important point.
My noble friend Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, who I know had to leave to attend a Select Committee, as always with his great expertise in the veterinary field pointed out that already a number of organisations consult the Home Office. I believe that he agreed with me that an extra organisation would not necessarily be the most useful answer.
My noble friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein and the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, referred to dog registration. Noble Lords will remember that in opposing dog registration the Government introduced positive measures for the control of dogs in the Environmental Protection Act. Those comprise the seizure and detaining of strays and a duty on the district or borough council to enforce the collar and tag law. The presence of a tag on a dog is the simplest and most effective means of identifying an owner and dealing with strays. The Government declared their commitment to bringing those provisions into force in April 1992. A draft of a joint Home Office, DoE and Welsh Office circular regarding implementation of the relevant sections of the Environmental Protection Act and a draft of the proposed regulations associated with the provisions have been published for public comment.
We already have in place more than adequate arrangements for consultation. I would prefer to keep our consultations on this more flexible basis rather than risk over-formalising arrangements by establishing the Dog Control and Welfare Council. However, your Lordships have made a number of valid points. It would, of course, be foolish for the Government to claim that there could be no room for improvement in the way in which we consult interested bodies on dog matters. The Government are not inflexible and I shall be happy to undertake to consider any suggestions for such improvements as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, may make to us, either in this House or outside.
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I believe that that is as far as I can go. I know that it is not quite so far as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, would wish. However, we are aware of the issues involved and we will be happy to undertake to consider any suggestions for improvements that are made to us. In the light of that undertaking I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, will consider whether or not he wishes to move the Bill for a Second Reading.
2.4 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords on both sides of the House who have taken part in this discussion. I admire the forcefulness, brevity and competence of the speeches to which I listened. It has been a chorus of approval, if not complete very nearly so, for the Bill. It has come from quarters which the House will respect and the Government will feel are significant.
The Bill is an initiative on my part, of that there is no doubt. It is not the first time that I have taken an initiative in this field. I was the first chairman of the Joint Advisory Committee on pets in society. I produced the first report on dogs in society. That was followed by an inter-departmental committee which also produced a report under Mr. Batho which was closely related to my own. I have taken an interest in the subject ever since. I am president still of the Joint Advisory Committee on pets in society.
The debate gives me the strength I was hoping for to take my initiative further and bring together bodies with which I am directly or indirectly associated and to examine the whole question in the light of the debate. I hope that informal contacts can be established between one or two of us and the Government to see how we can move forward from here. In the meantime, I shall take no steps to take the Bill further in the House. However, I hope that the Bill will receive an unopposed Second Reading and establish the platform upon which the House may return to the matter at some future date.
In conclusion, perhaps I may say that I am trying, this time round, to guard against animal welfare being flung about in the election campaign in a manner which will only exacerbate feelings and do the causes no good. We have an opportunity in the lull between the emergency of 1991 and the future Parliament for the further study of the matter. If the House gives the Bill a Second Reading I shall defer further stages of the Bill and try to carry our joint discussions one stage further. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Sunday Trading (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
2.8 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The aim of the Bill is quite simple: it is to increase the maximum penalty for offences against Part IV of the Shops Act 1950 from £1,000 to £50,000. The sum of £1,000 will be increased to £2,500 in October by the

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Criminal Justice Act 1991, but it is still a very small sum. I would much rather be supporting a Bill being introduced by the Government at the present time, preferably along the lines of the REST proposals to reform the law of Sunday trading rather than bringing in this brief Bill on the enforcement of the Sunday trading law. I believe that the REST proposals are a fair and reasonable compromise between those, on the one hand, who want total deregulation of Sunday trading and those on the other who want to retain the present law or even to tighten it up more than it is. I understand that there are moves in another place to ask for leave to introduce a Bill along those lines next week.
Perhaps I may turn first to the present position concerning the Sunday trading law in England and Wales. I am sure that all noble Lords are very well aware of it. A number of the large supermarket chains, but by no means all, including Sainsbury, Asda, Tesco and Safeway, have decided to continue their campaign of law-breaking into the New Year. That is the present position which we are facing. That challenges the supremacy and authority of Parliament in 1992.
Perhaps I may next deal with the review of the legal position and what has been said both in this House and in another place in the past couple of months. It has been suggested that the intervention of European law is to blame for the current shambles that we face today. In my view nothing could be further from reality. In his Statement, repeated in this House, my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General confirmed that a reference to the European Court of Justice does not suspend UK law (Official Report, 27th November 1991; cols. 1348–9). In answer to questions from me my noble friend Lord Ferrers has confirmed that more than once.
In that case the contrary proposition which has been put forward by the law-breaking retailers is seen for what it is —that is to say, a deliberate and planned flouting of the criminal law for profit. The European Court at any time has hundreds of references outstanding from the 12 member states. It is absurd to argue that a mere reference neutralises, if I may use a neutral word, the laws of a country pending the court's decision. If that were the case there would be legal chaos throughout all 12 countries of the Common Market.
Three cases have already been brought to the European Court to test whether laws restricting Sunday trading are contrary to the Treaty of Rome. These cases came from France, Belgium and Britain, and in all three the court ruled that countries are entitled to make their own Sunday trading laws and that none is in conflict with the Treaty of Rome. Eleven of the countries certainly have laws restraining Sunday trading or Sunday employment. There is consensus that some restraint on Sunday trading is in the interests of the working population and also has wider social benefits for family life. Against that background for law breakers to appeal to Europe as a defence for their action carries no weight at all.
Perhaps I may now turn to the meat of the matter and the real reason why the Shops Act is currently
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unenforceable. It is due to another decision by the Court of Appeal which requires local authorities to give a cross-undertaking for lost profits when seeking injunctions to uphold the Act.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for giving way. As he is a lawyer, he will know that that is common form to people seeking an injunction in these circumstances.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, it may be common form, but what I am stating is that in this case I do not consider that that should carry any weight for the reasons which I have given. The real reason why the Shops Act is currently unenforceable is because of the requirement of local authorities to give a cross-undertaking for lost profits when they seek this injunction to uphold the Act. Recently, the City of Hull council, in the run-up to Christmas, was faced with a demand in the court for a cross-undertaking for £2 million from Tesco. Not surprisingly, the authority could not risk local taxpayers' money and was forced to give way. The loser in this case was the rule of law. Local authorities currently face all the risks and the major retailers none whatever. My Bill seeks to adjust that gross imbalance.
I shall now set before your Lordships what I consider to be the options facing the Government today. First, the Attorney General could, if he wished, provide support to the local authorities to make enforcement feasible under current conditions by bringing injunctions himself, as only he and not the local authorities could possibly have Crown immunity. He has refrained from doing so. A second course of action would be for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to bring forward a statutory instrument to include offences against the Shops Act within the list of offences for which a confiscation order may be made under the terms of Section 71 and Schedule 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. This has been used for a couple of offences so far and is available for use against other offences where appropriate. No doubt when he replies the Minister will give the Government's reasons why these responses are not being acted on at present.
The third course of action would be to increase the fines that are payable under the Shops Act itself without any recourse to any other Acts. That is what my Bill purports to do. The total lack of action so far does not sit well. We have a Government who are totally committed to law and order, family life, the welfare of small businesses and to the environment but I suggest that all those aspects are suffering by the lack of action and the legal shambles which the country faces today.
I turn now to an example from the Common Market to illustrate what is happening in other countries equally bound by the Treaty of Rome. I am sure many of your Lordships will have read this in the newspapers. On Sundays 22nd and 29th December last the Virgin megastore on the Champs-Elysées in Paris opened illegally. Immediate prosecution followed in the local courts. Fines of approximately £50,000, based on the number of employees illegally engaged on each Sunday, were levied. Despite that

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£100,000 liability, the store planned to defy the law again on Sunday 5th January until the French Government made it plain that if necessary further action to close the store would be taken by the police. Wisely, the Virgin management backed down.
Noble Lords will know that Virgin plc and its owner Mr. Richard Branson are leading supporters of the Shopping Hours Reform Council. I am a great admirer of all that Mr. Branson has achieved, both nationally and internationally, but on that occasion he met his match. Perhaps I may illustrate this disaster for Virgin by a few lines of doggerel, though I must admit that I am not a poet as will become obvious. However, noble Lords may be able to recognise the pattern on which it is based:
"There was a young fellow called Branson,
Who decided to take all the Franks on,
So he opened his shop,
But the judge shouted, stop!
And that was the end of his try-on".
I only wish that the same could be true in this case.
The French case is interesting to me, primarily for three reasons. First, the French Government have already committed themselves to making modest changes to the Sunday laws this year, but they are determined that the changes will be made by the National Assembly and not by Mr. Branson or any other shops. Secondly, the law in France remains the law. The French Government see no need to await pending cases before the European Court of Justice and know full well that the court has ruled three times already on the compatibility of Sunday trading restraint with Article 30 of the Treaty of Rome.
The third reason involves me, and perhaps those noble Lords who are of a similar age to me and are not therefore extremely young, in making the most enormous mental jump. I was always brought up to think that laws were always enforced in England but not in France. In this case we have the law being enforced in France and not in England. I find that a difficult hypothesis to master.
With my next point I should like to answer those who ask why I am bringing forward the Bill today and why we are not leaving until the Shops Act is reformed the increase in penalties to be dealt with at that time. I have two reasons. The first is that we need fines that are sensible and appropriate today ready for when the European judgment comes and holds that the Shops Act is not unenforceable. Everyone from my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General upwards and downwards says that the fines are ridiculously low. If I assume that in six months' time that judgment comes through and that the courts will then administer the Shops Act properly, there should be a fine of up to £50,000 available for magistrates to use. If nothing happens today it will still be at best another six months after the European Court judgment or such other time as the courts decide they will operate. There will be a long delay and fines will by then be totally inconsequential. Let us put the law properly in operation today.
The second reason is that the local authority could bring an action after the passing of this law and before any judgment is made by the European Court. Then,
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even if a case were adjourned sine die, as is happening many times now, the available fine when the case was later heard would be £50,000.
I shall make two brief points in conclusion. First, the British Government are a signatory to the 1990 Copenhagen declaration of respect for the rule of law and on co-operation to secure its enforcement. Copenhagen continues the process begun by the Helsinki Accord. My modest Bill enables the Government to act in support of its words.
Secondly, my Bill is a positive response to the invitation given to me and my colleagues by my noble friend Lord Ferrers at col. 1357 of the Official Report on 27th November 1991 to take action to pursue those who break the law. All I am doing is accepting his invitation and taking the necessary action. I trust that your Lordships will approve the Bill. I commend it to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(Viscount Brentford.)
2.23 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Liverpool: My Lords, I support the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, in bringing forward the Bill. At the end of November the House briefly debated the Government's Statement which followed the announcement by Tesco that it was going to break the law. In his reply to me then the noble Earl the Minister said:
"None of us in the Government condones the plans by some retailers to open on Sundays before Christmas. I commend those who remain committed to complying with the law … Those in positions of great authority—and big business commands great authority—who break the law give a very bad example to others. It is to the upholding of the law that we should all he committed".—[Official Report, 27/11/91; col. 1353.]
How are we to uphold the law and how are we to give proper support and protection to those retailers who remain committed to complying with the law?
In Liverpool, the three presidents of the Merseyside Churches Assembly, Archbishop Worlock, Dr. Newton and myself, wrote to the chairmen and managing directors of the stores in Liverpool which had announced at the beginning of December their intention of opening on the Sundays before Christmas. We said that it was very unjust to those companies which keep the law for some to steal a march on them by breaking it. We also said that the decision to open would put an intolerable strain on the conscience of a number of their staff who felt obliged to comply with their company's requirements. We mentioned the telephone poll conducted by the Liverpool Echo during the previous week in which 78 per cent. of callers expressed their opposition to Sunday trading in the Liverpool area.
Perhaps I may quote from the reply that I received from the group chief executive of one of the companies to which we wrote and which had announced that it would open. He wrote:
"The company's support for "Keep Sunday Special" has been our policy before and since deregulation of Sunday trading was defeated in Parliament and we too are opposed to unrestricted opening of shops on Sundays. However, we were placed in an unjust position last year when many stores opened on Sundays and we did not. This year with an even

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greater number of stores opening, the threat to our business and the resulting job security of our staff has become a great concern to us".
Another company chairman rang me and said precisely the same thing: companies were opening against their convictions, purely so that they should not lose ground to competitors who were breaking the law. That letter provides a perfect example of why we need laws: it shows exactly why laws must be enforced and it shows exactly why penalties should be heavy enough to deter powerful lawbreakers. I believe that the Bill of the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, can help to re-establish the law in this matter.
The government Minister, Mrs. Rumbold, has spoken on occasions as though her only responsibility in finding a way forward was to bang heads together until all parties agreed about a policy. In your Lordships' House the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said that there was a spectrum of views and that he knew that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, was at one end of it while I was at the other. We have debated matters in the House on which I would accept that position, but I cannot do so on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, quite rightly intervened at that time to make it clear that the spectrum on the matter is totally free trading at one end and, at the other, the complete Sabbatarian position. That is not where I am; I am not a complete Sabbatarian, or anything like it. The Churches very largely support moderate reform based, for example, on the "open" or the "rest" proposals which I believe are workable.
The Government have a major share in the responsibility for the present state of the law, for it was they who brought in a Bill for total deregulation. It was defeated in another place five years ago. That underlines the responsibility that the Government have to bring in a Bill which can win wide support. Such a Bill must offer protection to shop workers against the very wide requirements to work on Sundays. It is very strange that appeal is being made to Europe in aid of total deregulation when it is clear that there is a wide consensus in the European Community that to restrain Sunday trading is in the interests of good family life.
The report of Durham University Business School on women and work shows the vulnerability that women feel in the employment market. It found a strong association between a woman's willingness to work unsocial hours and whether or not she had children. Of women with children, only 15 per cent. said that they would be willing to work regularly on Sundays. The Government want such women to be able to return to the labour market. Are they not concerned to protect their freedom to keep Sunday as a family day?
In the Durham survey, 56 per cent. of those interviewed said that Sunday was the main time that women employed in retailing had to spend with their families. Some large retailers are now said to be drawing up fresh contracts which will require staff to work on Sundays. Despite assurances that there is no
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requirement by other firms, I hear of existing shop workers being brought under strong pressure to work on Sundays.
Do the Government themselves not have a view on the character of Sunday? I heard a Minister, Virginia Bottomley, on the "Any Questions" programme speaking on this subject. She said that she thought that most people wanted to find a middle way. I believe that she was right. I believe that many members of the Government would think that she was right. Why then is the only initiative that we have had from the Government a Bill for deregulation, which Parliament defeated?
A Bill which took a middle path would, I believe, now obtain agreement from those who believe that there should be some special character for Sunday. Until a new law is in place, existing law should be upheld, for this present flouting of the law brings all law in Britain into disrepute. The Bill could help to re-establish the law until a better one wins assent.
2.30 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, there may be differences as to whether Sunday should be a day of rest, but I think that we are all agreed that Friday should be a day of short speeches. If I merely say that I share the views of my noble friend Lord Brentford and of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool as to the need to mark Sunday out as a special and different day of the week, your Lordships can take it as read that I hold them with great enthusiasm. They have put forward a case that demands a coherent answer from my noble friend the Minister. I hope that it will also be an encouraging one. I shall just add that I believe that we were once a God fearing nation in a sense that we are now not. I do not believe that this or any other piece of legislation will change us back to what we once were and now should be, but we need urgently to consider what we can do to make it possible for that change to take place. I also believe that doing that will create and maintain a space in which the life of the family can recover its strength.
One thing we can do to achieve that purpose is to preserve a time each week when it can be, not just possible, but normal to attend places of worship and consider our lives from the spiritual rather than the material standpoint and to do so in the company of our families. That entails regulating commercial activity on one day a week; and that day is Sunday.
It is not necessary at this juncture to consider what the detail of that regulation should be. It is a necessary question and it is becoming increasingly urgent; but the Government have made it clear that they will not act until the European Court has declared whether the Shops Act 1950 is ultra vires, and no legislation can therefore be prepared until after that judgment is given.
The Bill is designed to meet a particular contingency that we think is likely to arise. It is that the European judgment, when it comes, will be that the Shops Act is not ultra vires and has force. That Act will then once again be the law of the land in reality as well as in name. We do not pretend that it is perfect. It is far from it. One can have great fun—many people

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have had great fun on numerous occasions—in pointing out the inconsistencies in its provision; but it provides some sort of a regulatory framework and, like half a loaf, it is much better than none. That has been put beyond question for those of us who believe that Sunday should be a special day, available for the spiritual life and the family life of most of our people, by the effect of the reference to Europe and the consequent decision by the Court of Appeal in Kirklees Borough Council v. Wickes Building Supplies Ltd in May last year which has been referred to.
That ruling, although it has been appealed, means that no local authority can enforce the Shops Act by means of injunction because, even if an injunction were granted, the local authority would have to give a cross-undertaking in damages which is, in effect, an undertaking to pay at least the total of the profits forgone by the trader against whom it has moved. These are considerable and it would eventually fall to the ratepayers to pay them.
My noble friend Lord Brentford has confessed to not being a poet. I confess to not being a lawyer, though whether with as much justification your Lordships will decide later. Unlike some of my friends, I see no injustice in the Kirklees decision. The courts are there to interpret the law, not to take political decisions. Your Lordships' own House has declared that it does not know what the law is in the matter and cannot know in advance of the European judgment. The lower courts cannot therefore continue to behave as though they did know what the law was, nor can local authorities.
Some of my friends tell me that the enforcement of public law by local authorities attracts Crown immunity; that that immunity extends to cross undertakings and that the Court of Appeal has broken new ground in saying that that immunity appertains to the Crown alone.
It is further argued that the Kirklees judgment implies that the immunity of the Crown, and therefore its Ministers, is unimpaired and that the Attorney-General remains free to seek injunctions without subjecting himself, and therefore the taxpayer, to the enormous contingent costs of cross-undertakings on a national scale. I think that my noble friend was speaking on that assumption. On 27th November, my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General said that the Government would be subject to this disability. But much as I should like to see immediate enforceability of the 1950 Act, the difference of opinion seems to me to be of academic interest only.
It would surely not be right for my right honourable and learned friend, even if he were burning with zeal to keep Sunday a holy day, to say in effect, "Even though I don't know what the law is, I am going to make all shopkeepers behave as if it is still what we thought it was—and I bet that the European Court agrees with me in the end".
The injunction and criminal prosecution route is, therefore, to all intents and purposes closed off. It is also very unlikely that any court would award a fine in
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a prosecution under the Act until its status had been made clear. We are now, therefore, I much regret, apparently entirely without regulation.
When your Lordships last attempted to change the law on Sunday trading in 1986, the other place, by a massive vote and many speeches, made it clear that it did not want any significant relaxation of trading law. It simply wanted it made logical and clear. That is an achievable aim, but it will be achieved only by way of something approaching consensus and that is something that successive Ministers have tried and failed to achieve for a long time. It will certainly take time, therefore, and it is important to have an enforceable system in the interim.
That system must of necessity be the Shops Act which we already have. To tinker with its provisions as to the categories of goods and service available for sale would lead to the waste of a great deal of parliamentary time, and we do not propose that.
What we propose is to prepare for one possible outcome of the reference to the European Court—in our view the most likely one—which is a declaration that the current Act is intra vires. If that happens, there will be an interval, possibly a long one, between the declaration and the bringing into effect of new legislation. In that case it is important that the Act, imperfect as it is, is easily enforceable. That means introducing penalties that are not derisory, as at present, but effective as proposed in the Bill.
The present maximum fine, as my noble friend has already explained, is utterly inadequate. The rewards for retailing on Sundays are at present considerable. I mention in passing that for grocers they would be less so if local authorities object—as an accountant friend of mine has pertinently suggested—to the renewal of their liquor licences on the grounds of misconduct and if the licensing magistrates agreed to their objection. It will be interesting to see whether they do that.
In the meantime, however, the weekly average takings in a 40,000 square foot superstore are, I am advised, about £400,000. The gross margin on that turnover is, I understand, likely to be about 12 per cent., giving a gross profit of £48,000. A maximum penalty of £50,000 would mean that a decision to open on the seventh day of the week incurred the risk of forfeiting the profits of the other six. That seems to me a practical way of ensuring that retailers conformed to the most recent declaration by Parliament on how they should conduct themselves on Sunday. That is why I support the Bill.
The need for it has become apparent because of the mess which we have suddenly got ourselves into. This has made us look closely at the operation of the law and leaves me, for one, with a very pertinent question in mind. The cross-undertakings we are talking about are devised to prevent a trader being deprived of profits if it later proves they would have been lawful. However, that is a constraint on only one party in the dispute and it rests on only one contingent result of the reference to the European Court. As a layman, I find that extraordinary. Is not the law supposed to be evenhanded between all parties, whether they be

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individuals, corporate bodies or government? We have prided ourselves on that since Magna Charta. If there has to be a bias, surely it is to the status quo.
Certainly it is fair to say to the local authority, "You must pay the trader what you have made him lose if the law is not what you think it is". I can see the justice in that. But why does the law not also say to the trader that he must forfeit his profits if the law is not what he thinks it is? That would seem to me to be both evenhanded and to tend to retention of the status quo. Will my noble friend the Minister tell me whether, and if so by what means, that can be achieved under the arrangements we have at present? If it cannot be achieved, will he tell us what legislation would be needed to make it possible? I fear I have not given him notice of this question and I apologise for that. If, therefore, my noble friend answers by letter, will he please place a copy of it in the Library of your Lordships' House?
There are many fascinating topics beckoning me, but it is a Friday. If, as I very much hope, our noble friend Lord Cheshire is safe and well, he will be speaking in a debate he has tabled for later this month. Your Lordships may have seen on the tape that he was rescued earlier today from the roof of his burning house. I am sure your Lordships will extend their. sympathy and encouragement to him with mine. I shall put forward my views with enthusiasm in that debate later this month. I commend to your Lordships my noble friend's proposed legislation with all the enthusiasm at my command. My grounds are fractionally different from his, but my enthusiasm is there none the less.
2.42 p.m.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, at the outset I must declare my interests. I am a director of Tesco and have been since 1985. I am also a committed Christian. I therefore find that Sunday trading is one of the most difficult issues for me. In fact it would be much easier not to speak in the debate, but I am taking the opportunity afforded by this Bill to put some facts before noble Lords concerning the very difficult position of Sunday trading.
This issue has been building up for a long time; indeed it can be traced back to the 1950 Shops Act. The 1985 Bill—the Shops Bill—resulted from the Auld Inquiry Report which was presented to Parliament in November 1984. It in effect led to the principles of deregulation being approved in another place.
The 1950 Shops Act allowed certain shops, particularly confectionery, newsagents and tobacconists—they are known as CTNs in the trade—to trade on Sundays. But gradually, particularly during the 1980s, many of these shops extended their range of goods on offer and the hours which they worked. They expended the retail space to become, in effect, mini-supermarkets. High disposable incomes in the 1986 to 1990 period resulted in changes in lifestyle which opened up the market for convenience stores and these erstwhile CTNs became full blown grocery stores.
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These stores traded on various slogans to the effect that they were open every day of the year, including Christmas day. They traded on slogans such as, "Late till eight" and "Seven till eleven". Sunday trading became the norm as these CTNs, which were now small grocery shops, were followed rapidly by DIY and furniture retailing and petrol station forecourts became mini-markets selling everything from bread and butter to flowers and fizzy drinks. By the autumn of 1990 it is estimated that some 100,000 units were trading on Sundays. Indeed if the housewife in my local area of Angmering completely overlooked the fact that people had been invited to Sunday lunch, she could nip down to the local garden centre and purchase a leg of lamb, potatoes, other vegetables, mint sauce and icecream. That is a long way from rose bushes and daffodil bulbs.
The size in terms of square footage of these kind of operations is also considerable. Yet these garden centres would be permitted to operate unchanged under the REST proposals. Because of the inexorable increase in the number of units trading on a Sunday, most of which were making substantial profits, the Association of District Councils announced in autumn 1991 that the present law was unenforceable and flawed. Like other major supermarket chains, Tesco felt unable to allow the situation to continue whereby its commercial progress and that of its 90,000 staff and 110,000 shareholders was being eroded—not to mention the inconvenience to its 10 million customers.
Objections to Sunday trading are well known and are constantly repeated. They are all objections which I understand and concur with, but there cannot be, in effect, one interpretation of the law for one set of traders and another for another set.
If there were no Sunday trading many of those currently trading would not want it. Many would not press for it, but as there is Sunday trading they feel they have no alternative but to safeguard their position by joining their competitors. Competition is what it is all about, not flouting the law for profit, as the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, stated, nor having total disregard for the sanctity of Sunday.
Many millions of people already work on Sundays, ranging from bishops to farmers, journalists and printers of the Monday newspapers to policemen, supermarket store shelf fillers and distribution staff (to ensure that Monday's trading can go ahead) to newsagents; and in my own major area of activity, violinists to barmen. If we think about it long enough and deep enough we will realise that all of us to a greater or lesser extent rely on somebody else working on a Sunday—indeed some of us already work on a Sunday. Sunday is one of the busiest days of the week in the Barbican Centre.
Despite all this trading, Sunday is different. Sunday is special. Sunday is the day when families can, if they wish, go out together as a unit, go to a concert, visit a stately home and take tea in the tea rooms there and buy goodies in the shop (very often grocery products). Sunday is a day when there must be freedom to worship for those who want to worship, freedom to partake of chosen leisure activities for those who wish

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to do so and, although I prefer not to shop on a Sunday, freedom for those who want to shop on a Sunday, for example, Jewish believers who regard Sunday as a normal day, having had their special day on the Sabbath, namely Saturday.
The Government must try to clear up the current mess—deregulate or introduce universally enforceable regulations where there would be no Sunday shopping. Because of the changed nature of the businesses currently allowed to trade, the existing regulations, if enforced, would result in major distortion of competition.
One point is most important, namely, that the strongest possible efforts should be made to ensure that those who do not wish to work need not work, that no coercion is implied and that people's promotion prospects are not jeopardised if they categorically state that they are not available to work on Sundays.
I believe that the current situation is untenable and that something should be done—and done quickly. Although I welcome the fact that the Bill gives the opportunity to open up the whole unsatisfactory situation I cannot support this particular Bill because I believe that it is not possible to deal with one issue, namely the question of fines, while ignoring the very real problems which the current situation creates.
2.47 p.m.
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend Lord Brentford and the House for not being present when my noble friend opened the debate. I experienced a little local travel difficulty.
Although I fully agree with the views put forward by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and my noble friend Lord Elton about Sunday trading, this is not a debate about the merits or demerits of Sunday trading, which is a contentious issue. It relates entirely to the problem of upholding the rule of law, which is the basis of our democracy, and to enforcing the laws which Parliament has enacted. Whether those are now good laws or whether they need improvement is irrelevant. Neither the upholding of the rule of law nor the enforcement of laws which Parliament has enacted is a contentious issue. They are straightforward and important matters.
There are two main factors which affect the ability to enforce the law: first, the resources available to detect offenders and to bring them to court; and, secondly, the penalty inflicted on those found guilty, which acts as a deterrent to others not to break the law. The fact is that there are many infringements of the laws relating to Sunday trading—we cannot get away from that—as those laws have been enacted by Parliament, whether they are as good as they seemed to be in the first place or whether they need amending or not, as I believe they do.
There is no difficulty in detecting and identifying the law breakers, nor in bringing them to court, even though there is an unfortunate reluctance by the authorities to prosecute. But that also is a subject for another day's debate. I am not so courageous as my noble friend Lord Elton in going into the legal whys
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and wherefors of that position. Suffice it to say today that those obstacles to prosecution could easily be removed, as my noble friend Lord Brentford indicated.
The only major factor preventing the proper enforcement of the law—when it is clarified, if it needs to be clarified —is the ridiculously small penalties in relation to the rewards for law breaking and the financial resources of the law breakers. This Bill seeks to deal with that issue by increasing the penalties for those found guilty of breaking the existing law. It is a simple and effective measure. I hope that when he replies my noble friend the Minister will not use the doctrine of "unripe time" to oppose the Bill. I am confident that all those who support the importance of upholding the rule of law in this country will support this Bill. That must surely include every Member of your Lordships' House. I strongly support this Bill.
2.52 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Caldecote invited me to join him and other Members in upholding and supporting this Bill. He will not be at all surprised when I tell him that I cannot do so, that I shall not do so, and in fact that I shall positively vote against this Bill having a Second Reading. If I were a generous man I would describe the Bill as mischievous. Of course I am not a generous man and I describe this Bill as aggravating and politically pointed in a direction that I find totally objectionable.
My noble friend in his opening remarks picked out and named Sainsbury, Asda and Tesco as law breakers. He did not add the Co-operative wholesale movement and its retail outlets— supporters of KSS —nor Iceland. They were also law breaking within the terms in which the noble Viscount opened the debate. That is mean, and also mischievous. As my noble friend Lord Caldecote said, we are in danger of having a Sunday trading debate, and that is not what this Bill is about.
The right reverend Prelate said that he supported the Bill because this realistic penalty would re-establish the rule of law. He will forgive me if I say, "Sir, no". Adding a penalty to a penalty does not establish a rule of law. It may well frighten those people who may possibly be subjected to a £50,000 fine instead of an £X or a £Y fine, but it does not re-establish the rule of law. It only fixes a penalty.
I am pretty sure that it was my noble friend Lord Elton who discussed turnover. He suggested that there was a 12 per cent. gross margin on the wholesale take of a 40,000 square foot foodstore or supermarket (whatever it may be called). My information is that the gross margin is considerably less.
Lord Elton: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt my noble friend to ask whether he agrees that the enforcement of the law is a very important factor in maintaining and upholding the rule of law.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: I can only repeat what I said earlier, that adding a punitive penalty does not necessarily uphold a law. It may underline an aspect of the law. But the law will not be upheld by increasing

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by 50 times the current penalty for a law which, as has been demonstrated, is unenforceable. Over the past five years the matter has been before Parliament on a number of occasions and it is now to be the subject of a European Court decision.
This is a mean, miserable little Bill which does not deal with the main problem. That main problem is not before the House this afternoon. My noble friend drew in the Branson French operation, which merely confuses the issue. One could bring into the debate the ALDI stores in Germany, other stores in Holland and so on. That argument does nothing to support a law which is already in disrepute and does not justify increasing the current penalty 50 times.
I am surprised that my noble friend Lord Brentford should have resorted to such a mean little tactic. This matter could equally have been dealt with in terms of an Unstarred Question, if he had wished to bring to the attention of Parliament the paucity of the fine for offenders against a law which cannot be enforced anyway.
2.57 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I, too, submit that the Bill is both unnecessary and undesirable. I have no financial axe to grind either way, but a lot of nonsense has been talked about the actions of the big stores in question by people who ought to know better. For example, Hugo Young, writing in the Guardian of December 17th last, described the stores as "bully boys". It is as though couples, innocently strolling down Oxford Street on Sunday afternoon for a breath of fresh country air, are now at risk of being surrounded by thugs, rather like latter day press gangs, and forcibly bundled into department stores, there to be relieved of large sums of money in return for wholly unwanted goods. What a preposterous fantasy!
Shops which open on Sunday are also accused of wanting to make money, as though the landlords of pubs and the owners of restaurants, cinemas, stately homes, theme parks, zoos and similar places of entertainment are motivated purely by altruism, money being the very last thing to cross their minds. Strange as it may seem to some noble Lords, for many people shopping is a pleasurable form of activity. For them it falls into the same category as visiting the cinema. Why on earth should they be deprived of innocent, harmless pleasures?
To the extent that people tire of a novelty, as may happen in this case before too long, many shops will cease to open on Sundays. After all, that is what happened in Scotland, where only a small minority of shops open regularly, as those who have taken the trouble to study the matter will freely acknowledge.
Is opening a shop on Sunday a crime? We shall have to await the findings of the European Court. However, if it turns out to be a crime it is surely one of the most technical, victimless crimes imaginable. It is more victimless than parking on a yellow line, driving at 31 mph in a built-up area or driving at 71 mph on a motorway. I should be prepared to bet that at a minimum 90 per cent. of the supporters of the Keep Sunday Special Campaign at some point in their
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lives have either parked on a yellow line, driven at more than 30 mph in built-up areas, driven at more than 70 mph on a motorway, or all three.
If it is not a crime, is it a sin? The "Wee Frees" in Scotland would say so. However, unlike the mainstream Churches, they are at least honest and consistent in banning not only shopping but also entertainment and travel on Sundays.
One hesitates to cross swords with the Bishops' Bench, but my understanding is that there is nothing in the New Testament which can be interpreted as being inimical to Sunday trading specifically. That is presumably why the Churches—I exempt from these strictures the right reverend Prelate who spoke today —have tended to fall back on quasi pagan arguments relating to natural rhythms, natural cycles and so on. There is nothing necessarily wrong with pagan arguments. They may from time to time be perfectly valid. It is simply curious that such arguments should be used by the Churches.
Let me freely concede that I too would be somewhat depressed if Sunday turned out to be just like any ordinary weekday. However, I differ from the Keep Sunday Special campaign on two points. First, I do not believe that the criminal law should be used for social engineering purposes. The artificial preservation of a semi-Victorian Sunday is surely a form of social engineering. More importantly, I do not believe that there is the slightest risk of Sunday becoming just like any weekday. The experience of Scotland and other countries where Sunday trading is permitted demonstrates that quite forcefully.
Despite the telephone poll referred to by the right reverend Prelate, our opponents are a minority of the population, as several more scientific opinion polls have demonstrated. One wonders whether those opponents would acknowledge that at the very least the whole of England and Wales ought to be declared a holiday resort in which shops would be allowed to open for, say, 18 Sundays a year. The Sundays in question would tend to fall in December, early January, June and July so that students—who, after all, are in dire need of the money—would be able to work in the stores on Sundays during those months, thereby relieving some of the pressure upon the married women to whom the right reverend Prelate referred. Such a change would be only acknowledging reality. It is silly to claim nowadays that people take their holidays only at the seaside.
However, as a libertarian I should prefer the criminal law to be kept out of the issue altogether. Some local authorities claim that large-scale opening of shops on Sundays would involve them in extra expenses in connection with traffic control, refuse collection, street cleaning and so on. If that is the case, let them be empowered to levy a surcharge of up to 10 per cent. on the uniform business rate: I refer only to large stores which open regularly on Sundays, not corner shops. All the proceeds would be retained by the local authority. That would more than cover the costs of the extra services that they would have to provide on Sundays. At the same time it would ensure that Sundays remained even quieter than they are in Scotland today.
3.5 p.m.
Lord Newall: My Lords, I first ask for the indulgence of the House. I was given to understand that the debate would finish much earlier, as is usual on a Friday. I have an important appointment with the electricity authorities which I must maintain and therefore I may not be able to remain until the end of the debate.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, has introduced a Bill to increase penalties for offences against Part IV of the Shops Act 1950. None of us in this House is in any doubt of the implacable opposition which the noble Viscount has put up for many years against any deregulation of Sunday trading legislation. We all admire him for his perseverance. I believe that he is set on a course which is against the march of time as history may well show. However, we are in total agreement about the appalling situation in which, with the flouting of the law that is taking place, we find ourselves today.
Everything that we have read and heard over recent weeks has demonstrated the amount of aggravation and irritation felt by many sectors of business, industry and sport about the present Sunday trading legislation. In the weeks before Christmas we saw how many of the major retailers decided to open their doors to their customers on Sundays and the resulting consumer demand for these opportunities. This week has seen an announcement by the Jockey Club that it intends to stage some racing on a Sunday later this year as an experiment without, I should add, in any way breaking the law. Who knows?—that may well spread into greyhound racing. However, we have concluded the debate on dogs so I shall not pursue that subject.
I am sure that your Lordships are all aware of the complicated situation we now face while we await the judgment of the European Court and in the light of the Home Office's reluctance to move until that judgment has been laid down. It is all very well for the Attorney-General to say that there is nothing he can do until the legislation has been interpreted and that it is up to local authorities to decide whether or not to enforce the 1950 Shops Act. In the meantime a great many businesses do not know how to react. They risk penalties if they open or further deterioration of their trading position if they remain closed. All this at a time of recession when many businesses, particularly small businesses, should be given the greatest encouragement by government to stimulate what we are told is much-needed consumer demand.
Last year I introduced the Sunday Entertainments (Video Supply) Bill in order to enable video rental outlets to remain open on a Sunday. That Bill passed your Lordships' House and it was taken up under the Ten-Minute Rule in another place, where again it received widespread support. However, it was finally given the coup de grâce by government hands. I make no apology today for introducing the subject once again because the problem has not gone away, in fact just the reverse: it has become even more critical during these past few months.
In contrast to major retailing groups, video rental stores, which are often run by a single shopkeeper, do
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not have the resources to finance sophisticated legal proceedings. Indeed, the fine they currently face under a law enacted before the technology was invented is already punitive in the extreme and in certain areas renders opening impossible in spite of a strong demand. There does not appear to be any reason why other forms of the visual entertainment industry cannot operate on a Sunday. Theatres and cinemas may open on Sundays, and we are free to watch films on television on a Sunday, but in many areas this anachronistic legislation prevents us from renting a video.
Sunday is of course just the time when a great many people, including children, have time to watch a video and the weekend trade represents a very significant part of the video rental business. Every month that is lost whilst waiting for the wrangle to he resolved is another month of reduced or uncertain business.
The Government say that they cannot amend the Shops Act piecemeal, that any reform will have to await the outcome of the negotiations which are presently under way and that a consensus must emerge among all parties on the type of deregulation that will meet with widespread approval. They have constantly stated this position but I do not believe that their position is any longer tenable. If no moves are forthcoming here pending the European Court's decision, there is no other course but to amend the original legislation piecemeal. I believe that there is a great deal of support for just such a course of action. For that reason I intend to put down amendments at the Committee stage of this Bill and to try to put in place the reforms that my previous Bill would have enacted. I gather that the Keep Sunday Special campaign and those who support it do not see any problem as regards video rental on a Sunday. Therefore, once again, I am confident that my attempts will receive a great deal of support.
There is much familiarity with the problem and the imminence of a general election and the paralysis of the Home Office should not deter us from continuing our efforts to reform Sunday trading legislation. In conclusion, I must tell my noble friend Lord Brentford that I do not support the Bill. I believe that to increase penalties on shops which open on a Sunday is not the right way to proceed and I may well table amendments at a later stage.
3.10 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Brentford and to thank him for introducing the Bill which seeks to increase the penalties for offences under Part IV of the Shops Act.
Noble Lords hold varying views on the issue of Sunday trading and I do not propose to go into those in any depth today because it seems to me that the real issue is, as my noble friend Lord Caldecote so cogently argued, the role of the state in upholding law and order. To put the matter in another way, has the state a responsibility to uphold the law of the land, which has been so painstakingly considered by noble Lords and Members of another place, when the legislation has evolved in Parliament, or is it in order for the Government to shrug their metaphorical shoulders

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and watch powerful retailing groups deliberately break the law by trading on a Sunday for motives of greed, profit and commercial gain at the expense of law-abiding competitors?
Noble Lords will judge for themselves on that issue. However, I must say to the Minister who is to reply on behalf of the Government that I consider the failure of Her Majesty's Government to act on that issue to be extremely disappointing. In my judgment it will have caused the Government to lose credibility with electors. That may not prove to be wise in the run up to a general election.
What should the Government do? There are two possible courses of action which I should like to mention. My noble friend Lord Brentford briefly touched upon both in his opening speech. First, the Attorney-General could take out national injunctions against the offending groups of stores. Contrary to his assertions that many injunctions will be needed, some legal advisers advise that only one injunction is needed per company. Perhaps the Minister will be prepared to look again at that.
Secondly, as I understand it, the magistrates' courts are currently empowered to act against offences specified under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. That does not include offences under Section 47 of the Shops Act. Surely all that is needed is for the Home Secretary to bring forward the appropriate statutory instruments. Are the Government willing to take that simple step and, if not, why not? Again, I should be grateful if the noble Earl will answer that question when he replies to the debate.
Finally, if the Government really mean business they could make it known that law-breaking companies will be denied public recognition such as Queen's awards, development grants and local authority assistance. Indeed, directors of law-breaking companies should be denied public honours, positions of influence and invitations to public functions. Those already honoured should be informed that they are placing their honours in jeopardy.
Research on Sunday shopping on one Sunday before Christmas showed that one family in 20 did grocery shopping on that particular Sunday. That means that 19 out of 20 households did not. Perhaps noble Lords would care to reflect whether they feel it is right for the Government to stand idly by and allow a relatively small but powerful group of retailers to dictate a fundamental change in our way of life for the benefit of themselves and perhaps 5 per cent. of the population.
For all those reasons, I strongly support the initiative taken by my noble friend Lord Brentford and I have no hesitation in urging your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I have not had the pleasure of following the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, before. However, if I may speak plainly, I find the accusation of greed as the motive for people opening their shops and offering their wares to willing customers simply ludicrous. It is equivalent to saying
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that all people who pursue their own businesses are simply concerned with greed. In a manner of speaking they are concerned with improving their own position by way of peaceful trade; but how absurd to import into a serious debate that kind of accusation.
I am glad to rise from the Cross-Benches, accompanied by others who equally strongly oppose this rather miserable Bill. My noble friend Lady O'Cathain is the only one among us who has experience as an entrepreneur with Tesco's and also at the Barbican Centre, which is an important retail outlet and, as she said, does most of its business on a Sunday. To have her on our side is powerful support.
In view of the passion generated by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, he may stand amazed at his own moderation in raising the penalty for opening on Sunday from £1,000 to only £50,000. I assume the noble Viscount is an abolitionist or else he may have thought the death penalty was more appropriate for such wickedness as offering one's business products and services to willing customers on a Sunday.
A large part of the case for the repeal of the Shops Act is based upon absurdities and anomalies. We know that we cannot buy baby's milk but can buy gin. Even the experts among us may not remember from our last debate that there was something in the schedules in regard to partly-cooked tripe. I do not know which way it goes, but one either can or cannot sell and purchase raw or partly-cooked tripe. It is certainly a serious cost for a lapse of memory that we may be faced with a £50,000 fine for selling the wrong kind of tripe on a Sunday.
Lord Elton: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will permit me to ask a question. It is possible for offences under an Act of Parliament to be either serious or not. Acts of Parliament provide a maximum penalty for the most serious offences. I would not consider a bowl of tripe to be a serious offence.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I hope that the tripe eaters will take comfort from that observation. It is impossible to judge the expediency of the Bill, alas, without rehearsing the whole of the case against the control of opening hours and days for retail establishments. We have been through it all before. There are great arguments of principle. There are questions about the practical effects of the law and in the end, I am afraid, there are decisive political considerations.
It cannot be disputed that on grounds of principle we are faced with a dilemma. It is perfectly clear that opening on Sunday at present involves breaking the law. I do not take that lightly. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, the piling up of penalties to impose reluctant, grudging, unwilling acquiescence to a widely despised law is hardly the way to restore the law in the affections and faith of the population. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Caldecote, appeared to be retreating to his bunker and contemplating using rubber bullets of ever larger-calibre in order to fight off the barbarian hordes who will not be contained by ordinary discouragements.
Guilt in this matter must be properly understood. If a particular law is widely judged to be absurd then

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may we not say that the law has brought itself into disrepute? The guilt might then be borne by its most stubborn defenders among whom the last surviving relics are apparently to be found on the Tory Benches, and also perhaps on the Opposition Benches, in your Lordships' House.
In 1914 the great Austrian economist BöhmBawerk, whose name I cannot exactly pronounce, wrote a classic work entitled Power or Economic Law. It was a warning that legislation could not indefinitely prevail against market forces. That is a lesson vividly and seriously illustrated in the collapse of centralised state power in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union. All the coercion of the police state—not £50,000 fines but life and death threats and all other penalties—were insufficient to subdue the instinct of ordinary people to exert their choices through buying and selling, first of all in black markets and then increasingly in newly-liberated open markets.
I now turn to the practical effects of the continuance of the Shops Act. We find the Canutes on Sunday trading oscillate between the high moral arguments and economic arguments about raising costs and prices. As a professional economist I have studied all the evidence on that. I believe that the fears expressed about the effect on prices and costs are widely mistaken and often perverse. Such commercial judgments are best left to free trading between competing suppliers and choosing customers. Someone has to say that people are not obliged to shop or to open their shops if this law were set aside.
The great case against regulation is that it obstructs shops responding to ever-changing conditions and opportunities, as the development of the DIY stores and the garden centres has vividly demonstrated. The trades unions and the retail opponents of repeal are much the same kind of reactionaries who fought the abolition of uniform resale price maintenance as, roughly speaking, the end of the world as we had known it, in 1964. Yet no one today would bring back resale price maintenance, the removal of which has brought about a cost-reducing revolution in modern retailing that would otherwise not have been possible.
In the end, alas, we come to political considerations. I wish to call attention to recent revelations under the 30-year rule. In 1961 a Tory Cabinet seriously considered the reform or repeal of the Shops Act which had been passed only a decade before. We read that the Cabinet minutes acknowledge that the laws were "antiquated and confused". That was 30 years ago in 1961! We read that Rab Butler, who was no revolutionary or anti-sabbatarian roughneck, prepared, as Home Secretary, a Cabinet memorandum offering alternatives from slight liberalisation, allowing shops in holiday resorts to stay open in the summer, to ending all restrictions.
"It seems pretty clear that in present-day conditions the restrictions are not needed"—I am quoting from the Cabinet records. Of course, the provision was defeated by that arch-politician, Macmillan, who decided that it was not politically expedient. He was right, judged in party terms. In 1982 the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, marched us voluntarily and cheerfully through the Lobbies, with no Whips,
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and with a massive majority, including, as I recall, the then Lord Chancellor the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and other heavyweights on the Tory Front Bench who were in favour of this Private Member's repeal measure. That measure went through this House and arrived at what is aptly called the Lower House where it was voted out. It was voted out purely on the basis of political pressure of constituents. It is not for the last time that the Lords—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? Does he regard it as particularly reprehensible that the elected House takes some account of public opinion?
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, Members of Parliament have every right to "have regard", I think is the phrase, to their constituents' views. But when it is known that Keep Sunday Special conducted the most determined campaign to influence MPs by letter-writing that wholly distorted public opinion, then we must assume that MPs should look beyond their mailbags and see that the evidence of all opinion polls—I have not seen them lately—of those days in those debates showed 65 per cent. or 70 per cent. of the population in favour of Sunday opening. I pay tribute, as something of an amateur persuader myself, to the outstanding campaign of Keep Sunday Special. It has been, in my lifetime, one of the most effective examples of the perversion of democracy by a determined minority filling MPs mailbags with letters threatening electoral reprisals if they voted in favour of those things that the great majority of the population wished.
Of course it is bad for the law to be brought into contempt. It is also bad for the law to seek to impose prohibition against conduct which the overwhelming majority of the population does not consider wrong. If we think people are wrong in this matter we should rely—particularly the right reverend Prelates on the Bishops' Bench—on teaching and preaching and not try to use coercion and escalating punishment.
We live in a period of unprecedented and continuing change in economic and social developments. If the Tory Cabinet in 1961 considered the Shops Act 1950 to be antiquated and confused then, we might think 30 years later that it is even less defensible. As my unpronounceable Austrian, BöhmBawerk, predicted, political power will in the end accommodate "market forces", which is only a way of describing ordinary people peacefully going about the everyday business of life. So long as the law continues to frustrate mutually beneficial trade between willing buyers and willing sellers it will perpetuate tensions and evasion, and in the end the misuse of statutory prohibition will be swept away by economic and social change.
3.28 p.m.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, and I must say that I agree with almost everything he said. That is often the case. I also admire most profoundly the sincerity and persistence

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of my noble friend Lord Brentford who has pursued this issue with great vigour over many years. However, unfortunately on this occasion I profoundly disagree with him, as indeed he well knows because we have discussed the issue both inside and outside the Chamber on many occasions.
Today my noble friend has used the device of a Second Reading very wisely, in the same way as did the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, to air the subject of Sunday trading. Although we have a Bill before us which provides for a special clause—a single clause —in fact, the debate has developed very clearly along the lines of those in favour of Sunday trading and those against. The score so far is five for, and five against this Bill. I am firmly in the latter category—that is, in favour of Sunday trading—that we do not need this Bill; we need to do other things.
The Bill brought forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, is aimed largely at the big stores and ignores all the small people who operate on Sundays. These have been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, and others. That is a very serious matter because Sunday trading at the moment provides employment for about 100,000 families and if the anti-Sunday traders have their way those people will be deprived of an important part of their livelihood. That must be wrong.
I do not see anything incompatible between churchgoing and shopping. Indeed, I indulge in both activities on Sundays. That is perfectly reasonable for a broad spectrum of the population and has been proved so in Scotland. Scottish laws on Sunday trading were reformed some time ago and have worked effectively. Those laws should have been extended to England years ago. We tried to get a sensible Bill on the statute book but it was, unfortunately, thrown out in another place.
I suspect that my noble friend on the Front Bench will hide behind what is happening in Europe and will do nothing. That is reprehensible and deplorable. This matter is long overdue for reform and should be in the manifestos of both parties in the forthcoming general election. Everything suggested today and the Bill put forward by my noble friend Lord Brentford would merely tinker with the issue. The Shops Act 1950 should be repealed in its entirety. If anything is put in its place it should be a simple measure which conforms with whatever is to happen in Europe. But we probably need no measures at all.
In this matter the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, was quite clear. It was proposed 30 years ago that the Shops Act should be repealed. Since then we have been messing around with the issue, doing nothing and not grasping the problem at all sensibly. It is high time we addressed the issue, repealed the Shops Act 1950 and had a proper, liberal trading system whereby people could enjoy going to church and enjoy freedom of expression and shopping when they wished.
3.32 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Brentford has introduced a commendably short Bill. He has explained his views clearly and suggested more general reform at a later stage.
As your Lordships well know, the law on Sunday trading is in a state of great confusion. By the 1930s it was apparent that earlier Sunday trading legislation, principally that of the Shops Act 1912, itself a consolidation, was no longer serving its purpose. This was partially dealt with in 1936 in a Bill promoted by the Early Closing Association and duly passed. In 1947 the Gowers Committee reported and recommended reform of shops' law because there were too many exemptions and law was contained in too many Acts. In 1950 the present Shops Act came into force, but it is merely a consolidation of earlier legislation. No further reform was ever undertaken, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, pointed out. Bearing that in mind it is not surprising that Rab Butler thought it was antique, because it was really a consolidation of the 1936 laws.
With this Bill we are concerned only with the Shops Act 1950 —Part IV and Schedule 6—which describe what shops may or may not do on Sunday. After some study of Halsbury's Laws of England it is obvious that there is not much certainty in the Act for practical purposes, as a good many local authorities have now found to their cost when attempting enforcement. The whole thing is riddled with exemptions which apply here and there. Perhaps I may attempt to answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross. I understand that if the tripe has at least been dipped in warm water and can be classified as partially cooked or cooked, it is exempt, but I have not been able to ascertain whether it would be exempt in an uncooked state were it sold in a butcher's shop, which might be allowed, under a different section of the Act, to open. I think we can leave that matter now.
The Shops Act is widely disregarded and is unpopular with many of those to whom it applies, both shopkeepers and the general public. The law has fallen into such disrepute that shopkeepers openly flout what are reasonably thought to be its provisions because such is the confusion that nobody—even your Lordships' House—can say definitely what the law now is until, in about two years hence, the European Court makes its ruling on the matter. In brief, as a layman, that is how I see the law stands now.
That is the legal side of the matter. The other problem is the moral issue, amply subsumed in the slogan "Keep Sunday Special", a cause to which my noble friend Lord Brentford has devoted much energy and wisdom. However, starting from the same premises—namely, the scriptures—different Christian faiths or sects in England and Wales (and this also applies much wider) have by prayer and thought arrived at entirely inconsistent views as to the purpose of Sunday and how, if at all, it is to be kept holy. On the one hand, Quakers regard every day as equally holy. For them, no Sunday has any unique importance. But others regard Sunday as unique in the opposite way, insisting that all that need not be done that day be put off until Monday. Every party to the

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dispute is well armed with biblical and other authorities which it advances in support of its opinions.
The general public is unmoved by the latter and wishes to go peaceably about its business on Sundays with freedom to shop. As was said earlier, since 1950 no reforming Bill of any significance has succeeded. With the law in its present state of uncertainty, it is wrong to seek power through the Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Brentford to impose a huge fine on offenders against Section 59(1) of the 1950 Act.
I see that Clause 2 of the Bill applies only to England and Wales. That means that Scotland will be outwith its reach; that is, if the Bill is ever passed. While the 1950 Act applies to Scotland, its effect is almost entirely negated by Section 66 which exempts Scotland from Part IV of the Act. Therefore, there are very few specific provisions relating to Sunday trading in Scotland; basically you cannot be a barber nor can you sell alcoholic liquor except within permitted hours.
Agreement between the commercial and moral interests involved appears impossible. Therefore it is now the duty of the Government to lead with a reforming Bill. As it works well in Scotland and has evolved from total closure throughout the country to a state which I should like, but I hardly dare to describe as "market clearing opening"—with which I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will agree—no social pressures for reform have built up. That has led to a peaceable state of affairs.
Given the fact that it has worked well in Scotland, I advise that, for a start, a Bill should be introduced to exempt England and Wales from Part IV of the 1950 Act, as was in fact advocated by my noble friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein, and that then such other small reforms as are patently necessary should be added to the legislation. By that means certainty would again reign where chaos now rules. Moreover, from that position, we would be in a far better state to advance arguments to the EC as to why our ideas should be incorporated in such a directive as may eventually take effect, after perhaps many attempts. That is how we could advance peaceably, profitably and for the good of the country.
3.38 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, those of us who oppose the Bill can at least go some way towards its proponents. But, first, on a personal basis I should like to say that we can and do respect the sincerity that lies behind it and acknowledge the single mindedness. We also fully share the view that the flouting of law on a widespread basis is quite deplorable. What is more, it has repercussions. The flouting of the Shops Act which has gone on for many years has been mirrored recently by the flouting of the Act imposing the community charge. More recently, we have had the lamentable incident of the so-called parliament called by Dr. Siddique in which he calls on his fellow religionists to flout the law whenever they think that it is incumbent upon their consciences to do so. So far we can go with the proponents of the measure.
Where we have some reserve is that there has been
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no acknowledgment that the vociferous agitation against the Government's attempt to reform the law five years ago has led us into this deplorable situation. It was not only predictable; it was predicted, and not just in Parliament. It was first predicted as long ago as the late 1940s when the powerful Gowers Committee said that the legislation was bringing the law into contempt; 40 years later that was repeated by the Auld Committee, which said that it was bringing the law into disrepute.
A law which is in contempt, a law which is disreputable, invites defiance. We can none of us approve of it, but there are always two courses. One is the swingeing penalty to enforce it, and the other is abrogation of a law which has ceased to command public confidence. There is in fact a halfway house which is not on the agenda at the moment. That would be a measure such as this, coupled with a rationalisation of Schedule 5 to the 1950 Act. I believe that that was the course favoured by the right reverend Prelate.
The snag about that course is that no one has been able to find a compromise—a central position—which is free from gross anomaly. Many were canvassed in your Lordships' House five years ago when the Shops Bill was under discussion. All of them again had been scrutinised in great detail by the Auld Committee. None was found workable; so in the end we are faced today with the bare alternative—not on the face of the Bill it is true but in fact—of swingeing penalties to try to bring the lawbreakers to heel or to adopt the course that was recommended by the Government five years ago; namely, to abrogate the law.
As for the swingeing penalties, what the Bill does is to increase the penalty under the 1950 Act, as updated by the automatic increase in penalties in line with inflation, and to multiply the penalty fifty-fold. The alternative, as I said, is total deregulation. In choosing between such alternatives, a number of considerations fall for measure. The first is obviously whether the existing legislation commands widespread general assent as to its social benefits. I doubt whether anyone can claim that of this body of law.
The second consideration is whether it has internal consistency. There have been many references today and on other occasions to the absurd anomalies thrown up by Schedule 5. There is also the astonishing anomaly that it is illegal to sell a soft pornographic magazine on a Sunday but not a Bible. I suppose that I ought also to mention that fresh meat cannot be sold on a Sunday. Anyone who seeks to buy it will be told that he cannot do so because of the schedule, but he may under the schedule if he wishes buy an aircraft.
The third consideration is whether it is externally anomalous. Surely it is. I wonder how many of the proponents of the Bill refrain from travelling on public transport or even in private transport on a Sunday. Certain people of strict religious views go that far. How many of the proponents of the Bill refrain from reading a newspaper on Monday because it has been printed on a Sunday? I very much doubt whether there are more than a handful.
The fourth consideration is whether there is another part of the kingdom that manages to get on

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with deregulation which has not called for swingeing enforcement without incurring social harm. As has been pointed out, Scotland has done so perfectly well and I fancy that Sabbatarianism is more observed in Scotland than in this country. Thus, on all those counts the remedy of swingeing enforcement is highly undesirable.
There is another point that one ought to consider: how easy, how respectable will enforcement be and will it lead to other social ills? Enforcement under this body of legislation has relied consistently on provocative agents. I am sure your Lordships will agree that that is highly undesirable. Increase the penalty fifty-fold and the incentive to the work of provocative agents, the encouragement of corruption by them and blackmail are enormously increased.
For all those reasons, I imagine that your Lordships will as usual give a Second Reading to the measure, but I hope it will not go out as having the seal of approval put on it by your Lordships' House.
3.48 p.m.
Lord Milverton: My Lords, I apologise for not having my name on the list of speakers but I was not sure whether I would be here this afternoon. I support the Bill in principle. I have not spoken much when the matter has previously been discussed. It is not easy. The Bill has much relevance and interest for each one of us in our morals and principles, but basically I support the Bill. I agree with those who have spoken in support of it such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and others.
It is surely imperative that the loose law on trading on a Sunday should be clearer and tighter so that it can be upheld. The law at present is often quite contradictory and not at all clear as regards what we can or cannot purchase on a Sunday.
I shall now refer to the big boys, by which I mean the big firms. I admire those large firms which have stated they will not open on Sundays until this matter is cleared up. In spite of the reasons that some large concerns give to try to justify their Sunday opening, I do not think they are helping the situation. What about the smaller concerns? Would they be able to escape the law if they were challenged? They most probably would not escape. However, the big boys can escape the law as they have clout.
I return to the matter of the small firms. They may not wish to open on a Sunday as their employees have worked hard all the week. However, if the larger concerns open on Sundays, the smaller concerns will be forced to do the same. There is something not quite right about the present position and about how the big boys are taking advantage of it. The ideal course—this has already been suggested—is that only shops selling essential commodities should open on Sundays. We are aware that in this land it is not just a matter of taking into account the Christian religion. There are other faiths. The holy day in other faiths may be Friday or Saturday. However, surely Christians can let it be known in a reasonable, humble and meek way
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that Sunday is our holy day. In Holy Communion Christians remember the most essential factor of their faith.
On Sundays people should be able to enjoy healthy leisure, pleasure and family life. I believe safeguards will be written into the legislation to protect employees as regards Sunday working. However, how sure can we be that those safeguards will be adhered to? How sure can we be that those men and women who do not wish to work on Sundays will be allowed to hold that view? I am particularly worried about the big boys in this respect. There may be those who say that some families like to go shopping on Sundays. That is all well and good but—
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, is the problem any different as regards the newspaper industry?
Lord Milverton: My Lords, I appreciate that it is considered essential to produce some things on Sundays. The noble and learned Lord has said today that it is up to individuals whether they buy a paper on Mondays. That example shows why this is such a delicate matter. However, I wonder whether it is the case that shops would fall down if they did not open on Sundays.
The Churches have a responsibility in this matter. I hope that somehow we can give a lead and that people will respect the concept that Sunday is a day on which they can rest and find moral, spiritual and physical refreshment. It is important that as far as possible services are available on Sundays for people to attend if they so wish. We should try to provide as many as possible. It is sad that in some places Evensong has had to go, but the Roman Catholic Church is very good at ensuring that there are many services on Sunday for its people.
One can think of Monday newspapers which have to be produced on a Sunday, of travel, restaurants and so on. However, somehow we have to manage affairs so that Sunday is seen to be different and that only those places which offer essential services are open. It is a complex issue. I like to be able to enjoy watching cricket on a Sunday. If one goes to watch a game of cricket one has to pay. Do the cricket authorities arrange matches purely to gain money? I would not say so, although one pays one takes pleasure and leisure in watching the game.
I support the Bill in principle. The issue will have to be gone into so that it can be seen more than is generally realised that Sunday is a special day for all those men and women who uphold the faith. Apart from any legislation, it is for them to show by the way they live what Sunday means to them. Those of us who have come from a clergy house or a manse, as some have, are even more aware of the deep conflict. Perhaps I should not do so because it may not have been noticed, but I apologise—I have only just realised that I forgot to put my collar on this morning.
3.57 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, we forgive the noble Lord.
I should like to begin by saying what the Bill is not about. Despite the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord

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Monson, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, and the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, it is not about whether we should or should not abandon controls over Sunday trading. In any event, as we are all well aware, that issue was decided by the elected House when it rejected the Government's Bill on Sunday trading. The issue before us today is a great deal simpler. It is the point identified by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote—whether we accept the rule of law; whether powerful men and powerful interests can defy the law of England with impunity.
In my judgment it is absurd to argue that because an appeal is before the European Court of Justice the current law has no effect. That was made absolutely clear by the Attorney-General in his Statement in the House of Commons on November 22nd when he said (at col. 913 of the Official Report):
"The law is not suspended".
He added that it was clear that anyone who traded on a Sunday remained liable to criminal proceedings. That is quite clear.
Those who are now opening their supermarkets on Sundays—Tesco, Asda, Safeway, Sainsbury, and, to put the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, at rest, anyone else who is doing so—are doing it in the full knowledge that they are deliberately breaking the criminal law of England and Wales. They are prepared to do this because the fines to which they are exposed, if convicted of such unlawful conduct, are, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said in his speech, derisory—a mere £1,000 maximum. It is this issue to which this Bill is addressed. I should perhaps add that we are in fact imposing substantial penalties on the law-abiding. It is an extraordinary situation that Marks & Spencer, who observe the law, have had to produce leaflets in their stores explaining that they have decided to obey the law of England.
I have no particularly strong feelings on the issue of Sunday trading. Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool I am not a severe Sabbatarian. Indeed, when the Government's Bill was before the House I think I voted on only one occasion. But I have strong views on the question of whether people should obey the law, and that is the principal reason why I support this Bill. The penalties should be set at such a level that they will deter the calculated law-breaker.
I think at this point it would be helpful to remind the House of what the Attorney-General said on this particular matter in the House of Commons on 27th November. Mr. David Trimble, the Member for Upper Bann, said at col. 916:
"the criminal sanctions that are available to local authorities are unlikely to be effective".
The Attorney-General in reply said:
"I have some sympathy with what the honourable gentleman says about the criminal sanction that is available to local authorities under the provisions of the Shops Act 1950."
Lord Monson: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord?
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, perhaps I may just finish this quotation. I shall just finish this point, then I shall gladly give way to the noble Lord. In reply to Sir Hugh Rossi, who said at col. 917,
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"is it not a factor in the present situation that the fines that can be levied under the Shops Act are not a deterrent to the kind of people that the House has in mind today"
the Attorney-General said:
"I agree—
Viscount Astor: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he is able to quote the Minister in another place but not a Member in another place?
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I am well aware of that. I have been in the House quite a long time. I could not explain why the Minister said what he did without putting the question that he was answering. I think that is fairly self-evident. The Attorney-General said:
"I agree with my honourable Friend that the maximum fine is low."
That was the Attorney-General's clearly defined position, and I hope that what he said on that occasion will be reflected in the speech of the noble Earl. I shall now give way to the noble Lord, Lord Monson.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I simply wanted to refer to the noble Lord's law-breaking, as it were, in quoting a Back-Bencher in another place.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, as I tried to point out, to give an answer by a Minister without explaining the question that he is answering is a rather difficult operation.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I think that the correct version would be that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, should have paraphrased the Back-Bencher but quoted the Minister.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl. I have no doubt that that would have been even better, but as I have done it in the particular way that I have, I have at least avoided the charge that I have in any way inadvertently misrepresented anybody. I hope we may agree on that.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to intervene again?
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, with great respect to the noble Earl, I have given way on a number of occasions. I think it is now reasonable for me to proceed.
That was what the Attorney-General said on that occasion. But there is an even more important issue before us today. It is whether we are prepared to tolerate a situation in which a number of public companies simply indicate that they are prepared to ignore the law of this country as determined by Parliament. There are a number of precedents for political lobbies announcing that they are prepared to indulge in organised law-breaking. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, gave a number of examples, including that of the appalling Dr. Siddique and his Moslem parliament.
The noble and learned Lord also mentioned the views of the Anti-Poll Tax Federation. The poll tax was deeply unpopular, even with Members of the present Government. That is why they repealed it within the lifetime of a single Parliament. Many of the

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points made by the noble and learned Lord could equally have been made about public attitudes towards paying the poll tax. But it was made quite clear by my honourable friends in another place and indeed by the majority of the Labour Party that there was a duty on people to obey the law of this country. In fact, as we all recall, there was one Member of Parliament who decided not to pay and was prepared to go to prison rather than do so.
At that time Ministers denounced the organisers of the campaign. They said that it was outrageous that Members of Parliament were prepared to associate themselves with such systematic law-breaking. I wholly agree with them. It is deplorable that people who make laws choose to defy them. However, I wonder why Ministers have taken such a different attitude toward the law-breaking that we have seen so far as it concerns large supermarkets. Remarkably more restrained language has been used.
As I said on another occasion—I believe it was when the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, repeated the Attorney-General's Statement in this House—I very much welcomed the fact that, when Mrs. Thatcher was Prime Minister and a suggestion was made that a number of supermarkets intended to break the law in exactly the way that they have now done, she made it clear that she would be strongly opposed to such a course of action and the matter was dropped. I very much regret that her statement was not repeated on this occasion. I am sure that the noble Earl will tell the House, as he did on the last occasion, that Ministers do not condone the behaviour of the supermarkets. It would be extraordinary were they to do so. I very much hope that he will use similarly emphatic language when dealing with these particular examples of law-breaking.
What can one say about the vigorous attacks by Ministers on those law makers who conspired to break the law? There is in this House a Member with a respected name who has been involved in this matter. It is regrettable that he has chosen not to be present this afternoon in order to justify the action which his stores have taken. It is wrong that Members of either House should place themselves in a position of voting on issues affecting the law of this country and then, whenever their commercial interests dictate, choose to defy the law themselves. I believe that that is wrong.
This House has often debated issues on which Members from all parts of the Chamber have expressed deep concern about what they believe to be increasing lawlessness in society. There have been lamentations about the behaviour of the young, and sometimes not so young. There have been harsh criticisms of those whose behaviour or statements have been said to have encouraged or provided some justification for such misconduct. Today we are discussing just such an issue. The central question before us in my view has nothing to do with the Shops Act. It is about whether powerful interests can ignore the rule of law. I believe that such conduct is unacceptable in any parliamentary democracy and I hope that this House will make that clear today.
4.10 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, in some ways it has been an unusual and fascinating debate. I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, at least on turning up. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, she did at least come to face the music. I listened to her speech with respect and great interest. However, she will recognise, as would any of us who have practised in criminal courts, that her speech was essentially a plea of guilty and a speech in mitigation. It was not a justification in law for the attitude that Tesco has taken. It was saying, "Yes, perhaps we have broken the law but it's not a very nice law anyway, people don't really agree with the law and, in any case, my Lords"—making a plea to the Bench—"I was not on my own. I was led by others. I was forced into it". Her speech had all the elements of a successful plea in mitigation and to that extent I admire her.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. I am not well versed in the law, unlike the noble Lord. However, I certainly did not wish to seem to speak in the way that he indicates. I wished to say that Tesco is obviously in a serious position and that I did not feel I could support the Bill because I did not believe that it attacked the central issue. I believe that the central issue has to be attacked, and rapidly; otherwise we shall face a serious situation. Tesco was forced into that position. I hope that I made that plain.
Lord Richard: My Lords, again the mitigation is attractive. Were I sitting in judgment it would have an effect upon my flinty soul when it came to giving a decision on it. However, one has to recognise it for what it is, attractive though it is. It is a firm statement that Tesco took a firm decision to break the law. It may say that it was forced into it for many reasons. It may say that the law needs to be amended. All those statements are perfectly acceptable and may be true. In a moment I shall say something about them. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, pointed out, the debate is not about Sunday trading; it is not about whether we on this side of the House accept the Shops Act. It is not about whether we want a sabbatarian Sabbath to come home to on a Saturday night. The debate essentially is about whether the way of life of this country and indeed the law of the country shall be changed, subverted or ignored for commercial interests by a small group of very powerful people.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, made a fascinating speech. He seemed to be advocating some form of civil disobedience campaign on the basis that it is a shocking law because it cannot distinguish between cooked and uncooked tripe—nor indeed spoken tripe too! Having said all that he then seemed to be saying, "If the law is in such a dreadful state it is right that people should be entitled to ignore the law". I do not accept that for a moment. It is a recipe for chaos. It is not a recipe for good government.
I emphasise at the outset what I wish to say. The issue is not whether we approve of Sunday trading. I

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was brought up in a very Methodist part of west Wales. Indeed I come from a long line of Methodist divines. Therefore my upbringing and background is that of the somewhat puritanical sabbatarianism of my birthplace. If newspapers were in the house they were hidden before my grandfather came in because he was a preacher. If washing was done on a Sunday it was done indoors because one could not possibly hang it outside in case someone saw it. Although I have lived in a Labour seat with a majority of 34,000, the club with the biggest membership was the local Conservative Club because the pubs were closed on Sunday and the Conservative Club was open. I therefore have some knowledge of what we are talking about in this debate. I am bound to say to the House —I do not know whether or not it puts me out of court with the Keep Sunday Special campaign—that I look forward to a slightly more joyous Sunday than some of those I spent as a boy.
My view of Sunday trading is not necessarily that the Shops Act is right, that Sundays should remain as they are or that they should be as they once were. I certainly hope that Sundays will never be as they were when I was a small boy in west Wales. However, that is not the issue: the issue is whether the law should be enforced or whether it should be ignored.
How did that issue arise? It arose simply because some of the larger retailers believed that they saw an opportunity in their own interests to increase their profits by manipulating the reference to the European Court. It was a cynical, cold-blooded decision taken with a sober appreciation and cool calculation of the commercial interest of that firm, as the noble Baroness said. I shall give one example of the kind of attitude that we are up against. The chairman of WH Smith, Sir Simon Hornby, actually said:
"As far as breaking the law is concerned I am afraid that we will have to continue to do so".
That is appalling. It is a shameful attitude for the head of a major public company to take and it runs through the main supermarket chains.
As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, has said, there is nothing wrong with people looking after their commercial interests. I accept that view; that is what they are in business to do. On the other hand, one of the functions of government is to ensure that commercial interests, however well they are looked after, are not allowed to impinge or override the rule of law in this country.
Perhaps I may first deal with the European aspect. A reference to the court may be appropriate but two questions then arise. First, does the mere reference to the court (not the judgment of the court) override domestic legislation to such an extent that people are entitled to ignore the law of this country until the European Court has decided? I think not. Surely domestic legislation remains intact unless and until it is reversed or modified by the decision of the court. Although I am not quite so sanguine about the wording as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, I believe that the Attorney-General confirmed that view in his intervention in another place—
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. He will
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acknowledge that the difficulty is that no one knows what the law of this country is in view of the conflicting and confusing judgments which have emanated from the European Court.
Lord Richard: My Lords, with great respect, if we do not know what the law is until the European Court has given its decisions, the law of England must remain the law of England unless and until it is changed.
Noble Lords,Hear, hear!
Lord Richard: My Lords, three judgments that the European Court has already given—in relation to Belgium, to France and to another aspect of this matter in the United Kingdom—held that it was not contrary to the Treaty of Rome for a nation to regulate its Sunday trading. If the position were other than that the law of England shall remain intact and enforceable unless and until it is changed by a decision of the court there would be a recipe for chaos. If every law that were referred to Luxembourg somehow went into limbo and abeyance, if we could forget about it and ignore it, if we need not consider it either in relation to our civil or criminal affairs or to the way in which we regulate our lives, there would be a recipe for total and utter chaos. I cannot believe that that is the position.
The problem as I see it is that if the law remains intact and enforceable unless and until we have the judgment of the court, why do not the Government help with its enforcement? Two problems flow from that. First, the penalty of the existing Shops Act—namely £1,000—is not sufficient to deter the major supermarkets. For the Sainsburys of this world it is a derisory penalty. No doubt they would take the view, as some retailers have in the past, that the publicity is well worth the —1,000 fine.
Secondly—and this is the other problem—the attempt to use the quasi civil procedure of injunction has proved to be impossible for the local authorities to pursue because of the necessity for a cross-undertaking as to damages. It is in relation to those two problems that the Bill is extremely important.
If every Sainsbury's store in the country were to be faced with a fine of up to £50,000, it may affect that cold assessment of where that chain's commercial interests lie and produce a different result. I believe that that result would be an almost unanswerable argument in favour of the Bill.
Not only do I not agree with the Government's attitude; I find it extremely difficult to understand. On 27th November Mrs. Angela Rumbold said:
"I make it plain that I do not condone the plans of some major retailers to open their shops on Sundays before Christmas". [Official Report, Commons, 27/11/91, col. 920.]
Was that the maximum amount of pressure that the Government were prepared to bring on Sainsbury and Tesco? To say that they do not condone it is an open invitation to go ahead.
It seems to me that, if legal action is barred under the Shops Act because the fine of £1,000 is derisory and the civil aspect is difficult because of the cross-undertakings as to damages, extra legal and political measures should have been taken by the

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Government. I believe that it was said by a director of Tesco—but the noble Baroness will know that better than I—that it would have taken a mere telephone call from John Major and the action would have been stopped at the outset. Why was that telephone call not made? When it became clear that stores were going to open on Sundays before Christmas, why was pressure not brought to bear? As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, pointed out, the last Prime Minister had no hesitation in using all of her not inconsiderable influence and powers in order to persuade the major retailers not to take such action a few years ago.
A vigorous campaign of dissuasion by the Government alongside a measure such as is proposed by this Bill may well have worked. One asks why on earth they did not do that. The only sensible answer that one can give is that they did not mind about it. They did not mind about it for a number of reasons. I suppose that they thought that the Shops Act is in a mess and if somebody could drive a coach and horses through it then the matter would be forgotten about. That would remove one difficulty for the Government.
It is always tempting to quote one's own speeches and I rarely do that. However, I am entitled to say that I warned the Government when this matter was raised on 27th November that this problem would not be confined to the period before Christmas. Your Lordships may remember that when the problem first arose it was stated that the stores would open only in the pre-Christmas period and then matters would revert to normal after Christmas. A pattern is now being established in this country. A major change is taking place in our national way of life. It is being sneaked through by extra-parliamentary and extra-democratic means. It is being done with the connivance of the Government and I believe that it is totally wrong.
If the law can be ignored in that respect, it can be ignored in other respects. I had a sentence in my speech saying that the Government are conniving at breaches of the Shops Act but are enforcing breaches as regards the poll tax. From today's newspapers it seems that the Government cannot even prosecute those who have evaded paying their poll tax with any great success, but perhaps that is not connivance but merely incompetence. This is a free vote and I should not dream of pressing any of my noble friends to vote in the way that I have indicated. I find this to be a useful Bill. I shall vote for it. It may have to be amended in Committee but at least it will give the Shops Act some teeth. If the Shops Act has some teeth and the Government have some guts, we may yet stop this problem.
Lord Monson: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, will he not agree that the purpose of the great majority of laws is to prevent individuals from injuring others or the state? That is why the poll tax law must be upheld; if some people do not pay, the burden is heaped upon the shoulders of others. The specific crime which the noble Lord has been attacking for the past few minutes is one of the few which is in all essentials a victimless crime and that is why there seems to be a good deal less urgency in enforcing it.
Lord Richard: My Lords, if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, I am not so arrogant as to believe that my own personal opinion on the efficacy or desirability of any piece of legislation is such that I would be entitled to urge anyone else to break that law. If the law is bad, the remedies are clear; it must be changed. If it is to be changed, it should be changed by Parliament; it should not be changed by the action of a few private individuals.
4.25 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my noble friend introduced a Bill on the topical but thorny subject of Sunday trading. As is usual, the heavy armoury from both sides has been wheeled out and the barrels have been trained—I suggest incorrectly—on the Government. I shall come to that later.
I first congratulate my noble friend on his pertinacity, on his indefatigable stamina and on the clarity of his exposition. I congratulate him also on the brevity of his Bill. Without being mean, that just about exhausts my locker of congratulations to my noble friend on the Bill.
I do not propose to become involved in the arguments about trading on Sunday. As the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, said, Sunday is special; we all know that. Some shops can open; some people—as she put it, even right reverend Prelates—have to work on Sundays. If no one worked the whole fabric of society would collapse. They are cogent arguments. We heard some of them today and others on other days. I do not consider it to be my responsibility to become involved with them, to comment upon them or add to them. My duty is simply to give Her Majesty's Government's view on my noble friend's Bill.
My noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth was right when he said that we were in danger of having a Sunday trading debate. He said that at the beginning of the debate and I think that at the end of the debate his words have proved fairly correct.
Before I comment on the substance of my noble friend's Bill it may be helpful to look at the broader context within which it must be seen. Your Lordships will recall that I repeated in your Lordships' House on 27th November an answer that was given in another place by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General on the enforcement of the present law on Sunday trading in England and Wales and also a Statement which my right honourable friend the Minister of State at the Home Office made in another place on reform of the law on the same day. I fancy that your Lordships will not expect me to go over all that ground again today, other than to say this.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, and it was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that the Government had been quiet in condemning those who break the law. That is not so. My right honourable friend the Minister of State in another place, when the subject was discussed on 27th November, commented on the matter. I shall quote my right honourable friend's words because she is a Minister and I shall be in order in doing so. She is not a Back-Bencher and therefore I shall not fall into the same trap as the noble

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Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, by quoting a Back-Bencher, which he should not have done. My right honourable friend said,
"I make it plain that I do not condone the plans of some major retailers to open their shops on Sundays before Christmas. I make it equally plain that I commend those retailers who remain committed to complying with the clear intentions of the law".—[Official Report, Commons, 27/11/92; col. 920.]
That is perfectly plain. That is the Government's position. It was said then and I repeat that today with the force of the Government's views.
However, there are a number of points I should like to underline. My right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General, acting in his independent capacity as a Law Officer of the Crown, clearly said that there was no question of the law on Sunday trading being suspended. Local authorities can still continue to apply for injunctions and any trader who trades on a Sunday, relying only on the present uncertainty concerning Community law, remains liable to criminal proceedings. That is the position which was clearly put by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General. It is for local authorities themselves to decide their own course of action.
Your Lordships' House, acting in its judicial capacity, concluded in May last year that our Sunday trading laws are unclear. It has, therefore, referred questions to the European Court of Justice which are designed to establish whether the relevant provisions of the Shops Act 1950 are part of our law. Until the European Court gives its ruling to your Lordships, the fundamental question is whether the Shops Act 1950 remains the law and not whether the local authorities can enforce it.
I recognise that the prevailing uncertainty over this has caused a great deal of public disquiet. We have therefore asked the European Court for an early date for the hearing of this matter so that your Lordships' House can in its judicial capacity in turn proceed to give its judgment. Only then will the Government be in a position to bring forward proposals for the reform of the law.
My noble friends Lord Brentford and Lord Ashbourne referred to the Government's inactivity. Your Lordships and they know that we tried to change the law in the Shops Bill 1986 but another place did not agree to it, which was its right. That Bill did not become law. Your Lordships will also know that you cannot change the law when you cannot get agreement in Parliament. You will not get that agreement until there is reasonable agreement outside Parliament. That is the agreement which my right honourable friend the Minister of State, Mrs. Rumbold, is trying to find. That is proving somewhat elusive.
For those who say that the Government should bring in a Bill now to rectify the situation, I say that it is simply impracticable to change the law when the judgment of the European Court is expected. The Government are frequently accused of introducing hasty legislation. Earlier today the Government were accused of bringing in hasty legislation in the form of the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Bill. The noble Lord,
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Lord Morris of Castle Morris, used a somewhat unattractive expression when he said that the introduction of that Bill was a knee-jerk reaction.
The mind reels to think of the accusation that would be levelled against the Government if they decided to introduce now a Bill on this subject when a judgment from the European Court over this difficult matter has not yet been received and is actually awaited. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool said that the Government have a duty to bring in a Bill. We are determined to press forward for a reform of the Sunday trading law so that we shall have a law which can at the same time be both workable and enforceable and which will command both popular support and the acceptance of a majority in Parliament.
My noble friend Lord Elton was worried about the law not being even-handed. He said that if the local authorities have to give cross-undertakings for damages to businesses if they are found to be wrong, likewise businesses should have to give cross-undertakings to forfeit their profits if the law is shown to be not what they thought it to be. He asked what the Government proposed to do about that or whether there is anything that they can do.
My noble friend was also kind enough to say that he will be quite happy if I do not give him an answer now. Perhaps I may take up his offer of making him happy because I would prefer not to give him an off-the-cuff reply which might, even for me, turn out to be wrong or at least incomplete. I shall certainly seek advice on the matter and I shall write to him as he requested. I shall put a copy of that letter in the Library as he also requested.
My noble friend Lord Brentford is chairman of the Keep Sunday Special Campaign, as we all know. His Bill has been prompted by that organisation's concern over the present position of the law on Sunday trading. I understand that concern. As my noble friend made clear, the Bill provides for a considerable increase in the maximum fine which a magistrates' court may impose for a breach of Part IV of the Shops Act 1950. Under his Bill the maximum fine which could be imposed on summary conviction for an offence under Section 59 of the 1950 Act of breaching the provisions of Part IV would be raised to £50,000. The maximum penalty for this offence is a fine at level 4 on the standard scale. At present this is £1,000 but it will be increased to £2,500 when measures in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 come into force in October this year.
In his enthusiasm for the Bill the noble Lord, Lord Richard, seemed to have forgotten some of his legal knowledge, of which he has copious quantities. I must advise your Lordships that the fine proposed in my noble friend's Bill exceeds the normal statutory maximum of £2,000 which at present can be imposed by a magistrates' court. The Government do not consider that the offence in Section 59 of the 1950 Act fulfils its first criteria for an exceptional summary fine. The criteria are that the offences must be likely to cause serious harm to public health, serious harm to the environment or serious public nuisance.

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Other than in exceptional circumstances where a defendant may be made liable to a particularly high fine, especially one of the magnitude which is provided for in the Bill, it is the Government's view that it is only fair the defendant should have the option, for which no provision is made in my noble friend's Bill, of having his case heard at the Crown Court before a jury.
I must also advise your Lordships that the Government do not consider that now is the right time to seek to increase the maximum penalties which are available to the courts for breaches of the Sunday trading laws in England and Wales, when there remains at least the possibility that the relevant provisions in the Shops Act 1950 may in fact prove to be incompatible with European Community law.
Much of the argument about the present position is that the law with its present penalties is not being enforced. If that is so, my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth is right in saying that the Bill will do nothing to aid the enforcement of the law; all it does is to raise the penalties for action which, so the argument goes, is not being prosecuted at present.
The appropriate vehicle for considering the introduction of any increased penalties for breaches of the Sunday trading laws in England and Wales would be a Bill which sought to reform those laws as a whole; and we have made it quite clear that we intend to bring forward proposals for reform once the position in Community law is clear.
My noble friend Lord Ashbourne asked whether the Government will increase the fines or include the offence of illegal Sunday trading within the list of offences for which a confiscation order may be made. The answer is that we would not. It would not be sensible to increase the sanctions which are available to the courts for offences of breaching the Sunday trading issue either by increasing the present maximum fine or by enabling the magistrates to make an order confiscating the financial benefit made by the trader concerned when it is possible that those laws might be found, in the light of the judgment of the European Court of Justice, to have been superseded by European law.
My noble friend Lord Brentford in drawing attention to Mr. Branson's company, Virgin, in Paris, became so excited by what had happened that he was catapulted into verse in which he acknowledged that he was not an expert—and from which some of your Lordships may have come to a not dissimilar conclusion—especially when it comes to rhyme. As I always do on difficult matters I took advice on this verse. Not from the usual sources from where Ministers take advice, but from my noble friend behind me—none other than the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who is himself no mean dab hand at a bit of poetry. I can only reply to my noble friend Lord Brentford in his own metre. In those terms I would say that:
"The noble Lord Brentford, said 'I'm
Not overly given to rhyme.
Four lines out of five
Is the maximum I've
Been able to rhyme in the time."
Lord Elton: Will the Minister kindly give way?
I'm most grateful it means I can say,
He was not meant to quote
That short rhyme which I wrote;
Will he now give it back to me, pray?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am indebted to my noble friend for both pieces of magnetic poetry.
Your Lordship may have discerned from what I have said that I have produced some fairly cogent arguments why the Government are not enthusiastic about my noble friend's Bill. However, in good and parliamentary tradition, I shall retain a position of dignified neutrality. That in no way detracts from the importance of today's debate, which has given your Lordships another valuable opportunity to discuss the law on Sunday trading and also to express your Lordships' own diverse, and peculiarly adamantine, opinions on this very difficult issue.
4.40 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Ferrers for his eloquence. Much of what he said seemed to be in support of the Bill although he ended up moving in the opposite direction. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to what has been a fascinating and illuminating debate. It seems to me that many of the remarks have been more general on the question of Sunday trading rather than on the question of the Bill. I am sure that I was the first offender to fall into that trap.
I wish to make one or two comments although I do not propose to comment on many Sunday trading issues. I fully accept that many of the traders now opening do so unwillingly and purely to retain their market share. Tesco falls into that category. I certainly do not wish to impugn any other unworthy motives. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, for what she said. It is, however, right to point out that the Big Five to which I referred—I did not refer to all the other chains that are opening—have a 62 per cent. share of the market. There is a great need to protect the smaller shops which are suffering from the law breaking of the larger shops. That is also militating against employment opportunities. My noble friend Lord Montgomery made that point with the law breakers in mind but it is also true from the point of view of the smaller shops that are being pushed out of business by this law breaking. The Bill is meant to help in that regard.
I do not see how one can keep the criminal law out of enforcing national law. All other branches of law breaking are covered by the criminal law and I do not see why this area should not be as well. I should like to comfort the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, by saying that I do not support the death penalty in normal circumstances. Being of a rather more generous nature than my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, I am even prepared to extend that exemption from the death penalty to those noble Lords who called my Bill miserable.
Perhaps I may make a point on opinion polls. If people are asked in an opinion poll whether they want shops open on Sunday, the majority will answer yes.

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If they are asked whether they want all shops to be open on Sunday if it means increased costs, the majority will answer no.
As has been said several times, what is proposed is a maximum fine. I am confident that the magistrates are well able to differentiate between when £1,000 is appropriate and when £50,000 is appropriate.
I fully endorse what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, said about the need to support a sensible reform of the law. The law is being flouted at present and, as has been said, that gives a very bad example to the young and the not so young of the country. The law under the Shops Act should be a deterrent.
In conclusion, perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Ferrers that I should be very happy to include an amendment to give an option to a defendant of appealing to the Crown Court if he so wished. I have no problem with my noble friend's suggestion. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
4.45 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Bill shall now be read a second time?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 26; Not-Contents, 20.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Portsmouth, Bp.

Ashbourne, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Reading, M.

Brentford, V. [Teller.]

Richard, L.

Caldecote, V.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Elton, L. [Teller.]

Rochester, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Runcie, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

St. Albans, Bp.

Lauderdale, E.

Seear, B.

Liverpool, Bp.

Thurso, V.

Milverton, L.

Underhill, L.

Mishcon, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Norwich, Bp.

Winchester, Bp.

NOT-CONTENTS

Auckland, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L. [Teller.]

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Merrivale, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Monson, L.

Colwyn, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Craigavon, V.

[Teller.]

Denham, L.

Morris, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Killearn, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Vivian, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Resolved in the affirmative; Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at six minutes before five o'clock.