Sitting of 24 June 1992

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

    Police
    Mr. Gallie: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next expects to meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss police manning levels in Scotland.
    Mr. McMaster: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any plans to allocate additional funds to improve the level of community policing in Scotland.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang): I have no plans to meet COSLA to discuss levels of police manpower, which are primarily the responsibility of individual police authorities. The allocation of resources to particular policing priorities is for the chief constable. I pay specific grant on all net expenditure by police authorities. Uniformed police strength has risen by 9 per cent. since 1979.
    Mr. Gallie: Is my right hon. Friend aware that my police authority, Strathclyde regional council, consistently undermans the force by, on average, 200 policemen? In view of the Conservative party's manifesto pledge, when will my right hon. Friend make minimum police levels mandatory?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that the Strathclyde police are substantially below establishment. The authority could recruit 258 new officers and still be within establishment. My hon. Friend is right also to draw attention to the Government's commitment at the last election to take the earliest possible legislative opportunity to enforce statutory requirements to bring establishments up to full complement.
    Mr. McMaster: It is clear from the Secretary of State's answer that he offers only apathy where we desperately need action. Is he aware that in Paisley, in the past five months alone, there have been six murders, 50 serious assaults, 27 incidents involving guns and 33 hold-ups involving knives? Why is it that, every time I write to the Scottish Office on that subject, the right hon. Gentleman dodges his responsibility for police funding and passes the buck to everyone else? When will he stop blaming other people and dodging the question and take action to get police back on the streets?
    Mr. Lang: Not only do we now pay a higher proportion of specific grant than the last Labour Government, but we have increased spending in real terms on the police by 52 per cent. I urge the hon. Gentleman as a Member of Parliament from the Strathclyde region to urge that local authority to increase its police force to full establishment.
    Mr. Wilson: Does the Secretary of State agree that it might not come amiss from those who were most energetic and slavish in advocating the poll tax to show a little humility in considering its consequences for local authorities? Will he give practical support to Strathclyde's efforts to civilianise many jobs, which would release police officers for the work that they should do? Will the right hon. Gentleman welcome the high-profile approach adopted by Strathclyde police during a recent weekend in Glasgow city centre? Does he recognise the widespread fear and concern that exist over the trebling of knife-carrying? Will he explain why I have had no response to my approaches to the previous Lord Advocate or the present one about the urgent need for legislative action to deal with this critical problem? When will we get action instead of fancy words?
    Mr. Lang: I did not notice the hon. Gentleman supporting our proposal during the general election campaign to bring in legislation on knives. He need be in no doubt that we are determined to fight the increase in crime, especially crimes of violence and those involving offensive weapons. We shall strengthen the powers of the police as necessary.

    Council House Sales
    Mr. Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many council houses have been sold to sitting tenants in Scotland since May 1979.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): Since 1979, some quarter of a million houses have been sold by public authorities in Scotland. Almost all were sold to sitting tenants, of which almost 178,000 were sold by local authorities.
    Mr. Knox: What proportion of council house stock in Scotland has been sold? If the figure is still significantly different from that in England, what steps is my hon. Friend taking to increase sales in Scotland?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: About 24 per cent. of the total stock in Scotland has been sold. Some years ago England was 5 per cent. ahead, but now it is barely 1 per cent. ahead. We are speedily closing the gap and intend to introduce further legislation to speed up rent-to-mortgage sales and right-to-buy sales and to bring in further rights for Scottish council tenants.
    Dr. Godman: Is the Minister aware that many council house tenants in Inverclyde are deterred from buying their homes because of the appalling physical condition of the houses in which they live? Dampness is a major problem for many of my constituents and Inverclyde district council desperately needs help from the Scottish Office. When will the Minister provide the council with help so that the living conditions of my constituents can be improved to a level at which they might consider buying their houses?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Allocations are made entirely on the basis of need. We shall introduce an effective right to repair for smaller repairs for council tenants and generally extend their present rights. I have visited the hon. Gentleman's constituency and I shall bear in mind his arguments before we next make allocations.
    Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Does my hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]—comprehend the hypocrisy of the Labour party—
    Hon. Members: Reading.
    Madam Speaker: Order. All this takes time. Scottish Members will be complaining at the end of Question Time that they have not had long enough. Sir Nicholas Fairbairn.
    Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Does my hon. Friend understand the hypocrisy of the Labour party, which constantly and ceaselessly complains about homelessness but which paid the most expensive architect to erect the tower blocks at Royston Hill? After discovering that nobody wanted to live in them, it blew them up, at even more cost to the public purse, leaving the public to live in one cardboard box and the taxpayer to put his cheque in the other.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: My hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. We have learnt a great deal and the type of tower block of which he speaks would not be built now. I strongly recommend that Glasgow district council bring in the private sector more, to assist it in dealing with empty housing, enabling public sector resources to go much further.

    Bypasses
    Mr. Foulkes: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent representations he has received regarding bypass construction on Scottish roads.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I have received representations from the hon. Member on bypass schemes in his constituency and was pleased that he was able to attend the opening of the A76 Cumnock and Auchinleck bypass last year. The Government have a steady programme of bypass construction and in addition have set out a number of ways in which safety and environmental improvements could be achieved in towns and villages, including traffic-calming schemes.
    Mr. Foulkes: Yes, but does the Minister remember the letter that he sent to me on 15 May 1989, in which were set out scheme-ready dates for the Mauchline, New Cumnock, Maybole and Girvan bypasses of 1990, 1992, and 1993? Now the hon. Gentleman tells me that work will not start for at least five years on any of them. Will he think again about the priorities? He is syphoning money from those bypasses. I urge the hon. Gentleman to think again before communities are destroyed by the heavy lorries which come through the areas in which they live and to get the bypasses constructed. Otherwise I shall never be able to trust his word again.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that our strategy is to provide the bypasses that are most needed. The commitment to which he referred had to be reviewed in the light of available
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    recources and the most pressing priorities in Scotland: the upgrading of the A74 to motorway status, the completion of the central Scotland motorway network, great improvements and full bypasses on the A96—which are going ahead—and great improvements to the A75, not to mention far-reaching proposals for the A1. We are spending 10 per cent. more on roads this year; the expenditure on roads and bridges will be about £222 million. We believe in short-term measures as well to assist the hon. Gentleman and his constituents, including traffic-calming measures and village gateways to stop excessive congestion and speeding through villages in the constituency.

    Steel Sites
    Dr. Bray: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has for the reclamation and redevelopment of steel sites in Scotland.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): Discussions continue between British Steel, Scottish Enterprise, Lanarkshire development agency and Motherwell district council on the steel sites in Scotland which remain in British Steel ownership, concerning the contribution that British Steel will make to the reclamation and redevelopment of these sites.
    Dr. Bray: Is the Minister aware that Ravenscraig cast its last slab of steel this morning and that steel making has now ceased in Scotland? Does he accept that, to the end, Ravenscraig workers and the community that sustained them demonstrated the skills and responsibilities needed in a modern industry? Will he therefore accelerate the reclamation and redevelopment of the steel sites in Scotland so that Motherwell, and the people who have produced steel for generations, are able to continue to make a formidable contribution to the wealth of the nation in the future, as they have done in the past?
    Mr. Stewart: I associate myself wholly with the sentiments expressed to the House by the hon. Gentleman regarding the steel workers of Ravenscraig and the communities that support them. As for his question about future work being done on the steel sites, I am encouraged by the agreement between British Steel and Scottish Enterprise on 15 April jointly to examine the best future use of the sites. The hon. Gentleman will, I think, know that the independent environmental audit that was recently commissioned by British Steel to examine the Ravenscraig site should help to identify the environmental issues better and to form an informed judgment on the way forward. I look forward to discussing later today the more detailed matters with the hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) and Motherwell district council.
    Mr. Devlin: On behalf of the steel-making constituencies of Teesside, may I point out to my hon. Friend that when a steel plant closes and a massive slimming exercise takes place, as has happened in our part of the world, where 56,000 people lost their jobs during the early 1980s, it does not necessarily mean that that is the end of the road for the communities concerned? The work of British Steel Industries and other support agencies that came into the area— [Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman not to make a speech to the House but to ask his question.
    Mr. Devlin: Cannot other agencies that come in on the back of a steel closure of this magnitude lay the foundations for a very successful thriving economy for an area such as Motherwell in times to come?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. It is now necessary for everyone to look forward to the future in Lanarkshire. I believe that that is what people are doing. We have poured in massive sums of public money. We have the enterprise zone. We have put in place a range of measures. Today, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is approving £9.7 million expenditure by the Lanarkshire development agency for the development of phase I of the freight village at Mossend. About 1,600 jobs will result from phase I and the terminal there. The enterprise zone will result in 17,000 jobs, gross. We must, therefore, look to the future. That is what the Government are doing. That is what I believe the overwhelming majority of the people of Lanarkshire want to happen.
    Dr. Reid: On the day when the last slab was cast in Motherwell after 112 years of steel making, may I pay my tribute to the steel workers and their families and say to the Minister that if his Government had shown half the dedication and commitment to the steel workers of Lanarkshire that the steel workers have shown to the industry, they would not be out of work today. Since the Minister and the Government have done damn all to save steel making in Motherwell over the past few years, will he at least give a pledge today that the Government will hold British Steel to its responsibility to provide finance for the reclamation of those steel sites? I want a concrete pledge today, because British Steel has produced nothing but pain in the past and has given us a present that is berefit of hope. It must not be allowed to destroy the future of Lanarkshire in the way that it has destroyed over the past 10 years.
    Mr. Stewart: I reject the hon. Gentleman's allegation about the Government. I note that he did not mention the fact that when the Government came to office, British Steel was losing £1.86 billion a year, or about £5 million a day. That could not possibly continue. We must now look to the future. I pay tribute to the efforts of the steel workers. The Government are backing their commitment with real resources. I hope that members of the Labour party, who, I presume, want an improvement in the economy of Lanarkshire and more jobs in Lanarkshire, do not fall into the trap of talking down the area's prosperity.
    Mr. Dewar: In the circumstances, I am a little surprised that the Secretary of State did not answer the question himself. I must say to the Minister that it seems to me that sympathy and tributes are not difficult to give, but we want a commitment that there will be a matching effort by the Government not only in the initial stages of the crisis facing the Lanarkshire economy but sustained over a considerable period so that a future can be built. Does the Minister accept that it is essential that British Steel take full responsibility for dealing with the legacy of dereliction and contamination that it is leaving behind? If British Steel does not accept that full responsibility, will the Minister take legal powers that will allow him to insist that in this case the polluter really pays?
    Mr. Stewart: We have not just paid tributes to the steel workers of Lanarkshire. The hon. Gentleman criticises the Government, but he never answers the question; what would the Labour party have done if it had been in power? It would have done nothing that the Government have not done. Our commitment has been matched by funds, for the medium and long term certainly. I am discussing the details of reclamation and clearance with hon. Members, and the hon. Gentleman will know the legal framework within which the Government will have to operate.

    NHS Trusts
    Dr. Strang: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to alter the regulations governing hospital trusts; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: The activities of NHS trusts in Scotland are monitored by the management executive of the national health service and, through contracts, by health boards purchasing the trust services. Should the interests of patient care require alteration of the regulations, the Government will do that. For the moment, we have no such plans.
    Dr. Strang: Is there not a real danger that individual hospital trusts will undermine strategic planning by health boards? Could not a situation arise in Lothian whereby the health board will provide orthopaedic facilities in the new major hospital to be built just outside Edinburgh, but when that hospital comes into service the Princess Margaret Rose, which has become a trust, will continue to provide the same service, especially as many of its customers might well be GP fund holders and customers from outwith the health board's area?
    Mr. Stewart: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State have made it clear again and again that the services provided by the trusts will be determined by the contract entered into by the health boards. On the exceedingly rare occasions when a trust and a health board could disagree on the nature of services to be provided—the thought which is at the back of the hon. Gentleman's question—I confirm that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has the power of direction.
    Mr. Dickens: Why does my hon. Friend think that the Scottish nation should be denied the excellence of national health service trust hospitals? After all, in England are they not a great success, treating many more patients than ever before—in fact, 6 per cent. more? That is patient care, and it is coming to Scotland. That is the beauty of the Union of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Stewart: I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that the undoubted benefits of hospital trusts, to which he rightly refers, are of course coming to Scotland. There have been 18 expressions of interest, and my hon. Friend will be interested to know that among those expressing interest are the West Lothian unit in Livingston and Monklands district general hospital.
    Mr. Watson: The Minister will know that one of those 18 expressions of interest came from the Victoria infirmary in my constituency, which also serves part of his constituency. Will he give a commitment that, before considering whether to allow the opt-out, he will consult

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    the people who use the hospital, and the community as a whole? Will he take on board their views or will he, as I suspect, deny them a say, just as he is denying the people of Scotland a say in their constitutional future through a referendum? He is doing that because he knows what the outcome would be—it would show that he was totally out of step with the people of Scotland and has no right or legitimacy to speak on their behalf.
    Mr. Stewart: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that I do not accept the views of Scotland United on such matters. In answer to his other question, we have made it clear several times that we do not see ballots, either within the hospital concerned or in the broader locality, as a basis for determining trust status. The public consultation phase lasts three months and provides ample opportunity for the views of staff and public to be known. The hon. Gentleman referred specifically to the Victoria infirmary and may be interested to know that I saw four consultants last Saturday morning—[Interruption.] I must inform hon. Members that I hold constituency surgeries on Saturday mornings. I saw the four consultants because they are constituents of mine and had points to put to me.

    Governance
    Mr. Welsh: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list those organisations which he had met as part of the Prime Minster's taking stock exercise in relation to the government of Scotland; and when he expects to come forward with proposals.
    Mr. Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what further stock he has taken on the future governance of Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lang: We are continuing our consideration of arrangements for the governance of Scotland and will report back to the House in due course.
    Mr. Welsh: Is not it true that the Government have no new ideas or proposals and are not willing to put the constitutional issue to the voters of Scotland? If private industry took as long over stocktaking as the Prime Minister does, it would end up bankrupt. Is not "taking stock" a cynical exercise in doing nothing at all?
    Mr. Lang: No, it is not. After 13 years in office, the Government are bubbling over with new ideas in all areas of policy, as the hon. Gentleman will see if he reads our general election manifesto. The Government are indeed taking stock and we shall present our proposals, which I am sure will interest the hon. Gentleman, when they are ready.
    Mr. Galloway: Having padlocked our steel industry today and having already murdered our coal and shipbuilding industries and decimated our engineering industry, the Government do not even have the guts to face the people of Scotland in a democratic test at the ballot box—a referendum. Why are the people of Denmark and France to be given a democratic referendum to decide their constitutional future in Europe, yet we in Scotland are denied the chance of a referendum on our democratic future? Why do we not have a referendum on Maastricht and Britain's future in Europe—and on Scotland's future in Britain? Why do the Government not have the guts to face the music in a democratic test?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman speaks with all the authority of a rave promoter at a time when raves are going out of fashion. If attendances at his raves continue to fall at the present rate, he will soon be able to hold them in his back garden. The Government had the guts to face the electorate in a general election. That was our multi-option referendum—and the electorate of the United Kingdom turned their backs on separation and devolution—[Interruption]
    Madam Speaker: Order. Has the Secretary of State finished his answer? I could not hear.
    Mr. Lang: Yes.
    Mr. Biffen: Will my right hon. Friend use this opportunity to assess what subsidiarity offers him in regard to the scope and discharge of his duties? In view of the widespread interest in this topic, will he ensure that he reports back to the House before we return from the summer recess? Above all, will he confirm that he will assess subsidiarity in relation to Scotland on the basis that Scotland is an historic nation state, not a cap-in-hand Euro-region?
    Mr. Lang: My right hon. Friend need have no doubt about the Conservatives' recognition of Scotland's importance, both in historic national terms and in terms of its part and place within the United Kingdom. All our consideration of proposals will take place against a background of determination to uphold both Scotland's place within the United Kingdom, and the integrity of the Union.
    Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: Is it not strange that the Opposition parties daily betray their obsession with the idea of the Government taking stock, while at the same time arrogantly dismissing the greatest stock-taking exercise of all—that undertaken by the people of Scotland in the general election? Will my right hon. Friend remind the Opposition that, when the Scottish people took stock, it was the Conservatives who increased their vote and their representation?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A substantial majority of the Scottish electorate voted for parties that support the Union. The difference between the Opposition and the Government is that we regard the constitution of the United Kingdom as something to be cherished and guarded, while they regard it as a political plaything to be used to their advantage.
    Mr. Canavan: Will the Secretary of State remind his hon. Friends that, in the recent general election, three quarters of Scottish voters rejected the Tory Government and supported parties that were committed to the establishment of a Scottish Parliament? Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway). Why is he so reluctant to accept that the most democratic way of taking stock would be to let the people decide in a multi-option referendum? Is he afraid that the outcome of such a referendum would show overwhelming rejection of the status quo, and overwhelming support for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman forgets that before polling day his party was opposed to a referendum on constitutional matters. Labour Members planned to force

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    through the establishment of a Scottish Parliament without such a referendum; only since the election have they changed their tune. They planned to take power with a minority of votes, and to use that as a basis on which to force their policies through, without engaging in the consultation that they now regard as essential.
    Mr. Rowe: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, during the general election campaign in my part of the country —where there is not a single Labour Member—the number of people in my constituency, including a large number of Scots who had taken advantage of the historic Union to come south and make their fortunes—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. I have stopped other hon. Members who have not put their question. I am now waiting to hear the question that the hon. Gentleman is about to ask the Secretary of State.
    Mr. Rowe: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there was widespread support for the Union of the United Kingdom, and will he comment?
    Mr. Lang: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am sure that that support was reflected in the general election result. The Labour party proposed devolution throughout the United Kingdom, but it was in Scotland, where the proposal was most detailed, that the swing against them was most substantial.
    Mr. Dewar: If there is a continuing dispute about the opinions of the Scottish public—which there clearly is—why does not the Secretary of State consider a referendum as a way of deciding the issue, given that he is so confident that he is right?
    The Secretary of State will recall the pledge made by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the Minister of State, Scottish Office. Lord Fraser said that the Government were committed to constitutional change that was "substantial and not cosmetic". Does he still stand by that? If the Secretary of State is indeed bubbling over with new ideas, will he tell us when just one of them—however modest —will be allowed to creep into the public domain?
    Mr. Lang: I know that the hon. Gentleman used that quotation in good faith, but I have to tell him that it is a misquotation. I shall be happy to explain to him afterwards, at greater length and in detail, why and how that is so. I can assure the hon. Gentleman, however, that the Government are taking stock of the matter and will bring forward proposals and lay them before the House when they have considered them fully.

    Local Authorities
    Mr. Oppenheim: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has any plans for unitary local authorities in Scotland.
    Mr. Lang: The Government propose, subject to further extensive consultation, to move towards the introduction of single-tier councils throughout Scotland. I intend to issue a second consultation paper in the autumn setting out a range of illustrative options for the new structure.
    Mr. Oppenheim: Would not unitary authorities have a number of important advantages, including cutting out costly and sometimes confusing overlaps in responsibilities
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    and increasing accountability? Would not such enhanced unitary authorities have the added bonus of providing an appropriate platform for many Opposition Members to display their undoubted talents and abilities?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the greater strength and coherence that can derive from single-tier authorities. I regard the possible development of single-tier authorities in Scotland as a way of strengthening local government and making it more coherent, more readily identifiable with local areas and more accountable to local electorates.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: Does the Secretary of State accept that many Opposition Members know a little more about Scottish local government than the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim)? Does the right hon. Gentleman also accept, given the short period that has elapsed since the Wheatley report and the reorganisation of Scottish local government in 1975, that the local authorities have acted well and in the interests of Scotland, despite the enormous constraints and demands placed on them by the Government, who are perceived in Scotland as an anti-local government Government? That being so, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why in England it is possible to have a commission to review local government whereas in Scotland it is not?
    Mr. Lang: I certainly pay tribute to the dedication and professionalism of many involved in local government and to the efficiency with which many local authorities, both regional and district, deliver local services. Nevertheless, events have moved on substantially and quickly over the two decades since the Wheatley commission reported. As regards a changing role for local authorities, we see considerable advantage in moving towards single-tier authorities. However, we shall be introducing another consultation paper in the autumn which will enable further extensive consultation to take place.
    Mr. Worthington: Will the Secretary of State confirm that local people want democratically elected and locally accountable councils to run their services? Can he further confirm that he intends that all services that are currently run by local government will continue to be run by local government and, in particular, that education will be run by local government in the future? Will he confirm that that is so?
    Mr. Lang: I certainly support the hon. Gentleman's belief in strengthening local democracy. Part of our purpose in bringing forward the reforms is to strengthen local democracy, not to undermine it. The hon. Gentleman asked about the handling of individual services, and that is a matter on which we shall wish to consult widely. It would be quite wrong for me to give a commitment of any kind on any particular service at this stage. I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman's reaction to our consultation paper when it appears.

    Sunday Trading
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent representations he has received about the Scottish law on Sunday trading.
    Mr. Lang: Since the beginning of this year, I have received two representations advocating the imposition of restrictions on Sunday trading in Scotland.
    Mr. Marshall: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, which shows that the majority of Scottish people are satisfied with total deregulation. Does he agree, therefore, that it would be immoral, illogical and hypocritical for Scottish Members to vote to impose upon the people of England and Wales restrictions that do not apply in Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend puts his point effectively. I would simply say that it would be impertinent for me, as a Scottish Minister, to advance my view on what my English colleagues should do with regard to shop hours in England.
    Mr. Macdonald: Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that there are problems with the law on Sunday trading in Scotland, particularly in respect of the lack of protection for employees who do not want to work on Sundays? Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore undertake to look again at the legislation to see whether better protection might be provided for employees who, because of their religious convictions, do not want to work on Sundays?
    Mr. Lang: That is a matter for negotiation within the various industries and with the various unions involved. I am not aware of any great dissatisfaction. As I said, I have received only two representations about the matter this year. I believe that the arrangements in Scotland work pretty well and are infinitely adaptable to suit the needs of all concerned.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the consequences of the one-net rule for the village-based fishing industry.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Sir Hector Monro): The one-net rule forms part of a package of measures to improve conservation of fish stocks. The package is important for the future well-being of the industry. Certain groups of fishermen are concerned about the implications of the rule and I am keeping the matter under review.
    Mr. Campbell: Does the Minister accept that that answer will bring no comfort to the fishing industry in Scotland and in particular, to that part of the industry located in my constituency? The Minister must understand that the imposition of the one-net rule, without changes to the by-catch regulations, is likely to cause a large number of fishermen to move from prawn fishing to white fishing. The one-net rule will have the reverse effect: it will bring increasing pressure to bear on fish stocks. Why are the Government so supine in their efforts to protect the village-based fishing industry in Scotland?
    Sir Hector Monro: I am sorry that the hon. and learned Gentleman does not seem to understand conservation. It is absolutely crucial that there are greater restrictions than at present if there is to be a fishing future for Scotland —and I am very keen that that should be so. I have said
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    that I am considering the situation. The rule has been in force for only three weeks. If there is evidence and good reason, I will give it further consideration.
    Mrs. Ewing: Does not the Minister realise that the measure, as currently proposed and implemented, is not working to the benefit of conservation? I endorse all the points made by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell). Why do Ministers responsible for fisheries in Scotland consistently bring back regulations which are not EC-wide, but which apply solely to Scotland to the disadvantage of our fishing communities, which are extremely important for our rural economies and for ensuring the viability of many other communities?
    Sir Hector Monro: Of course I share the hon. Lady's view that fishing is vital to rural areas in Scotland. However, she must also understand that if there are no fish, there will be no industry. That is why we have to be so strict on conservation. The hon. Lady must also understand that under the by-catch rule, there may be a 60 per cent. catch of white fish. If that is insufficient, the fishermen can go home to harbour and change to a larger mesh and start again.

    Juvenile Crime
    Mr. Norman Hogg: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next expects to meet the chief constables to discuss juvenile crime.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State meets chief constables from time to time to discuss a wide range of policing issues. Also, my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State has today invited chief constables to meet him to consider the substantial and alarming increase in the illegal use of shotguns and other firearms.
    Mr. Hogg: Does the Minister accept that there is some correlation between juvenile crime and under-age drinking? Will he introduce proposals to strengthen the licensing laws so that they are better able to control abuse? Will he also try to speed up the report on drinking in public places with a view to extending it to the whole of Scotland?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: We have reformed the law on licensing. We stiffened up the law in respect of late-night licences where there was evidence of disorder. The byelaws and experimental schemes that are in operation will be reviewed in due course and we will then consider, when it is appropriate, whether they should be extended throughout Scotland. However, that is still some months away.
    Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Does my hon. Friend comprehend that frequently what is forbidden is preferred and the fact that in Scotland on Sunday one can shop and do what one likes, which has always been the norm in Scotland—
    Madam Speaker: Order. Clearly, the hon. and learned Gentleman is referring to the wrong question. Therefore, I call Mr. Michael J. Martin.
    Mr. Michael J. Martin: Hardly a night goes by in my constituency when children as young as 10 or 11 do not steal cars. That resulted in a fatality in the Possilpark.

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    Doctors who happened to walk into a gang of fighting youths were brutally beaten up. That is happening not only in my constituency but throughout the west of Scotland. Is not it time that the Minister met the chief constables of Scotland to discuss that serious problem?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Yes. As I have mentioned, the Minister of State is writing today to the chief constables inviting them to a meeting with him, particularly to discuss the alarming increase in the use of firearms. I strongly support community policing. On urban aid, we give the best part of £1 million to a variety of projects dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, safe neighbourhood projects, security assistance for small businesses and household security measures. Much is being done. We have increased capital allocations to the police by £6 million this year.

    Poll Tax
    Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities regarding the recovery of poll tax arrears; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: The subject of community charge collection has been discussed at a number of my right hon. Friend's meetings with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about local government finance matters in the past year or two.
    Mr. Wallace: I am sure that the Minister shares with me the concern of many people who have bigger poll tax bills because of those who have not paid. Will he accept that one of the biggest non-payers are the Government, who could have been paying a substantial contribution from central Government funds to meet the rebates of many who could not pay? How much would have been due from central Government? Will the Minister now make that sum available to local authorities, or is the Government's policy "can pay, won't pay"?
    Mr. Stewart: Of course we shall not do that. The non-payment problem certainly does not apply to the hon. Gentleman's constituency. For Orkney in 1989–90, the percentage of what was actually paid as against the payment assumption was 111.8 per cent. —12 per cent. more than estimated. In 1990–91, the figure was 100 per cent., and at the end of March it was 85.7 per cent. The problem has been variable. Frankly, it has arisen where authorities have been reluctant to use all available powers at the outset. That has created a non-payment culture, and that is what has created the problem.
    Dr. Liam Fox: Will my hon. Friend give a firm commitment to recover as much arrears as is humanly possible? If he does not, the burden will fall upon decent law-abiding poll tax payers not only in Scotland but in the whole United Kingdom.
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is right. Within Strathclyde there is tremendous resentment at the fact that people have to pay for those who have not yet paid the community charge. Local authorities have a statutory duty to collect outstanding charges. I make it clear to my hon. Friend and to the House that there is absolutely no question of an amnesty for non-payers. That would be wholly unfair to the majority of law-abiding taxpayers.
    Mr. Maxton: Is it not the case, however, that the majority of those who have not paid are among the very poorest, who were forced to pay the absurd minimum 20 per cent. payment? Even now, the Minister could resolve at least some problems by abolishing the 20 per cent. minimum payment, backdated to 1 April. He should also restore to local authorities the right to look at each individual case on its merits before deciding whether to take action against a person. If he did that, many problems would be resolved.
    Mr. Stewart: People on income support have had their benefit uprated each year to take account of the liability for the maximum 20 per cent. that they pay. It has been made clear again and again that there will be no removal of the 20 per cent. rule for the community charge for 1992–93, because it is a personal tax. There has been much publicity about some of the measures being taken by Strathclyde and Lothian in respect of precisely the people about whom the hon. Gentleman is talking, and that is those who have not paid but can pay. It is absolutely right that those authorities concentrate on doing that. My criticism is that they did not use the powers available to them sufficiently quickly and, therefore, a climate of non-payment was allowed to build up in some areas.

    A1
    Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans are being prepared for dualling sections of the A1 which are not already listed in the roads programme.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Preparation work is under way to dual the A1 between Tranent and Haddington and Haddington and Dunbar, between the Dunbar cement works junction and Innerwick, between the southern terminal of the Cockburnspath bypass and Penmanshiel and at Lemington. In England, two schemes to complete the Alnwick bypass are being taken forward. Further schemes to complete the dualling between Newcastle and north of Alnwick are being identified with a view to their inclusion in the roads programme.
    Mr. Beith: Does the Minister recognise that if the announcement that he made on 2 March is to have substance, the process will have to be maintained? New projects will have to be brought into the roads programme in both Scotland and England each year if there is to be a complete dual carriageway from Newcastle to Edinburgh. Dualling would make the road much safer and worthy of its strategic requirements.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and I look forward to meeting him and the other interested Members of Parliament on 7 July when we shall have a progress report.
    Mr. Home Robertson: I look forward to that meeting. I welcome the Minister's announcement of progress on dualling sections of the road in East Lothian. When will he give us an idea of the timetable for those works and, indeed, for completing the whole of the dualling of the Al from Musselburgh to Morpeth, in accordance with the undertaking given by the Government—undoubtedly by pure coincidence—just before the general election?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The Government's aim to dual the A1 has been clearly stated. Firm and ambitious plans for the next stage of work have been announced in some detail. Progress outwith the public expenditure planning period must, for the A1 as elsewhere in Scotland, including Ayrshire, depend on the resources available and the relative claims of schemes elsewhere. Obviously, we take into account the importance of the A1 project. The commitments given by the Government are more significant than those given by the Labour party.
    Mr. Trimble: Is there any provision in the roads programme for the further improvement of the A75, in particular to bypass the village of —
    Madam Speaker: Order. I was being most generous to the hon. Gentleman because I believed that his question had a connection. It is most unfair to take advantage of my generosity.

    Housing Policy
    Mr. McAllion: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next expects to meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss housing policy in Scotland.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I expect to meet representatives of the housing committee of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on 24 September, when a range of housing issues will be discussed.
    Mr. McAllion: Will the Government review their policy on housing, under which the best of council housing has been sold off and not replaced and much of the rest reduced to little better than welfare housing? Does the Minister understand that if the Government can claim to have achieved anything during the past three Parliaments, it is the creation of housing apartheid in Scotland? Large tracts of our cities are cut off and crucified by high levels of unemployment, poverty and crime. Such areas have a parallel only in the impoverished third world. Why, in a country as rich and wealthy as Scotland, are the Government, whom we never elected, failing so miserably to meet the aspirations of ordinary Scots to have a decent house to live in?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: A few days ago I was at Whitfield in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. People were celebrating the 1,000 jobs produced by the partnership as well as the housing regeneration. If the hon. Gentleman had been present, he would know that substantial progress had been made in his constituency. We also intend to reform the law on the right to buy and introduce streamlined procedures. The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that if the houses that were sold had not been bought, the same families would have continued to rent them for a reasonable time. I also opened the Stopover project in Dundee, which is doing a good job for the homeless. It serves a useful purpose.
    Mrs. Fyfe: May I thank the Minister for finally agreeing to visit Maryhill to see the worst of the housing there. I am sure that he found it informative. Does he recognise that when housing associations attempt to provide housing for people with special needs, they face particular difficulties because of the complexity of funding, which is spread
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    between social work departments, health boards and Scottish Homes? Will he meet appropriate representatives during the summer recess to seek to overcome that problem and to give some reassurance to the housing associations that specialise in that important task?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Obviously, we want to give the maximum encouragement to housing for special needs. I should be grateful if the hon. Member could give me a note of all the difficulties that she is experiencing. I shall look into them thoroughly. Scottish Homes has a budget of £300 million and ought to be able to make suitable arrangements on those matters, but perhaps the hon. Member could get in touch with me.

    Mar Lodge
    Mr. Kynoch: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he will take to assist in the preservation of the unique natural heritage present in the Mar Lodge estate.
    Sir Hector Monro: I have asked Scottish Natural Heritage to seek a management agreement with the owner of Mar Lodge estate, which will safeguard the estate's outstanding natural heritage qualities for the future.
    Mr. Kynoch: I very much welcome my hon. Friend's announcement, but I should be interested to know whether he is aware whether the Mar Lodge estate is still on the market. If it is, what will he do to revive the purchasing consortium, which has temporarily withdrawn its interest, largely because of its inability to fund future running expenses?
    Sir Hector Monro: In 1990, the owner planned to sell, but the estate has never formally been on the market. I assure my hon. Friend, who obviously takes a great interest in that area of his constituency, that we are anxious, through Scottish Natural Heritage, to set up a management agreement and to maintain and safeguard that fine example of natural heritage. We shall be in close touch with the owner, if the consortium comes into being again and finds a positive way forward.
    Mr. Dalyell: How can the Secretary of State for the Environment make the sort of speech that I heard this morning at the natural history museum, and how can the Prime Minister speak as he did at Rio to developing countries, when we cannot do anything constructive to safeguard Mar Lodge? Does the Minister realise that the management agreements are unlikely to save the ancient forest? Since my friendly and constructive meeting with him in his room, what follow-up has there been about someone from the Government, or sponsored by the Government, talking to Mr. Kluge properly about the possibility of a Kluge memorial park?
    Sir Hector Monro: I agree that we had a useful discussion and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are determined to look after the important parts of the estate through a management agreement. He also knows that it will form part of the Cairngorm working party report later this year, under Magnus Magnusson's chairmanship. We are not sitting back idly, but are reacting positively to see what can be done in a difficult situation.

    Overseas Adoptions
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received about the adoption by British couples of orphans from Romania and other countries overseas; and if he will make a statement.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The adoption of children from Romania is now subject to an agreement concluded in March between the United Kingdom and the Romanian Committee for Adoptions. There have been no recent specific representations about the adoption of children from Romania or other countries overseas.
    Mr. Thurnham: Will my hon. Friend work closely with his colleagues in other Departments, in view of the difficulties that have arisen with the Romanian adoption committee's agreement, which has prevented more than a handful of Romania's 100,000 orphans being adopted by British couples?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Yes, I shall certainly do so. My hon. Friend obviously speaks on behalf of prospective parents and I appreciate their concern. On 20 January we consulted on a wide review of adoption law and on how inter-country adoption might be integrated with existing adoption arrangements and immigration procedures in a Scottish consultation paper. If my hon. Friend has any representations they will be welcome. The agreement between Britain and Romania has insisted on the highest standard of assessment for prospective adopters, and similar agreements have been struck between Romania and other countries. There seem to be limited prospects for change.
    Mr. McFall: Will the Minister join me to congratulate the Strathclyde appeal for Romanian children which, for the past year, has been working in Romania and has gathered more than £1 million from citizens, both young and old, in Strathclyde? It has done a marvellous job at Guru Ochnitei, where it has provided accommodation for 350 severely disabled children, due to the generosity of the citizens of Scotland. Does he agree that we should listen to the Romanians and should not allow people to go to Romania to plunder and take the brightest and the best of the Romanian children, but should instead work with the Romanians, as the Strathclyde appeal did, to bring Romania's health care policy into the 21st century?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: We very much welcome the activities in Strathclyde in that connection. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is essentially a matter for the Romanians and that the scope for change is very limited. However, it is right that so much concern has been shown by prospective adopters in this country and that such matters are now being dealt with thoroughly and professionally.

    NHS Trusts
    Mr. Chisholm: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the likely timetable for hospital opt-outs in Scotland.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: The timing of national health service trust applications is largely a matter for hospitals themselves. For those considering trust status in April 1993 applications will be required by the end of this month. Hospitals interested in becoming trusts in 1994 will be required to make formal declarations of interest by 30 September 1992 and applications by 31 March 1993. This cycle will be repeated annually.
    Mr. Chisholm: The Minister seeks to perpetuate the fiction that opt-out hospitals in Scotland arise out of demand from hospitals and local communities. As everybody knows, the policy of opt-out hospitals has been imposed on the people of Scotland, against their wishes, by the Scottish Office. A timetable for that imposition exists within the Scottish Office. Is not it true that most hospitals in Edinburgh, for example, are scheduled to opt out in 1994, including the Western general hospital, which serves my constituency?
    Mr. Stewart: On the first point, my reply was the answer to the question that the hon. Gentleman tabled on the Order Paper.
    It is up to hospital boards to express interest and put in applications. We are not imposing the policy, but we are encouraged by the level of interest that has been expressed around the country since the threat of a Labour Government was so effectively removed by the people of the United Kingdom.

Points of Order
3.32 pm
Mr. Dennis Canavan: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you know, earlier today, I gave written notice to your office that I intended to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 for the purpose of debating a specific and important matter which should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the failure of this Government to respond to the democratic wishes of the people."
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is being a little unfair. I have already considered his application and he knows my decision. The matter has been considered very seriously and he should not now raise it on the Floor of the House. I hope that the hon. Member will leave the matter there because he knows my decision and our procedures.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. Let me deal with one point of order at a time.
Mr. Canavan: I have not even raised my point of order.
I realise that you, Madam Speaker, have absolute discretion in whether such an application is accepted or rejected. However, your staff informed me that there was no way in which you would even listen to my application. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the issue, which is important to the people of Scotland, that is an attack on the rights of Back Benchers to raise legitimate points on the Floor of the House.
I ask you, Madam Speaker, please to explain which part of the Standing Order No. 20 I fell foul of. On my reading of the Standing Order, I stuck by the rules that it lays down. I kept to the 12 noon deadline and I put in written notice, yet I am deprived even of the opportunity to state my case on the Floor of the House.
Madam Speaker: Standing Order No. 20 allows me to hear applications for debates on
"a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration."
To qualify for consideration, a matter must contain some new element of urgency that distinguishes it from other important issues of long standing. I cannot allow this valued opportunity to be endangered by improper use, and I shall continue to decline to hear applications that do not meet the basic criteria. The hon. Gentleman's application falls into that category, and I can hear nothing further about it.
Mr. George Galloway: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is not what happened this afternoon symptomatic of the contempt for Scottish questions shown by Conservative Members? Three Conservative Members were called by you to ask questions: you had to rebuke the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) for speaking for too long and not coming to the point; the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim) asked about Scottish local government; and the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) asked two questions, one of which you declared to be wrong. Shortly after asking their
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questions, all three Members left the Chamber, the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross weaving his way unsteadily from the Chamber—
Madam Speaker: Order. I need no colourful or picturesque descriptions. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would come directly to his point of order.
Mr. Galloway: The hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross is unlikely to need colourful or picturesque descriptions from me. I am stating the truth as people saw it on television. He did stagger from the Chamber—
Madam Speaker: Order. Please come to the point of order for the Chair.
Mr. Galloway: Is there no basic requirement on Members who ask questions to stay in their places until the end of Scottish questions? Is it just a big game for Conservative Members? Are they swept off the Terrace to come here, do their job and then leave?
Madam Speaker: Order. I have already made my views known on this. We must extend various common courtesies to each other, not only during debates but at Question Time. I remind the House that this is a United Kingdom Parliament and when Members rise and show an interest, and when they have questions on the Order Paper, I have an obligation to call them.
Mr. John McAllion: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), Madam Speaker. You said that there was no new element of urgency and that that was the reason for your decision. However, following last month's Scottish questions, I gave notice to you that I intended to raise on the Adjournment of the House the question of a referendum, only to be told that I was not allowed to do so under the Standing Orders of the House because it involved legislation or expense. That ruling was given to me only yesterday.
Is not that a new element of urgency, because it is important that the House has an opportunity to hear the case for a referendum on a Scottish Parliament? It may not be especially urgent for hon. Members who represent English constituencies because this is an English Parliament—[HON. MEMBERS: "No".]—but Scotland does not have the Parliament that it wants—
Madam Speaker: Order. There is nothing new about the rules governing the Adjournment of the House. I must work according to our rules and procedures, and I am sure that the entire House wants me to continue to uphold those rules and procedures.
Mr. Paul Flynn: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will have heard on many occasions in the House assurances from Ministers that they were doing all that they could to safeguard the INMOS jobs in Newport. Today's Electronic Times contains a report by Michel Carpentier of DGXIII saying that the Department of Trade and Industry has never been in touch with him on that matter. He believes that it is stupid to transfer the jobs from Newport to Italy and that money is available. Have you, Madam Speaker, been asked to allow the appropriate Minister to make a statement or a confession?
Madam Speaker: I can give a very short answer to that question: no, I have not.
Mr. John Marshall: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it in order for hon. Members to spend time calling for a referendum in Scotland when, during the general election, they said that they were against a referendum?
Madam Speaker: That is not a point of order for me, and it only lengthens the time spent on points of order. I have heard bogus points of order, but that one really went over the top.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I listened with respect to your ruling on the request of the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) for a debate under Standing Order No. 20. I find it exceptionally difficult to understand the justification for saying that the proposal contains no new element when the arguments have not been heard. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman would have been able to raise relevant new elements during the debate. Are you, Madam Speaker, saying that when we apply for a Standing Order No. 20 debate we have to write our full speech in advance so that you and your staff may decide whether it contains a new element?
Madam Speaker: I think that the authorities of the House and I know when there are any new elements. I am sure that the hon. Lady is not seeking to challenge my ruling.
Mr. Peter L. Pike: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you received a request from the Government to make a change in the Government's programme to allow the introduction of legislation to protect pension funds? I ask that in view of the fact that £2 million has been taken from the Bellings group pension fund. The matter is becoming a scandal and the Government need to take action to protect pension funds in this country.
Madam Speaker: I have nothing to add: I have received no request for a statement to be made.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: Further to your ruling, Madam Speaker, in respect of the application made by the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr Canavan), will you explain what evidence you require to be submitted to you before your officials rule that a matter is unsuitable for debate? It is my understanding that, in the past, supporting evidence has normally been heard in the House, not in the Speaker's office.
Madam Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman is raising with me what I regard as a classic hypothetical case. I said that to qualify for consideration a matter had not only to contain a new element of urgency to distinguish it from other important long-standing issues, but had to be on a specific and important matter that needed urgent consideration. I do not believe that our business today or tomorrow should be changed in order to discuss the subject raised by the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan). I hope that hon. Members will not continue to challenge my ruling.
Mr. Alex Carlile: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Special Grant Report (No. 4) and the Special Grant Report (Wales) 1992 are on today's Order Paper for debate. It appears that it is your intention that we should debate the two reports together. If that is
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so, it is a break from the custom of the House, which is to have a separate debate on Welsh rate support grant orders. With great respect, may I suggest that we should keep to the usual form of proceeding so that Welsh Members may have a better opportunity to contribute to the debate and we have more chance to hear Welsh Office Ministers?
Madam Speaker: I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman's point and understand it, but it was agreed last Friday by the House that the two items should be debated together within a three-hour period.
Mr. Jimmy Wray: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The most important item on today's Order Paper is question 8 on local government reform, which will affect the life of every councillor in Scotland. I could not understand why you allowed only one Opposition Back Bencher to ask a question on the subject. I think that was absolutely disgraceful.
Madam Speaker: I have a broad back, and I am developing a thick skin.
Mr. Canavan: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I have no wish to challenge your right to accept or reject an application under Standing Order No. 20. However, for future guidance, if in future an hon. Member decides to make a written application to you for a Standing Order No. 20 emergency debate, should he or she outline in the application any new evidence that he or she thinks should be brought to your attention there and then or will there be a further opportunity to present the new evidence on the Floor of the House?
Madam Speaker: That is certainly not necessary. I want to be helpful to the House and to individual Members, and if Members think that it helps me to come to a judgment by putting new evidence before me, it will always be very welcome and I shall look at it most carefully.
Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am not in any way challenging your ruling. As you are probably aware, the Procedure Committee recommended some years ago that any application under what was then Standing Order No. 9 should be put to the Speaker in his office. That recommendation was considered by the House and, I am glad to say, it was rejected in 1979. You will also know that in 1977–78, in the last couple of years of the Labour Government, there were usually three or four applications per day under Standing Order No. 9. It is my understanding—and you will correct me if I am wrong—that until quite recently, although the Speaker may well have deprecated some of the applications, he decided to hear them.
It seems that there are two problems to overcome. Under "Erskine May" and the appropriate Standing Order you decide whether an application on the Floor of the House is to be successful. If it is, you will grant a debate. However, it now seems that even before the application is made on the Floor of the House you will consider whether it should be made at all, in the same way as your predecessor did—I doubt whether his predecessor followed the same course. In effect, that means that we have to convince you that there is a case even though if the application is made on the Floor of the House there is no guarantee that you will grant it.
Madam Speaker: I am not changing the practice. I cannot hear applications that I regard as not getting to first base. On occasions I will hear an application, but I have to determine in the first place whether it gets over the first hurdle. There is no change whatever in procedure.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Apart from the problem of irritation caused by English Tory Members flitting in and out during Scottish Question Time, may I appeal to you once again about the problem of Ministers giving over-long answers to questions? I am sure that that practice deprives two or even three Back Benchers of the opportunity to put spontaneous supplementary questions.
Madam Speaker: I have noted the hon. Gentleman's point. At the risk of being rather too curious and too observant, may I say that I have noticed that he too popped out after his question.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 10 JULY
Members successful in the ballot were:

Mr. Paul Murphy

Mr. George Howarth

Mrs. Jane Kennedy

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(3) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.],
That the draft Companies (Single Member Private Limited Companies) Regulations 1992 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
Question agreed to.

Disabled Persons (Services)
3.48 pm
Mr. Andrew Rowe: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to empower local authorities to make certain severely disabled persons accountable for expenditure on their care plans.
This is a modest measure designed to assist the Government to solve a problem that has caused them embarrassment more by an accident of history than fault of their own. The problem is that some men and women who are severely physically disabled, with relatively little control over their bodies but with their minds entirely unimpaired, want to remain in charge of their own lives to as great an extent as possible. They want to be able to decide for themselves when they get up in the morning or go to bed at night, decisions which for most of us are part of normal adult life. Yet under present arrangements, whereby local authorities have to provide the domiciliary care staff that are needed to allow disabled clients to live in the community, it is impossible to guarantee such freedoms.
Take, for example, the case of Ms. C, who has a senior position in a company running training and education courses throughout the country. Sometimes she has to ask her care assistants to arrive at 5 am to ensure that she is up in time for a meeting. Sometimes she has to stay away overnight and take a personal assistant with her. No local authority provided service can offer that degree of flexibility and control. Yet until recently Ms. C has been able to make her own arrangements because the local authority has been paying directly to her the part of her total care budget that is needed for domiciliary care. She has recruited, trained and deployed the staff that she needs and accounted for the money to the local authority.
Why "until recently"? I am sure that you can imagine the shock, Madam Speaker, which went through the system when almost the first guidance issued by the Department of Health under the new community care legislation was to warn local authorities that by allowing such arrangements they were breaking the law. The National Assistance Act 1948, echoed in the national health service Acts of 1968 and 1977, makes it illegal for local authorities to make cash payments to individuals, and the Government have no choice but to remove from some of the most disadvantaged people in Britain the one freedom which they most treasure. That is the problem which the Bill seeks to address.
As you would undoubtedly be quick to remind me, Madam Speaker, a ten-minute Bill may not stray into territory such as giving local authorities the power to make direct payments, ideal though in my judgment it would be if they could. It is a severe limitation. I am proposing a device to improve the present position, but I know that it is very much a second best.
The limitation is well shown by the case of Mr. A. His local authority allows him to employ staff and manage them on a day-to-day basis, but the authority pays them and they are subject to the employment practices of the authority. The effect of its shift systems, for example, is that he cannot choose when he will go to bed. Nor can he suddenly alter the arrangements to fit in with an unexpected change in his schedule.
What a contrast with the case of Mr. F. He receives about £15,000 a year. It is paid into a separate bank

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account and out of it he meets all the payments for his personal assistance. The account is open to the local authority to inspect at any time and at the end of each year Mr. F presents an audit of his account to the local authority. It is a simple system that is cheap to administer. It retains the statutory responsibility of the local authority and makes it easy for the authority to assume direct control if Mr. F, for whatever reason, found that managing his affairs in this way was too much for him, but affords him the dignity and independence that we would all seek for ourselves.
My proposition is, by contrast, inferior but is all that I can propose in the context of a ten-minute Bill. I propose that such disabled people as are assessed as able and willing to shoulder the responsibility of recruiting and employing their own staff should be allowed to do so up to the financial limit decreed by the local authority. They should then arrange to have the bills paid by the local authority, but the responsibility for the staff contracts would be theirs.
We have a parallel in the House. The office costs allowance is available to Members to make such arrangements as seem best to them to meet their needs and those of their constituents. The bills are handled by the Fees Office, which exercises some scrutiny over the payments to ensure that they do not depart from the rules that have been laid down. In this way we are in charge of our own offices, but the interests of the taxpayer are safeguarded. For the few clients that I envisage it is an unnecessarily cumbersome system, but is better than the position that we are left in by the recent guidance from the Department.
The Bill is modest, but the principle that it enshrines is fundamental to community care. Community care is partly about enhancing the dignity of those who need public care. It is also about enhancing choice, developing personal responsibility and encouraging the growth of personal capacity. It must, therefore, be right to allow those disabled people who have the capacity and the desire to take control of the most personal part of their care arrangements to do so.
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When the National Assistance Act reached the statute book 44 years ago, the relationship between those who needed care and those who gave it was very different from what it is now. I know that Ministers know that. Nobody who listened to Ministers, hour after hour, in the National Health Service and Community Care Bill Standing Committee has any doubt about where their hearts lie. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo), who is on the Treasury Bench today, shares their views.
My Bill aims to take the first step towards enabling disabled persons to cut off the shackles imposed upon them by long-dead Acts of Parliament and to restore to some severely disabled persons the dignity of making their own decisions in an area of their lives where no public authority, no matter how benevolent, can hope to treat them as well as they can treat themselves.
I hope that the Government, who have done so much already to increase the control that disabled people have over their own lives and who have introduced the citizens charter to carry that work forward, will give my Bill a fair wind or, even better, go the whole way and allow direct payments in carefully selected cases. When I worked on the Social Work (Scotland) Bill 25 years ago, we wrote into it section 12, which allows cash payments in special circumstances to be made by local authorities to people in their care. I feel that that is a better precedent in 1992 than the National Assistance Act of 1948.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Andrew Rowe, Mr. Tom Clarke, Sir John Hannam, Ms. Liz Lynne, Rev. Martin Smyth and Mr. Dafydd Wigley.

DISABLED PERSONS (SERVICES) BILL
Mr. Andrew Rowe accordingly presented a Bill to empower local authorities to make certain severely disabled persons accountable for expenditure on their care plans: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 11 December and to be printed. [Bill 44.]

Local Government Finance
3.57 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Robin Squire): I beg to move,
That the Special Grant Report (No. 4) (House of Commons paper No. 61), which was laid before this House on 17 June, be approved.
Madam Speaker: I understand that it will be for the convenience of the House to debate at the same time the second motion on the Order Paper:
That the Special Grant Report (Wales) 1992 (House of Commons Paper No. 80), which was laid before this House on 19 June, be approved.
Mr. Squire: I think that I should be marginally exaggerating if I suggested that the country, or the majority of Members of Parliament, were on the edges of their seats because of the nature of what I am about to say on these reports, despite the fact that their provisions will affect nearly every household in England and Wales and despite also the fact that the sums involved are substantial.
The purpose of the two reports is to provide grant support to billing authorities in England and Wales towards revenue expenditure incurred in the financial years 1991–92 and 1992–93 on preparation for the council tax. The grant underlines our firm commitment to helping authorities with the smooth implementation of the new tax and to ensuring that they are ready to issue the first bills by 1 April 1993.
For the convenience of the House, it might be helpful if I outlined briefly the advantages of the council tax, which is the subject of the preparations that we are considering. We believe that the council tax is fair and straightforward. It introduces a system of finance which will bring stability to local government.
The new tax is fair. It recognises that no household should have to pay an excessive amount towards the provision of local services. It makes provision for single adult households, and it is only right that they should pay less than households with two or more adults. It ensures that people on low incomes and vulnerable groups are helped through generous rebates of up to 100 per cent. of their liability. Owners of property that is no one's main residence will have to pay only 50 per cent. of the tax for the area.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: In preparing the legislation and the rules that will enable a 25 per cent. reduction to be given to single-person households, will the Minister bear in mind the possibility of applying those rules to give a similar reduction for water charges which could be based on the same register?
Mr. Squire: I understand the hon. Gentleman's question, but I suspect that he is trying to lead me into matters that are rather wider than the reports. However, his question has been heard and I am sure that it will be noted by those who are considering such matters.
The council tax is straightforward. We firmly believe that it will be easier to administer than the community charge, and it will be more easily understood by the public. There will be approximately half the number of bills. Many people who are now liable for the community charge will have their liability removed under
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the council tax. The new bills will be based on properties, and collection difficulties should therefore be minimised.s
The council tax also has the considerable advantage for local authorities of not requiring them to compile and maintain a register of those who are liable to pay—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) expresses doubt from a sedentary position, but I am sure that he will develop his ideas later.
Most households will receive and pay a standard bill. The local authority does not need to concern itself with the number or status of adults in each household. All it will need to know is the name of the liable person, and we have given authorities sufficient powers to ensure that they gain that information.
Mr. Roy Beggs rose—
Mr. Squire: May I make a little more progress and then I shall willingly give way.
There is abundant evidence of market prices for most property types, and capital values are easily understood by most people. The council tax builds on those advantages and adds to them the benefits of a banded system. Banding will ensure that an excessive burden does not fall on a minority of properties, as happened under domestic rates. Banding also reduces the administrative task involved in maintaining a local finance system by obviating the need for precise valuations. With no attempt at such precision, the likelihood of disputes and appeals is greatly reduced. Capital values are related to ability to pay, but we recognise that it is not a perfect match which is why there is a 3:1 ratio between bills of properties in the highest and lowest bands.
Mr. William O'Brien: What are the Government doing to speed up the extensive delays in outstanding appeals? When the new council tax is introduced, I envisage a string of appeals to local appeals tribunals and the delays will be substantial. What will the Government do to reduce the number of appeals?
Mr. Squire: I do not necessarily accept the premise behind the hon. Gentleman's question about the number of appeals, hut, as he knows, the independent body that runs the tribunals is aware of its responsibilities. The Government have recently stressed that we wish appeals to be settled as quickly as possible. The most recent figures that I have seen show that there has been a pick-up in the number of appeals being resolved.
The discount system is straightforward. Authorities will have a duty to try to establish the discount entitlement of each household in their area, but if that information is not forthcoming, authorities will be able to assume that the household is subject to a standard bill and it will then be up to the household to claim a discount and to supply the local authority with the necessary information to verify that claim.
The council tax will provide stability for local authorities. The tax base will remain fairly constant from year to year. The number of dwellings in any area is not usually subject to significant change. As the House knows, movements of people are far more volatile and they will not have such a great effect as under the community charge.
Mr. David Winnick: Should not the Minister be a little more hesitant in praising the virtues of

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the council tax? He will remember that when the poll tax was introduced he was a Back Bencher and, indeed, a critic. The Ministers who introduced the poll tax told us that it was excellent and that Labour was exaggerating the problems. We were told that it would work well, but we all know what happened.—it destroyed Mrs. Thatcher. Would not it be wise for the Minister, who was one of the few long-standing critics of the poll tax on the Tory Back Benches, to be more hesitant about the council tax's virtues and to bear in mind some of the criticisms that will be heard from the Labour Back Benches—and certainly from our Front Bench—about some of the defects of the new tax?
Mr. Squire: I shall take the hon. Gentleman's words of warning to heart—although I must add that a detailed study of the comments on local government finance of every hon. Member on both sides of the House over the past 10 years would prove an indigestible meal for anyone who chose to confront it.
I shall now deal with the preparations and the grants before us. My Department commissioned an independent firm of consultants—CSL Group Ltd.—to estimate the additional costs to local authorities of preparing for the council tax. It estimated that local authorities would need to spend £165.3 million in 1991–92 and 1992–93.
Dr. Lynne Jones: Will the Minister assure us that clarification will soon be issued on the treatment of the software costs of implementation of the council tax? I understand that CSL assumed that software costs could be capitalised, which would not be in accordance with the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Local authorities urgently need clarification.
Mr. Squire: I shall try to cover that issue in my speech, but if I do not do so, I trust that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, who is to reply, will be able to supply the detailed answer that the hon. Lady seeks.
CSL estimates that, out of the sum that I have mentioned, English authorities would need to spend £156..1 million to introduce the new tax. That amount is divided between £114.6 million for revenue and £41.5 million for capital. CSL estimates that Welsh authorities would need to spend £9.2 million—almost £8 million in revenue expenditure and £1.24 million in capital expenditure. The Government have accepted the consultants' recommendations in full.
The special grant report authorises a grant of £85.97 million to English authorities to cover 75 per cent. of authorities' revenue costs. That amount is outside the total aggregate external finance set for local authorities in 1992–93. The grant is to be distributed on the basis of the number of domestic properties in each area, with an allowance for higher costs in the London area. The Welsh report authorises a grant of £5.985 million.
The number of dwellings used for that purpose is based on information supplied to the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales, which has been validated with local authorities. Annex A of the English report and appendix 2 to the Welsh report detail the amount to be made available to each authority.
Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery): Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Squire: I am giving way rather a lot, but I shall still give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
Mr. Carlisle: Will the Minister confirm that the grant will cover 75 per cent. of the revenue costs of the change and none of the capital costs, which may involve, for example, computer software? Bearing in mind the fact that, even viewed in the most charitable possible light, the poll tax was a Government mistake, why do the Minister and his Welsh counterpart think that local authorities, which have already been severely punished by the wasted costs of the poll tax, should now have to pay any part of the revenue or capital costs of the change?
Mr. Squire: I shall clarify the position. The Government will make available supplementary credit approvals to cover the full cost of the capital expenditure. The hon. Gentleman will have heard what I have just said, but I am not yet sure whether that fully answered the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones). I shall return to the subject later.
The remaining 25 per cent of the revenue funds needed by authorities for council tax implementation will be supported through revenue support grant. If the House approves the report, a payment of 66 per cent. of an authority's grant will be paid on account on 1 November 1992 to authorities in England. Welsh authorities will receive 90 per cent. of grant in 1992–93 through three equal instalments in June 1992, November 1992 and March 1993. The remaining grant payable in 1993–94 in England and Wales is conditional on submission of a claim form by the authority. The CSL report identified a preference among Welsh authorities to fund computer-related costs from revenue sources. That has been taken into account in the Welsh payment arrangements.
The amount to be paid to each authority in respect of preparation costs cannot exceed the amount that the authority has spent on preparation. As a result, it is possible—if a little unlikely—that an authority will be entitled to receive less than the amount shown in the table at annex A and appendix 2 of the reports.
For the purposes of the reports, revenue expenditure is defined as expenditure which a billing authority incurs or has incurred in the financial years 1991–92 and 1992–93 solely for the purposes of preparation for the council tax, and which is not expenditure for capital purposes within the meaning of part IV of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989.
My Department will be issuing authorities with supplementary credit approvals totalling some £41 million to cover the cost of capital works. That answers the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile). The SCAs are not subject to a special grant report. They will be issued after 31 March 1993, on the basis of claims submitted by an authority and certified in the same way as the revenue claim form. It may be possible to issue higher SCAs to authorities spending above their allocations if claims from other authorities show spending below allocation. We shall consider the basis for doing that if it becomes clear that overall there is a significant underspend of the total allocation of £41.5 million. The SCAs for Welsh authorities in respect of capital expenditure were issued on 10 March this year.
Both my Department and the Welsh Office have liaised closely with the local authority associations about the level of grant and its method of distribution. The associations

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recognise the advantage of a formulaic basis for payment, as it will ensure speedy payment of the grant and, therefore, assist local authorities with their cash flow. I hope that the House will agree that the level of the grant is generous, and a very fair contribution to the necessary costs that local authorities will face in introducing the new tax.
The grants that we are considering are but one aspect —albeit a most important one—of the council tax implementation programme that we have in hand. Once the Local Government Finance Act 1992 received Royal Assent, we moved swiftly to make 10 key sets of regulations to let authorities know as quickly as possible the statutory framework within which they would be operating. Last week my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security laid the council tax benefit regulations before the House, and we shall be presenting regulations governing the scope of the council tax transitional relief scheme very shortly. Meanwhile, both Departments are undertaking a comprehensive programme to disseminate information. The aim is to ensure that authorities know how the new system is structured, that they are kept abreast of developments and that they have all the necessary information to ensure a smooth implementation.
At an early stage—last November—both Departments issued all authorities with good practice guidelines and a model implementation plan. These offered authorities advice on the initial stages of setting up project teams and defining implementation targets, and were based on work by CSL. We subsequently asked CSL to do some follow-up work to assess community charge backlogs, and to offer advice on action that authorities might take to reduce them. The study, which is under way, has the support of the local authority associations, and is designed both to help authorities with their community charge work and to free resources for council tax implementation.
Our Departments have also sponsored a detailed council tax computer system specification produced by the local authority systems alliance. It offers advice on all identified user requirements and addresses the varied application needs of authorities for in-house computer development, software house systems and package evaluation. A copy was sent to all authorities, and will be updated as necessary.
With the local authority associations in England and Wales, we are preparing a series of practice notes offering advice on all practical aspects of the new tax. We have already issued three such notes to all local authorities—on valuation lists, liability, discounts and exemptions, and recovery and enforcement. We will issue remaining notes as quickly as possible. We shall produce additional practice notes as the need arises and supplement the existing ones to ensure that they remain of value to local authorities.
In addition to that written advice, my officials have embarked on a series of implementation monitoring visits to local authorities. We have selected more than 30 authorities which represent a broad cross-section of all authority types and locations. The object of the visits is to learn at first hand the practical issues that authorities face. We shall offer help where possible and, perhaps more important, gather information that we can use centrally to
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guide us in framing any necessary amendments to the regulations and also to identify subject areas on which additional general advice may be desirable.
That two-way exchange of information is not an isolated exercise. We plan to visit the authorities on a number of occasions over the coming months so that both my Department and the authorities can keep up to date with the current state of play.
Officials from both Departments have also embarked on a series of talks to local authority practitioners at seminars held by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, the Institute of Rating, Revenues and Valuation and the local authority associations. They were booked for some 30 seminars throughout England and Wales, and I gather that more than half of these have already taken place. The aim is to offer an overview of the tax and answer any detailed points raised. More seminar dates will be added as the occasion arises and, as with the monitoring visits, we intend to ensure that that level of commitment is maintained for as long as local authorities feel it is necessary.
The House may also like to know that officials are liaising with such bodies as the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and the National Consumer Council, and are keeping the computer suppliers closely in touch with developments.
I hope that the House will agree that all this shows our determination to co-operate closely with local government in the implementation of the new tax. The special grant reports are an important and tangible demonstration of our commitment to ensuring that local authorities have the necessary tools with which to do the job, and I commend them to the House.
4.16 pm
Mr. David Blunkett: I welcome the fact that the reports are before us today, albeit somewhat belatedly. Having issued them on 4 June under the wrong legislative power—the Local Government Act 1988 instead of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989—the Government had to withdraw and reissue them. We should all say a prayer for the Department's competence in finally managing to find the right legislation under which to issue the reports.
The way in which the council tax saga is unfolding, and the tardiness with which it is being handled, is very reminiscent of the poll tax shambles. I feel like saying, "Here we go again: another tax; another shambles in the making; another last-minute confirmation of information that is essential if local government is to do its job; and another chance for local government to bail out central Government by achieving the impossible within time limits which border on the ridiculous and which make it likely that, if things go wrong, local government will get the blame for the confusion, uncertainty and unpreparedness of the Government."
The truth is that, when the Government pushed the legislation through, they never really expected to have to implement this wretched tax. That is self-evident, and the Under-Secretary knows it.
Mr. Squire: Perhaps the fairest immediate response is to say that if, indeed, we are surprised—and I promise the hon. Gentleman that we are not—our surprise is as

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nothing compared with the relief that the Opposition must feel at not having to introduce a tax requiring four separate annual valuations,
Mr. Blunkett: As we never proposed a tax with four separate annual valuations, we do not have to feel relief at not having to implement it. If there was a bright spot on my horizon on 10 April, it was that I would not have to sort out the shambles that you created—the aftermath of the poll tax—or deal with the alterations that a Labour Government would have made to the council tax. We would not have implemented the tax in this form. We would not have used the way that you have chosen to restore a property tax —
Madam Speaker: Order.
Mr. Blunkett: I apologise, Madam Speaker. I still feel that I am on the hustings. My problem is knowing which hustings I am now on. For this afternoon's purposes, may I say that the Government did not believe that they would have to implement the council tax. We knew that, when in power, we would have to alter it to make it workable.
The Minister, rightly from his point of view, eulogised this afternoon about the reintroduction of a property tax. He was right to do that, because such a tax is simple, potentially much fairer than the poll tax, and can be made to work more cheaply. The problem is that the tax, the orders for funding the introduction of that tax and the necessary administration and computer arrangements, will be more costly than Labour's alternative and they are much more confusing in terms of implementation.
Part of the problem is that the council tax is expected to bear such a heavy load in terms of the failure to decentralise the business rate. With only 15 per cent. in England and a much lower percentage in Wales having to be picked up by a local tax of that kind, it is clear that the way in which it has to be implemented and its eventual outcome will be much more problematic. One need only read the leader in The Times today to understand the difficulty.
With such a tax, the powers and functions of local government must be reduced to accord with the ability of those authorities to sustain services instead of having a tax designed to sustain a range of services required by local people.
Mr. Philip Oppenheim: With regard to services, did the hon. Gentleman listen to the programme on BBC 2 last night about a town hall and hear the chief education officer of Labour-controlled Lewisham council in London bemoaning the fact that the council had so organised its school transport contracts that the council's National Union of Public Employees friends and the direct labour organisation could charge whatever they liked? There was no chance of a reduction even if the use of those services decreased. As a result of those ludicrous contracts, teachers' jobs had to be cut. Is the hon. Gentleman proud of those priorities and the efficiency of that flagship London Labour council?
Mr. Blunkett: I seem to recall that the PA Consulting Group, which investigated the operation of compulsory competitive tendering in the light of the Government's desire to extend CCT, recommended that community and school transport should be exempted on the ground that it was cheaper for the authority to organise its overall services to integrate the provision of school transport with
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its central transport operations and that it cost as much money to put the services out to tender as it did to operate those services. I am happy to refute the allegations of the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim).
I have been diverted from the interesting leader article in The Times. The article referred to a speech made by the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities yesterday to the Association of County Councils about the future. Obviously the future of local government is dependent on and bound up with the ability of local government to raise tax and spend money. The article stated:
"For good measure, Mr. Redwood listed some of the activities that a modern Tory minister nowadays associates with subsidiary government in Britain. A county might see its identity reflected in an agricultural show, a cricket team and a lord lieutenant; a town might find expression in a football team, an arts festival and a mayor. Small wonder that councils are frantically campaigning against what they see as another assault on their surviving functions."
There could be any old tax if the functions of an authority were reduced to the point where a council meeting could be held in a telephone box with a taxi or Lewisham's school transport waiting outside to take people away. It is nonsense—we all know that it is—that a tax should not be able to bear the functions and activities which give local people an opportunity to express themselves at the ballot box and to get the services that they want.
Having had the poll tax, one unholy mess, perpetrated upon us, we now have the council tax. The reports offer 75 per cent. of expenditure, as the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment has spelt out—that is, 75 per cent. of CSL's estimate on revenue and the £41 million for England in terms of capital allowances.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) asked whether the software provision that is absolutely vital in implementing the new proposals could be capitalised to ensure that they did not fall as a revenue charge which would divert from other administrative costs. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales will be able to assure us that such costs can be counted for capital purposes to ensure that further damage is not done to services by having to find revenue from elsewhere, because those things matter greatly and authorities are having to do the planning and the work now. They cannot do them after April next year. They cannot simply put off the evil day or perhaps decide that they will find the expenditure from somewhere else, because they have to do so now. We will deal with capping orders which illustrate the delicate position in which authorities find themselves. Even an extra £3 a head on a poll tax bill has to be denied a tiny district authority in the interests of centralised government and new forms of autocracy.
It would be helpful if the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales could answer a few questions about exactly what we will have to face in the months ahead so that local government can take account of the problems and begin to plan to overcome them.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment suggested that it was not necessary to have a register to be able to operate the council tax; therefore, expenditure did not have to be found—that was the inference—to provide and maintain that register. It is only a week or two since the Government admitted that they will use the poll tax register for the coming year to assess the likely take-up of

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discounts and the way in which an authority would have to calculate the amount levied on the new valuation system to reach a base level for funding the authority in the year ahead.
Those are serious matters. If the poll tax register, with all its faults and failings, is to be used for that purpose, why not accept that there should be a maintained register over the years ahead? Why not accept that funding should be made available to sustain such a sensible register?
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment said that there would be a standard council tax charge and that people would apply for their discounts once they knew what their bills would be. A bill will drop through the door, and the family or person living in the house will have to make an application. But that is a fat lot of use to the authority that is planning for how many people it will have to assess as living alone. It is a fat lot of use in determining exactly how grant, business rate and local council tax revenues are to be balanced to ensure that authorities can balance the books in the financial year ahead. It is a fat lot of use, Mr. Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a women's takeover. It is necessary to have that information in order to assess levy and the likely problems that will be experienced in dealing with council tax capping and the like.
Some serious issues arise out of the dismissal of a register in terms of the operation of the discount system. I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment the Under-Secretary of State for Wales would tell us where the cash will come from to compensate for that.
We estimated that £780 million would be necessary to fund the discounts to people living alone. I assume that part of that will be trawled back from the reduction in the amounts claimed in benefits. We were not assured in Committee about that. I referred earlier to why we did not believe that the Government would implement the council tax. They had so few answers to reasonable questions about how the tax would be implemented.
One of our questions was how much it would cost the nation as a whole, or how much would have to be found by local taxpayers, to top up the amount lost by giving discounts to the wealthy who happened to claim that they lived alone. Once such claims are made, it is necessary to check them to ensure that the system works and is properly monitored. Then we are into the business of the register.
We are not sure how the valuation system is working out. We had a bland assurance this afternoon which the civil service had written into the Under-Secretary's speech that all was well on the valuation front. That is not the information or the signals that many of us have received about what is happening on the ground.
My hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) is one of the world's experts on valuation appeals. In the Committee which considered the poll tax legislation, he enlightened us about the number of outstanding appeals against the former rates and business rates valuations. The figure was 43,000 in West Yorkshire alone. That was only a few months ago. My hon. Friend will confirm, I am sure, by tapping my left leg that I have got it right.
We now face a valuation system that will not be completed until the end of the year. Information will not
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be given to authorities and individuals until the beginning of 1993. People will be expected to lodge appeals. You were not in the Chamber to hear it, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the Under-Secretary said that everything would be all right because, to paraphrase, the valuations would be so vague and inaccurate that no one would be able to appeal against them. That is what he said in effect. I thought that that was an interesting give-away.
If we had been able to operate a new property tax, the Labour party would have introduced definite valuations which took account of the real sale price of the house, adjusted by sensible measures. People would have the right to appeal because they would know exactly how their house compared with the neighbour's house or that of the person down the street who lived in slightly different circumstances. But, of course, no one will know that under the council tax valuation.
We can make a pretty good guess about what the valuation may be if a person does not have an extension on the back of the house, does not have a particularly enjoyable vista from the kitchen window or has a gasworks or fish and chip shop next door. I used to use the example of a fish and chip shop until the Secretary of State thought that I was referring to fish and chip shop owners and threatened me with an army of them parading outside the Palace of Westminster. So I shall stick to gasworks from now on.
Who wants a gasworks next door if the house is valued the same as the one that adjoins the local park? Of course, no one does. But presumably the Government believe that they will get away with it if the valuation is sufficiently vague to avoid a successful appeal. It all adds up to a shambles. As my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton reminds me, we had hot air balloons and helicopters passing overhead to take aerial photographs to make sure that people had told the truth about the size of their house and whether they had an extension.
Above all, the grant should ensure that local authorities can do the job well in advance. It is regrettable that a dozen key orders for the preparation and implementation of the council tax are still outstanding. We are only a few months away from D-day—or M-day, because it is a Michael tax rather than a David tax, in every sense of the word.
It is tragic that local government is expected to put the council tax together with so little information at such a late date. We do not know what provisions might be made for the standard spending assessments. We pray and hope that the Government will make some revisions so that authorities have some sense in their expenditure.
We hope for some clarification of the equalisation formula for the new grant structure after the reintroduction of a property tax. We know that at least the Under-Secretary of State understands the problems of equalisation. It was clear that other Ministers did not have a clue what we were talking about when we mentioned it in Committee and elsewhere.
A host of problems face us, and also a belated order before the summer recess, to assure local authorities that there will be some resources to help them to do the job. We should thank local authorities for the way that they are facing up to this further enormous change. We should applaud them for the way that they have tackled what they know to be another flawed tax. Once again we should

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accord local government the gratitude that it is so often denied by Conservative Members—gratitude for managing the impossible.
That is what we should be doing. Instead we are reading out briefs to tell local government that it will get 75 per cent. of the cost and that perhaps, under the other services element of the revenue support grant, it might get an unspecified extra 25 per cent. if it is not clawed back by the Treasury in negotiations with the Department of the Environment which amount to a battle to prevent the council tax from degenerating into the shambles that the poll tax was. We know that there is a battle and we know that the Government should spend hundreds of millions of pounds to introduce the tax rather than try to do it on the cheap.
We have no idea what the reduction scheme—the transitional help to protect people on transfer from poll tax to council tax—will cost. Perhaps we could be enlightened about that.
Answers to all those questions would help local government to do its job more effectively and to avoid being blamed when it is the Government's fault for introducing the tax too late, too shambolically, and without the necessary forethought or information to make it work properly.
4.36 pm
Mr. Eric Pickles: Ever since I became involved with local government, each time that we have embarked on some new strategy or act, people have said that it was the end of local government as we knew it, and that if we did not get the legislation right, it would all be over. It is true that the credibility of both the Government and local government is on the line with the council tax. Everyone across the political spectrum in local government has a vested interest in ensuring that the tax succeeds.
I have always had an optimistic view of local government and, to a small degree, I share the views of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). Local government seems to be able to change its functions and structures quickly, and to absorb new types of finance, which shows how adaptable it is.
Before we pass the grant, it is reasonable to ensure that the amendment is sufficient. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment said, the Government commissioned an independent report and, pleasingly and unusually, accepted its recommendations in full.
Two authorities make up the constituency of Brentwood and Ongar: Brentwood receives £131,000 in grant and Epping Forest receives £223,000. Opposition Members should realise that, on the whole, authorities are satisfied with their grants. Even the Association of Metropolitan Authorities has said that its members are largely happy with the size of the grant. That association is Labour controlled and, although I hold it in the highest regard, it is not renowned as an organisation which regards Government initiatives with any enthusiasm. Although it is not dancing in the aisles, it is satisfied with the sum that is available. It has reservations about whether the grant should be open ended, and I shall consider those later. The grant is intended to cover the sum of money expended.
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The valuation process appears to have run smoothly. I do not know what signals Labour Members have been receiving, but it is a remarkable achievement to value 21 million properties by, roughly, the end of this month. It is remarkable that only 1 per cent. of firms performing those valuations were dismissed for repeated inaccuracies. I wish that that had been the case under the rating system, because, then, people would not have come to the House and spoken about the length of appeals. The Government appear to have done the job well.
I am also pleased to hear that the valuations of only 6.3 per cent. of properties were rejected as being inaccurate. That is the figure that we could have expected under the old rating system. I would not have regarded it as unusual if it had risen to 10 per cent. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Valuation Office is prepared to go on the record and state that the exercise has largely been performed satisfactorily.
The real test will come in December and January when the lists of valuations are displayed in town halls. A Labour Member suggested that many appeals might be lodged. It is pleasing to note that he is using slightly gentler language than that behind the ridiculous suggestion that the number of appeals would reach hundreds of thousands. Because of the small difference between the bands, I doubt whether many appeals will be lodged. I suspect that there will be more unhappiness about low valuations than about high ones. People will argue that their property is worth a lot more than the valuer suggests, but unless I am misjudging people's attitudes, I doubt very much whether people will appeal, saying, "Excuse me, but I am in a lower band and I would like to pay more council tax."
According to the spokesman for the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation—an independent organisation—the number of appeals is likely to be minimal. I am sure that that will be the case.
Mr. William O'Brien: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Pickles: I am extremely flattered, and I am delighted to do so.
Mr. O'Brien: We should pursue that point. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will outline what will happen to the disabled person, who has been assured that he will be put into a lower band, if he is already in the lowest band? Will the hon. Gentleman explain what concession will be given to disabled people who are already in the lowest band?
Mr. Pickles: It is clear from the legislation that for those in the lowest band, particularly the disabled, the necessary adaptations that go to make up the valuation —[Interruption.] I hope that hon. Gentlemen will allow me to answer the point. The substantive point is that adaptations to property, which enable a disabled person to live comfortably and reasonably in a house, are exempt from the valuation. There is no suggestion that higher valuations will be made. Individual and personal exemptions are available, which is perfectly reasonable.
It is spurious to suggest that many appeals will be made.
Mr. William O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman's remarks are highly significant. He has introduced a new subject that we were not allowed to debate in Committee—disregards in the valuation of properties lived in by disabled people. If he is correct about that, I hope that that will be

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confirmed, because that point was not made in Committee. We should receive some assurances on the points made by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Pickles: I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what I was saying. I was referring to disabled people in the lowest band. If their properties are adapted, they may face the prospect of being placed in a higher band. My substantive point was that, because of the legislation, those adaptations that increase the value of the property will be ignored when the banding is determined.
Given the way in which the valuation exercise has proceeded and the general satisfaction of various authorities, it is not surprising that Mr. Olding, the director of finance for Brentwood district council, wrote to me:
"The introduction of the Council tax in Brentwood is proceeding smoothly and I am confident it will be a similar success story to our record on the Community Charge."
As the Under-Secretary suggested, the council tax will be much simpler to administer than the rates or the community charge. The most important factor about the new system is that it has been market tested and that it is based on valuations. People generally know the value of their home. The new system is not based on what a notional rent should be and, therefore, people will have a much clearer idea of whether they should appeal. The council tax is much easier to understand than the rates or the community charge. We need to make it clear that, because of the banding, the valuations will not be exact. As the director of the Institute of Valuers, Mr. Farrington, recently said, it is an
"indication of the relative values against other properties in the same area".
I am pleased that, through the council tax, local councils' ability to raise their own revenue will be retained. That is essential to local democracy. It retains the link between when local government chooses to spend and what residents are prepared to pay. The revenue raised locally relates roughly to the level of discretion. I notice that the hon. Member for Brightside has just left the Chamber, but in a previous organisation, to which we both belonged, I used to listen to his long and persuasive arguments that local government was raising too much money locally and that the balance had shifted. He argued that central Government would have to raise more. The Government have taken his arguments on board and have drastically cut the amount that is raised locally by doing exactly what the hon. Gentleman suggested. He now tells us that we are wrong.
The level of discretion in local councils is roughly between 13 and 15 per cent., so we will have the opportunity to get better and more accountable local government through the introduction of the council tax. If a council decides to exceed its SSA—and it may have good reasons for doing so—local residents will have to pay. I do not want to trespass on the debate that will follow, but residents have the right to be protected when their council runs out of control and spends excessively.
Mr. Bill Olner (Nuneaton): The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He has spoken about local accountability and local democracy, but it is the Government and their civil servants who set the capping levels that appertain to all local authorities. It is nonsense
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to say that local authorities can do what their constituents want. They cannot, because there is a central and overbearing burden put upon them by central Government capping. I have no argument with the disappearance of the poll tax—I do not think that any hon. Member has, including Conservative Members. We are all glad to see the back of it. It is nonsense, however, to talk about the retention of local accountability when capping will still be retained after the introduction of the council tax.
Mr. Pickles: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. However, one of the strengths of the British constitution is, essentially, its pragmatism. When dealing with many councils that are elected on a four-year or "third out" basis, the electorate should be able to give a clear message. They gave us a clear message in April and May this year. There must be safeguards to ensure that individuals are protected. There must not be low increases or even no increases just before elections and then massive increases in the years when the electorate has no opportunity to protest. If the Government stand for anything, they stand for the protection of the individual, and those capping powers are to protect individuals against the excessive abuse of the state.
With careful management and foresight, the grants should be sufficient. The majority of information technology applications should now be in place. However, I was alarmed at a recent survey by the Society of Information Technology Managers, whose bizarre acronym is SOCITM. I have been a recipient of its bills and the acronym may be a reference to its charges. It showed that, at the end of April, only 52 per cent. of councils had signed contracts for information technology. Half of those have gone to outside contractors. Many people blame the uncertainty of the period before the general election, but it is lackadaisical and unacceptable not to have those information technologies in place now.
That brings me back to the point made by the AMA: if the amount of money is not sufficient, should not the Government underwrite that sum? By not having their information technology in place, those councils have effectively cut down their options. All that they can do now is to take proprietary packages, which will be more expensive with regard to adaptation. There should be no open-ended commitment to underwrite all the costs. It is no use complaining that the money is insufficient if councils have not taken the necessary action to minimise damage.
The grant that generates that sum must be sufficient to ensure that those packages can take care of the review of local government, whether local authorities are sized up or sized down. Many charging authorities will have to change in nature. They may be joined by other authorities or disappear completely.
We must still deal with arrears in rates and poll tax payments. The no-pay culture that stalks local government and the Labour party has done considerable damage to local government.
Mr. Paddy Tipping: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Pickles: I fear that Opposition Members feel that I am spending a lot of time on my speech, but if they keep intervening I shall keep going.
Mr. Tipping: I am interested in the notion of a no-pay culture. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the research in Nottinghamshire that shows that Labour-controlled councils have a far better collection record than Conservative-controlled councils?
Mr. Pickles: I shall come to that matter in due course, because it is germane to the point.
I do not wish to use exaggerated language, but the Frankenstein monster of the no-pay culture, largely created by Labour councils, will haunt them for a long time. It will not be as easy for them to get rid of the monster as it was to allow their CND membership to lapse.
There should be a clear message that there will be no amnesty for defaulting poll tax payers and that those who use a service should be expected to pay. Either through inefficiency or encouragement, Labour-controlled authorities have failed to ensure that people pay their bills. My authority of Epping Forest has a collection rate of 95 per cent., and my authority of Brentwood has a collection rate of 102 per cent.—not because people there want to pay more but because the council has been prepared to ensure that people who have not paid do pay. People in Brentwood and Ongar do not all live on high incomes—plenty of people are on low incomes in my constituency —but they realise that paying the community charge is the law and people on low incomes are prepared to pay because they realise that if they do not, others will have to pay.
Compare that with the top 10 councils with the highest number of defaulters: Hackney with a collection rate of 52 per cent.; Newham with a collection rate of 58.6 per cent.; and Liverpool with a collection rate of 62.3 per cent. That is sheer incompetence.
Mr. Alex Carlile: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has been wittering on about matters that have nothing to do with the narrow reports that we are debating. He has now been on his feet since 4.36 pm. Will you return him to order now?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): I allow a certain latitude in discussion of these matters, but the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) should clearly relate the point that he is now making to the reports under discussion.
Mr. Pickles: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker. The specific point relating to the reports is the use of the sums of money determined by them. That money must deal, essentially, with three things: first, poll tax defaulters; secondly, rates defaulters; and, thirdly, the introduction of the council tax. But no sensible council should try to use that money in that way. They should abandon rates arrears altogether and regard them as miscellaneous debt, thus making considerable sums available for information technology. They should now put out to competitive tender the collection of community charge non-payments, allowing revenue staff to work exclusively on the introduction of the council tax. The licensing of software could then be shared by those who contract out and space could be rented in software houses. That is a much more sensible way to proceed. It is not an ideological point, but a pragmatic and sensible one.
We employed extra staff for the introduction of the community charge, and those people know that they are not needed and that they must therefore go. Rather than
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keeping a dispirited staff together, it makes much more sense and is a better use of public money to contract the work out.
I am pleased that we shall use the electoral register. Now that we are adopting a system in which the applicant must prove, we should not be blind to other information available. The community charge register already exists. Just because we shall no longer apply that charge, it does not mean that we should not use the register for it. Why not use the electoral register, which exists as a method of proof? There is no need for a separate council tax register, and arguments for one are spurious.
In conclusion—[HON. MEMBERS: "At last."] Those hon. Members who wish to make speeches should not have interrupted me. The sums of money offered are reasonable, and local income tax will come out stronger from that process.
4.59 pm
Mr. Alex Carlile: I shall depart from the line adopted by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) and concentrate on the issue underlying the provisions. In most fairy tales or cautionary tales, goodness and morality win in the end; but this is a bit like a bad fairy tale, where badness and amorality win. It is as if a wicked witch in a lair on a central London street had mixed a magic potion called the poll tax and told everyone that they had to use it. Later, when it was realised that it was a thoroughly bad thing, along came a fairy godmother called Michael, his long, blond hair a-sparkle with magic charms, with a solution called the council tax. In the real fairy tale, goodness and morality would win to the extent that those who were good and deserved to have justice on their side would receive it free.
However, in the case of the council tax, the Government handed over the transfer process to a perfectly competent firm of consultants for whom they wrote a brief. The consultants drew up a report with recommendations that the Government accepted in full —I recognise that. But the bottom line is that up to 25 per cent. of the revenue cost of switching from the poll tax to the council tax may have to be borne by the local taxpayers in each district of England and Wales.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I was astonished to hear the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) say that there was overall satisfaction with the level of grant available. That is complete and utter nonsense. I have spoken to treasurers in both the districts in my constituency. In one case it is estimated that a sheer moiety of the grant will be payable—it will be 50 per cent. short. In the other case, the amount is about 45 per cent. Therefore, how the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar could make that assertion is beyond my comprehension. In any event, the mistake is central Government's and they should sort it out and fund their solution properly.
Mr. Carlile: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) who, unlike the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar, has stayed, fought and won in his community, where he is closely in touch with the views of both councillors and local government officers and has been for the past 20 or so years. He underlines my point that, in every district council area throughout England and Wales, residents in the local

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community will have to find money from their own pockets to meet the shortfall. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State shakes his head, but the Government have not undertaken to meet the revenue cost in full. If he wants to deny that, I shall give way with pleasure.
Mr. Squire: I was endeavouring not to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman's flow, but over and above today's report, the Government have undertaken to contribute substantial funds to the revenue support grant. The matter is not quite as black and white as the hon. and learned Gentleman makes out.
Mr. Carlile: The Minister has, by implication, confirmed what I said earlier. I chose my words carefully and said that the consequence of the policy was that up to 25 per cent. of the revenue costs of the change may have to be met by local taxpayers. Nothing that the Minister has said so far would change that—and I suspect that nothing that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales says later will do so either.
Mr. David Congdon: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Carlile: No, I shall not give way as many other hon. Members want to speak.
The Government introduced the poll tax, which was nearly a complete political disaster for them and which has been accepted as being a mistake in tax terms. However, they have not done the decent thing and said that they will meet in full the cost of putting right their mistake.
In rural districts such as the constituency that I represent, Montgomery, and those of the hon. Members for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright), even a shortfall of a few thousand pounds will have tangible effects on the local community. For example, it may mean that small businesses will have to pay more for refuse collection and council houses will be maintained less efficiently than before.
I am sure that I speak for almost all my constituents when I say that I see no justice in me or any other taxpayer in Montgomeryshire having to pay a penny piece to put right a horrible mistake by the Government. I certainly regard it as outrageous that there should be a reduction in local services as a consequence of that mistake.
The matter extends further than the simple question of how to meet the cost of introducing the council tax. The poll tax will continue to haunt local councils while they attempt to collect unpaid poll tax. As I understand it, the orders make no allowance for the continuing cost of trying to collect the unpaid sums—a process that could continue for a long time. It has already wasted a tremendous amount of court time and money, and in some districts only a small amount of tax has been collected.
I hope that the Government will feel that, as they are not providing either a grant or an interest-free loan for the collection of outstanding poll tax, they will eventually say, "Enough is enough—we should stop our futile task of trying to collect the poll tax, which is now a residual sum that can never be collected." That time may well not yet have come, but I hope that the Government keep the matter under constant review. When the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales replies, will he
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repudiate the suggestion that I believe was made by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar that the last drop of poll tax should be collected, no matter how much it may cost local authorities to do so.
The figures set out in the orders seem to show anomalies between local authorities. For example, Richmond upon Thames has 64,400 households and a population of 167,200, and receives £340,000 grant; Kensington and Chelsea has 7,000 fewer households, 36,000 fewer people, and receives £61,000 more in grant. Bearing in mind that the grant structure for the whole country is supposed to be based on inner London figures, such anomalies are causing concern among local authorities and I make a genuine plea for information on how such anomalies have arisen.
Above all, however, England and Wales people are waiting with me for the Government to tell us why they should pay anything for the Government's mistakes.
5.10 pm
Mrs. Angela Knight: My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said that he was sure that all parties wanted the introduction of the council tax, and for that tax to succeed. Judging from the contributions that I have heard from Opposition Members, I wonder whether they truly want the council tax to succeed.
The grants that we are being asked to discuss and agree today are to be used for the implementation of the council tax. In the few weeks that I have been a Member of Parliament I have learnt that if people are really concerned about an issue the first thing they do is to write to their Member of Parliament. I have received no letters from constituents about the introduction of the council tax and I have had no representations from my local authority. Most of the local authorities appear to be satisfied with the amount that we are being asked to grant to them. I trust that the £184,000 for Erewash will be used properly for the purpose for which it is intended.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) has left the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman said that local authority finance was a shambles. I spent five years as a member of Sheffield city council when the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) were its leaders. If I had to attribute the word shambles to anything I would use it in connection with the way that that council was run, then and now.
There is a sad inevitability about the way that Labour councils are run, as those of us who have lived or still live in areas run by them are well aware. I had that experience not only as a member of Sheffield city council but as a resident in the area run by Derbyshire county council, which is notorious for the way in which it governs the area. Opposition Members mocked the Minister who said that counties should not just be known only by a cricket team. Derbyshire cricket team does the county far more credit than its council.
A recent article in Tribune, commenting on the local council elections, stated that several of the councils in which Labour fared worst did not deserve to do any better simply on the basis of Labour's dire record in office. I have seen the truth of that statement at first hand. I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Brightside has returned to his place.
Mr. Blunkett: The hon. Lady and I have crossed swords in the distant past. She speaks about competence. What did the Audit Commission say in 1985 about the running of Sheffield city council when I was its leader? Will she confirm that the chairman of the Audit Commission at the time, who is now taking over the Local Government Commission, said that Sheffield was a shining example and the most efficient council in Britain? Will she also confirm that for the first time in history Labour won the Broomhill ward in the Hallam constituency in July 1985 at the height of the conflict with central Government?
Mrs. Knight: The hon. Gentleman has since lost the Broomhill ward not just once but twice. Perhaps there was one occasion on which Sheffield did not do everything wrong. However, I urge him to look at the reports for successive years on Sheffield city council by the district auditor and the Audit Commission. The hon. Gentleman should submit his evidence to the current inquiry by the district auditor into the World student games and the overall running of the local authority. For such reasons I welcome the council tax.
I have heard much concern expressed about the alternatives proposed by other parties. Rates have been mentioned, but my constituents are loath to have any sort of return to the rates. Mention has been made of the business rate. The business communities in the midlands, the north and Sheffield are united in their opposition to a return to a system in which the rate is set by the local authority. If Opposition Members spoke to their chambers of commerce, they would find, as I have, that that is their view.
Accountability is surely fundamental to local government. There must be a direct link between the amount that people pay and the implementation of the policies for which they voted. That link is retained in the council tax. I welcome the fact that people have recently started to pay great attention to local government. The council tax will be most acceptable to my constituents, but there is still a need to ensure that bills are correct and fair and are seen to be reasonable. A system under which people will not examine so much how we pay for local government will enable them to pay more attention to what local government is doing and the services that it provides. There is great concern in Derbyshire about that. One of the worries relates to the funding of Derbyshire police force and the report—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but it is clear that her speech is straying wide of the subject of the debate. She must relate more closely to the order, which is fairly narrow.
Mrs. Knight: The order deals with the granting of public money to local authorities. We are asking those authorities to spend that money wisely and advisedly. I am addressing that and the concern of many of my constituents about the use of public money and the services that are provided.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Lady that the public money that we are discussing is for the introduction of the new tax.
Mrs. Knight: The council tax will lead to greater accountability because it will bring greater fairness, awareness and equity to local government finance. I am addressing those issues, which are surely important to all
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hon. Members. It is important for the grants to be made and for the council tax regime to be implemented so that equipment can be bought and wheels set in motion. The new tax must be introduced fairly and on time.
The fairness of local government finance is also a subject for debate. The unfairnesses in many local authorities such as mine are practised in what is called the name of the people. Those councils have not provided the services that people want. They have not funded the police in the way that people want. I understand that this is a narrow debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady again. I have no doubt that the matters that she is raising are important to her, but they do not fall within the scope of the debate.
Mrs. Knight: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I applaud local government. I applaud many local councils for the efforts that they have made to ensure that services are delivered in the areas for which they are responsible. I applaud them for the efforts that they have continued to make during times of change, and we must change the ways in which local authorities are financed. Unfortunately, I cannot applaud all local authorities or councils, and some of the worst are those that are ruled by the Labour party.
5.20 pm
Mr. George Howarth: I shall try to keep my remarks strictly within the terms of the orders.
The two most recent speeches that we have heard from the Government Benches had a profoundly depressing ring about them. The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), having failed to maintain control of Bradford city council for the Conservative party, decamped to another part of the country. He chooses now to use his seat in the House to berate local government in general and the part of it that would not continue to elect him in particular.
The same can be said of the hon. Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight). Having failed on any occasion to take control of Sheffield city council, the hon. Lady decamped to Derbyshire. Having failed to listen to your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, she is now failing to follow the debate, but that is probably par for the course. It seems that she prefers to talk to her colleagues.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I think it unwise for one Member to talk about the conduct of another. There is some unbecoming conduct in the Chamber, and I refer to the amount of conversation that appears to be taking place among those on the Opposition Benches. I am anxious to hear what the hon. Member says.
Mr. Howarth: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I wish to say specifically that, having failed ever to take control of Sheffield city council, the hon. Member for Erewash had to find a seat that could accommodate her in Derbyshire. From that safe warren the hon. Lady attacks the city council of which she used to be a member and of which she could never take control.
The hon. Members for Brentwood and Ongar and for Erewash, having been rejected by their local authorities,

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have come to the House to turn the full heat of their hatred back on the electorate. It seems that it is to be punished for not electing them at local authority level.
I wish to talk specifically about the application of the council tax in Knowsley, part of which I am proud to represent. The first issue that I intend to raise was covered in part by my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), when he intervened in the Minister's speech. I am concerned about how the council tax will bear on those whose properties have been adapted because of their disabilities. I spoke to officials of Knowsley borough council this morning, who told me that they are desperately concerned about the way in which the system will operate. They feel that it will be difficult to ensure that adapted properties are subject to appropriate banding. It seems that the onus has been placed on local authorities to seek out disabled people. The officials to whom I spoke feel that that is not necessarily the best approach. More to the point, they feel that there is much scope for disabled people being overlooked. Another consideration is that if a property is already on the lowest band and then it is adapted, there is no further band to which it can drop. That discriminates against those who live in properties that fall within the lowest band. There is no scope there for any improvement.
My second complaint is that the discount system seems incredibly difficult to operate. The onus is on the local authority to identify who is and who is not a single-person occupier. It seems that the Department of the Environment takes the view that the benefit of the doubt rests with the council tax payer. That is the advice that is being received by local authorities through the Department. I understand, however, that a recent Audit Commission circular states that the onus is on the occupier to establish his or her status as a single occupier. It seems that the Audit Commission has made that clear in recent contacts with local authorities. There is an area of confusion which needs to be clarified.
If I thought that informative circulars and guidelines were to be issued within the next few days or weeks, that would be all right. Unfortunately, that seems not to be the position. I was told this morning by officials of Knowsley borough council that, apart from the relevant legislation, only three practice notes have been issued. The practitioners feel that there are huge grey areas and overlapping confusion that still has to be cleared up. A vast amount of additional information will have to be made available if the practitioners are to be able to sort out the proposed system in time for its implementation.
I went some of the way with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) when he made his measured remarks about non-payment and the aftermath of it. I do not think that any of my hon. Friends ever advocated non-payment. It was—[Interruption.] We never did. There were a couple of Members who did so, and it may have escaped the notice of some Conservative Members that they are no longer Members. The two things may not be entirely unconnected. Apart from a minority, my colleagues in the Labour party—in the House and elsewhere—were careful not to advocate non-payment. The problem arose—the Government were warned about
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this—because of the uncollectable nature of the poll tax. My colleagues and I never advocated the non-payment culture, a term which Ministers seem intent on using.
The local authority in my constituency and other Labour authorities throughout the country have taken determined measures to recover the tax that has not been paid. There must come a point, however—I do not know whether we have arrived at it yet—when the law of diminishing returns starts to operate. Local authorities are expected to pump in resources to collect sums that may prove to be uncollectable. The cost to the local authorities may outweigh whatever it is able to recover. I am not saying that recovery should not be sought where a person who should have paid the tax is clearly identifiable. There should not be a general amnesty, but perhaps there should be a more intelligent approach. Perhaps there should be greater co-operation between central Government and local government to decide what is reasonable and what is not in determining whether those who should have paid poll tax and have not should be pursued, and for how much longer.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery raised a matter that should be given thoughtful consideration by the Government. I hope that I have made it clear that we should adopt a measured approach to the problem. I am not advocating any wild action.
The council tax is an improvement on the poll tax. It would be miraculous if even this Government could come up with anything less acceptable than the poll tax. However, despite all their claims, the council tax is still not the best solution for the financing of local government. The test should be whether the tax will be with us for at least a generation. I believe that a future Government of another persuasion, or the present Government, will have to return to local government finance legislation, possibly annually. Indeed, that seems to have happened over the past 13 years or so. The Government do not have the right formula and the tax does not reflect the necessary balances. There is a need for accountability and there is a need for central Government to be able to adjust the formula to compensate for the different levels of poverty, for example, that are to be found in different areas.
I regret the fact that these reports make no contribution towards a long-term consensus on financing local government. The Government know that that is so. The pity of it is that they have been unwilling to consider a long-term solution. Instead, they have tried to find a short-term solution that will dig them out of a hole. It does not, however, provide a solution to the long-term problem.
5.30 pm
Mr. David Congdon: I had not intended to make this point, but, having heard the point made by Opposition Members about community charge arrears, I really do think that local authorities must make every effort to collect them. One of the biggest complaints that constituents make to me is the additional amount that is added to their community charge bill because others have not paid their community charge. We know that under the old rating system people had to pay for those who did not pay the rates, but that was not visible. It was the visibility of the community charge which caused so much resentment. It is very important, therefore, to collect it.

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The new council tax will be much fairer than the community charge. As a member of a local authority for 16 years and chairman of Croydon's finance committee for six years, I was pleased to play a part in that authority's efforts to ensure that the community charge was collected properly and efficiently. Many authorities decided not to do so but to make the biggest mess that they could of it and then to complain when they were unable to collect the amounts demanded. It is imperative that all local authorities do their best to collect the council tax. That is why I welcome the reports. They provide a proper basis for local authorities to set in train the procedures, computer systems and so on that are needed to collect the new council tax.
It is easy to argue that the Government ought to make more money available. I am not convinced that the Government ought to fund the full cost to local authorities. That would provide no incentive for authorities to ensure that they collect the council tax efficiently. It is too easy to say, "We need another 30 staff here and another 40 staff there if we are to collect the new tax." The truth, however, is that the new tax can be properly collected if efficient systems are set up. It can be collected for an amount significantly less than that which is needed to collect the community charge. Therefore, I welcome the proposals contained in the reports.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) suggested that the Government ought to pay more towards the cost, but where does the Government's money come from? It comes, in any event, from the taxpayer. It is taken from either one pocket or another.
Mr. Alex Carlile: That is a bogus argument.
Mr. Congdon: It is not a bogus argument. The Government have no money of their own. They have to raise money. The problem with some Opposition Members is that they seem to think that the Government's money grows on trees. It does not. We have to exercise proper control over the nation's finances. We ought not to tax people any more than is needed. It is right to set targets for local government by making sure that central Government pays only a percentage of the cost. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said that most local authorities believe that the amounts that have been provided by the Government are fair and offer the proper way forward.
I have already said that I believe that the council tax will be easier to collect. There will be no need to have a council tax register. Opposition Members have repeatedly suggested that there will have to be a register. One reason for that suggestion is that they want to demonstrate that the council tax will be very difficult to collect. I have no doubt that one or two authorities will be determined to demonstrate that it is very difficult to collect, but there is absolutely no reason why it should be difficult to collect. I believe that the people of this country will judge it to be a fair tax and that it will prove to be easy to collect.
Fewer people will pay the council tax. That will make it easier to collect. There is no minimum 20 per cent. payment by everybody. Students will be exempt—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not go too far down that path. As I said earlier to another hon. Member, we are not debating the principles of the council tax.
Mr. Congdon: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was trying to demonstrate that, because the council tax will be easier to administer, the amount required to collect it will be reasonable. The computer systems that will be needed will not be so costly. Fewer staff will be required, because not so many people will be paying the council tax. There will be a bonus for local authorities, for in future the revenue cost of administering the local tax will be significantly less than that required to administer the community charge. We ought not to forget that point when we consider the funds that are to be made available to local authorities by means of these reports.
This is the right way forward. The reports provide for sensible levels of funding. Some local authorities will complain that it is not sufficient to meet their needs. The challenge for them is to demonstrate to their local council tax payers that their proposals for collecting the tax in their area are reasonable, fair and efficient. These reports should enable them to do so at minimum cost.
5.35 pm
Mr. George Stevenson: The Minister said that these reports will enable local authorities to prepare for the introduction of the council tax. That statement may be consistent with the political convenience by means of which the Government hope to extricate themselves from the mess that they have created in terms of local government finance. However, it will add to the confusion of many of my constituents and, I suspect, will add to the confusion of many people throughout the country. Having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), I suggest that the Government may find themselves in a right old pickle.
Confusion grows on account of the fact that we are told that the council tax will be fairer and will be understood by everybody. I wonder. Recent reports suggest that no less a person than the Prime Minister is concerned about the effects of the Government's community care policy on the council tax. No Conservative Member referred to that, although between £500 million and £600 million will be required to implement that policy—if it ever is put into effect.
Confusion still reigns over the poll tax register. I am trying to be fair when I say that many hon. Members in all parts of the House have local government experience and know how difficult the situation is. Misleading and controversial statements are not what we require if we are to be clear about the Government's proposals.
It has been stated that the poll tax register will not be required. Before I became a Member of Parliament I read ministerial reports that suggested that if local authorities thought that they were going to use the poll tax register they were sadly mistaken; it would not be required and they should not use it. The same Ministers now say that the poll tax register will have to be used. However, some Conservative Members have said that there will be no need to use it. What are the Government saying? My constituents will want to know what they are saying. People throughout the country and local authorities throughout the country will also want to know exactly where the Government stand when it comes to the poll tax register.
It is clear that if the reports determine the basis of local authorities' expenditure, and if there is an individual input, a register will be required. In spite of what has been said

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and in spite of the denials, I submit that the poll tax register is the one that will be required. My constituents will want to know what it will cost. We have heard that it will be cheaper, but I suppose that anything would be cheaper than the poll tax, so the cost depends on the criteria on which the Government have based their conclusions. It occurs to me that if an organisation other than the Government were making such proposals and trying to maintain a sense of credibility while suggesting that they would be cheaper, it would be laughed out of court by the Government themselves. We should take what the Government are saying with a large pinch of salt.
The confusion is increased by the valuation process. I do not know how Ministers view it, but I shall respectfully suggest how my constituents view it. They have a picture in their minds of anonymous people wandering the streets, having a look at properties but not going inside or consulting anyone. They envisage those people then placing a valuation on a property and extending it to a number of properties in the same area. We are asked to believe that such an innocuous and ambiguous system— carried out by anonymous people using subjective rather than precise judgements, as the Government and the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar admitted—will reduce the number of appeals. Conservative hon. Members will know—
Mr. Roy Thomason rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman gives way, may I point out to him that he is beginning to debate the merits or otherwise of the council tax, whereas we are considering the funding of the changeover to the council tax.
Mr. Stevenson: I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall give way if it is in order to do so on a point which you have ruled out of order.
Mr. Thomason: I am responding to a point that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) made a moment ago, so I may be out of order. I was going to ask in what way he thought the Labour party's proposals, involving a formula with four different methods of valuing a property, were an improvement on the Government's proposals.
Madam Deputy Speaker: I advise the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) not to pursue that point.
Mr. Stevenson: I am grateful for your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you have saved me the trouble of answering that question.
We were told that £156.1 million will be available for the introduction of the council tax—75 per cent. to come from the Government and 25 per cent. from local authorities. I had intended to emphasise the fact that that will be an extra unfair burden on local authorities, but many hon. Members have said the same thing so I shall not take up the House's time by repeating it. However, it is important to underline other elements that were mentioned by the Minister when he spoke of the ability of local authorities to meet additional expenditure.
First, we are talking about local authorities that have consistently been subject to cuts in Government
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expenditure. The Government should take that fact into account. Secondly, as I understand the system, supplementary credit approvals may be available to local authorities in certain circumstances after the event. In other words, local authorities will have to find the money by borrowing or by some other means and only then might they receive supplementary credit approvals from the Government. That is hardly a realistic way for the Government to encourage local authorities to fund the changes. I urge the Government, even at this stage, to examine carefully the system of supplementary approvals so that it can be made to assist local authorities to meet the requirements of the introduction of the council tax. It is not good enough for the Government to say that there is a possiblilty that supplementary approvals may be available when, on the day and at the time the resources are required, they are not available. That is hypocritical and will not deal with the problems that local authorities will face.
I look at you, Madam Deputy Speaker, with fear and trepidation because I am about to refer to a crucial factor. It has been mentioned, although not in detail, so I hope that you will give me sufficient licence. I wish to mention the way in which the resources for the introduction of the council tax are tied to the overall standard spending assessments. It is nonsense to think that one can pigeonhole such resources or expenditure without considering the total sum that the Government are making available to local authorities, because they are closely interlinked.
I offer an example of how unfair and discriminatory the SSAs have been. The report states that the boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster are likely to receive about £500,000 from the Government for the introduction of the council tax whereas my city of Stoke-on-Trent is likely to receive £432,000. I am not surprised that Stoke-on-Trent is likely to receive less because if it received 58 per cent. of what Wandsworth and Westminster receive in SSAs, it would not have to levy a poll tax—and that is a good Labour authority.
We must examine how the Government are applying the formula for the introduction of the council tax. If the formula is as discriminatory as the SSAs, local authorities —I suspect that they will be mainly Labour-controlled authorities—will be in greater difficulty, as a result not of their inefficiency but of the Government's discrimination. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) whispering to her hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon), to whom I give way.
Mr. Congdon: The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) says that the proposals will favour Conservative authorities. How does he explain the fact that authorities such as Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark benefit considerably simply because they are inner-London authorities?
Mr. Stevenson: If the hon. Gentleman examines the proposals as a whole he will see that a different picture emerges—it is a system as discriminatory as the SSAs. He did not challenge the example that I gave of my local Labour-controlled authority being so heavily discriminated against in terms of the SSAs, and nor did he challenge my contention that the attitude behind the SSAs is

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absolutely critical to our consideration today. I make that point to urge the Government to look carefully at that relationship.
I suppose that anything that replaces the poll tax must be welcome; nothing could be worse. However, in presenting the reports the Government are trying to give the impression that local authorities are to blame for the present situation. They are laying out the ground to try to convince the public to give local authorities the blame again if the council tax does not work—and it certainly will not work. That is disingenuous and does not relate to the Government's mishandling of local government finance over the past decade. I hope that the public will take note of what we say and will not be taken in by the Government's attempt to ensure that if the council tax creates problems it will be someone else's fault, not theirs.
I hope that the Government's attitude to the introduction of the council tax will give more encouragement than the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), gave us. I was staggered by his complacent attitude when he said that the Government were aware how important the subject was, and of the problems that local government might face—and then said what they were doing about that. Ministers visited 30 local authorities. Big deal! Wowee! Blimey! I wonder which authorities those were, and what their representatives said to Ministers. I hope that the Government will have a more positive approach to the subject than Ministers have so far shown.
Apparently, visiting authorities—no fewer than 30 of them—was not the only thing that the Government were doing. They were organising seminars, too, so that Ministers could go round the country telling intransigent, irresponsible, ineffective, inefficient local authorities how good poll tax mark 2 would be. I hope that the Government will show a more positive and constructive approach to the subject than that.
Local authorities need to know that the council tax will not be implemented at their cost. That tax is a reaction to the mess that the Government created with the poll tax, so the Government should shoulder the responsibility, and not seek to blame local authorities for their own incompetence.
5.53 pm
Mr. Michael Bates: I have been interested to see a certain amount of hand-washing going on among the Opposition. They are quick to take the credit when things go well with their councils, but as soon as league tables are produced showing how clever or otherwise councils have been about bringing in the money, they seem to wash their hands of all responsibility. They claim that that is not their problem but results from the Government's under-resourcing. That seems to be the knee-jerk socialist reaction. Whenever socialists see a table of grants available, they immediately scream for more to be able to do their jobs properly. In contrast, the culture that Conservatives are trying to create means that we are concerned not with the money coming in but with the services going out. I shall focus my attention on that.
If the grants are to be made for the implementation of the council tax, which we all support—Langbaurgh is to get £245,000, and Middlesbrough £243,000—it is right to ask what value for money people in those areas will get for those sums. That is a fair question. The last time that such
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special grants were made they were to assist with the introduction of the community charge. Councils said, "Give us the money; give us the resources. We shall introduce high technology, and collect the charge." Clearly they have failed in that objective. How many councils have failed to deliver?
My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) said that her postbag was not bulging with questions about the council tax, but perhaps it was bulging with letters from people wrongly accused of not paying the community charge, or people who have not been asked to pay. The information technology systems in place do not seem to offer value for money. I suggest that one way round the difficulties in which some Labour councils find themselves would be to go back to the suppliers of the information technology software and ask for a discount on the basis that its performance in dealing with the community charge over the past five years has not been too grand.
We need to focus on one key factor—accountability. That is what is needed in local government, and we seek to introduce it. To achieve accountability, a system needs to be easily understood. I am amazed at the nostalgia for the rating system. Hon. Members talk about complications, and claim that people cannot understand the capital value of their homes. Of course people understand that; it is manifestly easy to understand. Do the Opposition claim that people understood the system for calculating the rates —that notional system of applying some multiple to a rent that had been calculated for 1973? Of course people did not understand it. That is one reason why we introduced the community charge. People understood a flat rate charge for local services. That is why we are introducing the council tax, which is a further improvement, and an attempt to create even more accountability. It is important that we get that message across.
Mr. Stevenson rose—
Mr. Bates: No, I shall not give way, because I want to develop my argument a little further, if I can.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman can, as he seems to be going wide of the subject under consideration. I have made that point before. The hon. Gentleman must look more closely at the reports.
Mr. Bates: I shall certainly bear those points in mind, Madam Deputy Speaker. However, given the amounts of money in the grants that will go towards the purchase of equipment to assist the smooth transition to the council tax, it is fair to examine the effectiveness of the staff and technology which is in place to run the community charge. Clearly, when 30 per cent. of the community charge for Langbaurgh remains uncollected, the system is not a great success—it costs individual charge payers an average of £37 each. That is why it is right to introduce the system that makes people aware of that fact, setting out on the charge bill the sum that people have to pay because other people sought to evade their responsibilities.
The Opposition have given assurances that there is no campaign to support non-payment, yet they will understand that there is a certain scepticism about that. The fact that 27 to 30 Labour Members of Parliament have yet to pay their full community charge is hardly a lesson or

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an encouragement to people to pay their full contribution for local services. It is shoving the burden and the responsibilty on to somebody else—a familiar tack.
That behaviour has not been accepted. The record was the subject of some elections in Langbaurgh last week. I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) is present. I am sure that she, too, recognises the tremendous achievement of the two Conservative councillors who, by taking over Labour seats, returned a formerly Labour-controlled authority to an absence of overall control—if, that is, there can be said to be any real difference between an absence of overall control and Labour control.
Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: No one welcomes a hung council, which presents additional problems of administration and management. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the current high rate of non-payment and uncollectability of poll tax in Langbaurgh is unacceptable and does no service to the people, but will he tell us why that position exists? Is he saying that local government officers are incompetent? What is his explanation of this serious problem?
Mr. Bates: I am happy to answer that question. Should an authority claim that the collection of community charge is someone else's responsibility, or should it accept responsibility for the task? I think that, if an authority has been put in place to provide services and therefore to collect revenue, that authority is accountable for the collection of community charge. The chairman of the council and the leader of the ruling group are responsible for directing the council.
I can offer some sympathy to Langbaurgh on one ground: only 109 per cent. of the money paid to the district council stays there, because 90 per cent. is passed on to Cleveland county council. People feel that they are not directly accountable for the moneys that are raised and spent simply because they do not see the correlation between what is paid to Langbaurgh and the services provided by Cleveland.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I fear that the hon. Gentleman has forgotten all about the report.
Mr. Bates: I am merely responding diligently to Opposition interventions, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The council tax is fair. To say that the grants are not sufficient is a knee-jerk reaction—a washing of hands and a cop-out. The amounts involved represent huge investments on behalf of the British taxpayer, and the British taxpayer will demand results.
6.2 pm
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: I shall try to adhere more closely than other hon. Members to the strictures that you have placed on them, Madam Deputy Speaker, and relate my comments directly to the reports that we are discussing. I believe that I am the first Welsh Member to speak today—or, at any rate, the first Welsh Opposition Member.
Mr. Alex Carlile: No.
Mr. Morgan: Well, I am the first Welsh Labour Member to speak. Anyway, I wish to concentrate on the Special Grant Report (Wales).
The position of Wales in respect of central Government funding has always been different from that of England. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates) said that people did not understand the old rating system, but that is not really true of Wales. When Wales was subject to a rateable value-based system, the low capital values in the area clearly required a larger Government contribution to bring the quality of services up to the required England-and-Wales average. Under the poll-tax system, there was no formula that people could easily grasp as they grasped the link between lower property values and a larger Government contribution. A sword of Damocles was poised over Welsh local government finance: the only basis on which Wales could expect a larger contribution from central Government was the previous system.
Now, five years later, we find ourselves entering a second transitional phase. It can be seen from the figures included in the two reports that Wales needs a larger Government contribution to provide the same average level of services as we begin to return to a property-based —or semi-property-based—formula, including a new banding system.
In terms of property valuation, Wales is a different world. The Welsh do not move around so much; they do not expect to market their houses and thus to establish high property values, which makes a property-based local finance system very tricky. Let me illustrate that by means of an anecdote. I recall, in my younger and fitter days, running a half-marathon in the Cynon valley, which has perhaps the lowest average property values in the United Kingdom. At the halfway point I crossed the river and ran up the Mountain Ash side of the valley. As I crossed the river in a state of fearful exhaustion, a dogleg in the road revealed a house directly in front of me. A sign on it read "Asbestos prefab for sale: apply within".
Where in Brentwood and Ongar could such a simple description of a property asset be found? No marketing techniques taught at Harvard business school would be needed to extract the best price for such a house; if it is an asbestos pre-Fab, the vendor should say as much. He will thus secure a quick sale, perhaps within a couple of days. That house may have been of better quality than others in the area, but, in any event, properties are sold for £1,000 or £1,500 in parts of Wales. It is an entirely different world —which is why Wales still needs a larger Government contribution than England during the transitional period. I trust that the 90 per cent. contribution that obtained under the rating system will be returned under the new property-based system, although it became hard to justify under the poll tax. I hope that the Minister will give us a guarantee to that effect; otherwise, the level of services will fall.
The other problems involved have been mentioned many times, and, of course, they affect my constituents enormously. Morale is low in local authority treasurers' departments. They have invested in computers and staff training, and have got the magistrates courts tuned up to deal with the uncollectability of the poll tax. Now, suddenly, the Government are trying to approve transitional expenditure and to return to property valuation, albeit with a banding system, and all that work has been thrown into reverse. The magistrates courts have been told that they can go on short time in a couple of

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years, once the hangover of five years of the poll tax has been dealt with—five years of perhaps the biggest single mistake that any post-war Government have made: the Tory groundnuts scheme multiplied by 10. I suppose that that is what historians will refer to the poll tax fiasco as —if you do not mind my finishing a sentence with a preposition, Madam Deputy Speaker; I half expected to see you rise at that point.
The worst thing of all about the yo-yoing from property tax to head-based tax back to property-based tax with banding is the effect that it has had on our democracy. I shall not go into detail, but it is especially true in constituencies such as mine with large inner-city populations, numerous bedsits, a high turnover of rented accommodation and many people on social security living in bed and breakfast accommodation. Where turnover is high, many people have been lost from the electoral register, and that must have an adverse effect on the health of our democracy. I am sure that, whatever your doubts about its relevance to the reports, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will agree with the proposition that our first job as Members of Parliament must be to defend the efficacy of British democracy. The poll tax fiasco has done more to damage that than anything else that has been done in the past 100 years.
6.10 pm
Mr. Michael Stephen: I have listened with interest to the speeches made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) that we must consider the money that we are being asked to give local authorities today in the context of the huge sums that our constituents, as taxpayers, contribute to local government yearly. They give local government no less than £39.9 billion—nearly one quarter of our total national expenditure.
I cannot help feeling—I may be wrong—that some Opposition Members think that the Conservative party does not care about local government or value its work. I have to tell them that I have often discussed local government matters with my hon. Friends and with ministerial colleagues and I have not detected any such feeling. I have served in local government for six years myself and I greatly value the work that local government does. It has a long and proud tradition and I pay tribute to the numerous councillors of all political persuasions who work very long hours for very little money and for the most part deliver very good services to those whom they represent.
My hon. Friends and I value the work of local government, but we are not uncritical. We think that the British people may not be getting quite such good value for money from local government as they might. I believe that there are too many councils, that they are too expensive and that, in some councils, there is a degree of incompetence which should not and cannot be tolerated and which certainly would not be tolerated in the private sector.
In England and Wales alone, there are 47 county councils, 333 non-metropolitan districts, 36 metropolitan districts and 33 London boroughs. Ours is a small island and, bearing in mind that we could add to that figure the hundreds of parish and town councils, we are perhaps the most over-governed country in the western world. As if
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that were not enough, Opposition Members talk about regional government, which would cost about £375 million a year. I can think of much better things to do with £375 million than to waste it on regional assemblies.
We must draw a clear distinction between local delivery of services and local political decision-making. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that our constituents expect their services to be delivered locally through local offices to which they can go if something goes wrong and to have elected representatives to whom they can go if they do not get satisfaction. That does not mean, however, that we need a political decision-making body every 35 miles the length and breadth of the land.
My second point is that local government is too expensive. It follows from the fact that we have too many councils that we have too many councillors. Leaving aside parish and town councillors, we have no fewer than 25,087 councillors—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is falling into the trap into which many other hon. Members on both sides of the House have fallen. He must relate his remarks more closely to the reports.
Mr. Stephen: I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Let me, then, deal with some of the comments made by other Members on the specific matter to which the report relates. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South said that a kind of poll tax register would have to be maintained for the purpose of administering the council tax. I do not believe that to be the case.
Mr. Stevenson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles)—one of his hon. Friends—confirmed precisely that?
Mr. Stephen: My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) must speak for himself. My opinion is that a register would not be needed. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South will recall that, under the old rating system, the rate bill was sent to the household and the people in that household would work out among themselves how it would be paid. Those who thought that the rateable value of their property should be reduced had to apply for a reduction. Those who felt that they were entitled, by virtue of their personal circumstances, to have their bill reduced also had to apply. The council tax will be no different. Bills will be sent out to households on the assumption that two people live in them. If only one person lives in a household, that person must apply for a reduction.
The valuation system to be adopted will be the same rather rough-and-ready system that was used by the Inland Revenue to place properties in a rateable value category. I am glad to hear that the private contractors who have been entrusted with the task of valuing properties are using modern technologies such as hot air balloons to perform it more effectively!
The new system will be much simpler than the old rating system, because we shall not have to place on each house a specific value down to the last pound. We shall merely have to identify it as a band-C or band-D house, or whatever. That is a rough-and-ready approach. There will be—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am afraid that it is too rough and ready. How does it relate to the introduction of the council tax and the moneys needed for it?
Mr. Stephen: I was simply responding to remarks that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South was allowed to make, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates) about the need for information technology. The world of information technology has undergone remarkable changes in the past five years. I know that, because I am a consultant to a company in the information technology field—and I must declare my interest in that respect. It is now no longer necessary for any local or central government department to own any computers, to employ anyone to operate them or to lease or own any buildings in which to house them. Departments need only tell one of the many private-sector companies what data to put in at one end and what they expect out of it at the other. They can leave to the private sector the task—a task for which it is much better equipped than local government—of working out what computers to use, who to employ and how to do the job. I commend that way of operating to any local authority faced with the job of introducing the software and hardware that may be necessary for the administration of the council tax.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) said that subsidies should be given to areas with low rateable values. I entirely agree with him that central Government subsidy is a legitimate function and that areas unable to raise sufficient money from their local people can rightly expect a subsidy from the rest of the country. My ministerial colleagues are aware of that point and give effect to it.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West also referred to morale in local authority treasurers' offices. He would surely agree that morale depends on the quality of leadership that those people receive. If they are led by dismal Jimmies who can do nothing more than wring their hands and moan about lack of Government money, it is hardly surprising that they are demoralised. If, on the other hand, as is the case in most Conservative-led local authorities, those people are led by positive people with the attitude that they can do something, rather than that they cannot, I suspect that morale is higher.
I welcome the report and believe that the money should be given to local government and used for the specified purpose, but a great deal needs to be done before the people of this country receive the value for money from local government and the efficient delivery of local services which they are entitled to expect.
6.20 pm
Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: The hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) referred to proposals for regional government. He should check whether those are the proposals of the President of the Board of Trade and be careful that he does not direct criticisms at the Opposition Benches. Some of those proposals come from the Government.
Langbaurgh, to which reference has already been made, welcomes the special grant because we desperately need it. It is sad that it has come so late and in such a small amount. Many of the problems that we face will be
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compounded when the council tax is introduced. If the grant had been available when it could have been used to good effect by the local authority, we could have dealt with some of the problems of uncollectability mentioned by the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates).
The special grant will arrive when we already have problems with implementation in Langbaurgh. It will add to the problems and it will take us longer to solve the difficulties. It will help, but it has not arrived at the right time or in the right amount to deal with the serious problems facing Langbaurgh.
Another problem that we will face as a result of the special grant is that it does not take account of the nature of households. There are many one-parent households in Langbaurgh. The special grant does not relate to the make-up of the constituency and will not be the right amount to deal with the extensive problems facing us.
The hon. Member for Langbaurgh referred to non-payment. I agree with him that it is unacceptable that others should pay, but he should be more straightforward and consider why that problem exists. There is a difficulty with non-payment, but we have a serious problem with collectability because of the nature of the poll tax. The Opposition have highlighted that problem on many occasions and it must be addressed. Langbaurgh had been caught by that problem.
No grant can take account of the difficulties that councillors and officers of local authorities have faced in trying to implement the poll tax in the transition to the council tax. The previous lack of funding has left morale very low. The hon. Member for Shoreham made a facile and silly point when he said that Conservative authorities are positive and dynamic and that the dismal Jimmies in Labour authorities caused the problems. That is not the case. It is clear from representatives of local authorities of both political persuasions and of representatives of hung authorities that there is a serious morale problem.
Some problems arise for political reasons with powers being removed. There is also a serious problem because both Labour and Conservative councillors have difficulties in doing their job. We must consider the issue of civic duty. That is not a party political point and the serious problem of morale must be addressed if we are to deal with the problems that local authorities will face.
Mr. Bates: I am interested in the point about uncollectability. What makes it easier for 400-odd councils to collect more community charge as a percentage of their budget than we do in Langbaurgh? What makes it more collectable in those areas?
Ms. Mowlam: If the hon. Gentleman had been in Langbaurgh a little longer with his predecessors from the Labour party or from his party, he would know that Langbaurgh council had had an on-going difficulty. Together with the hon. Gentleman's predecessor, we met Minister after Minister in cross-party delegations to consider the difficulties with standard spending assessments. The SSAs have taken money from the council year after year and the council has had to take money from Peter to pay Paul. There have been serious problems in relation to sufficient staffing across departments and having people who want to stay with a council with such serious problems.
We must consider the confidence of officers, and councillors from both parties acknowledge that we have a

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problem. I have addressed that problem in cross-party discussions and I hope that the hon. Member for Langbaurgh and I can consider it with the Department of the Environment and the Department of Trade and Industry in the future.
The hon. Member for Langbaurgh knows the geography of the area as well as I. Many people work outside the area on rigs and many work in London. We have a mobile population which is sometimes considered to be an inner-city problem. Our area has the second highest unemployment level in the United Kingdom. It is second only to Northern Ireland.
Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend is getting across the message very clearly that only a small part of the problem of collectability relates to the Tory mythology of the "Won't pay" extremist Trotskyite groups which are encouraged by Militant Labour Members. Any city treasurer would claim that the overwhelming majority of the difficulties of collection relate to the mobility of population, particularly among 18 to 25-year-olds who simply disappear or who go from one property to another every two or three months. They crash-pad out here, crash-pad out there, return home and then leave home again. No one really knows where they are. It is very difficult to discover someone's whereabouts during the three months that someone qualifies to pay the poll tax. That is why the Government have scrapped the poll tax five years after they introduced it.
Ms. Mowlam: I concur with my hon. Friend. We are not overwhelmed by Trots in Langbaurgh, as I am sure Conservative Members are aware. However, some people do not pay and I met one in my surgery on Saturday. That 82-year-old lady could not pay her poll tax or her electricity bill. She put the bills in front of me and asked me what she was meant to do. Some people are not paying because they do not want to; people on the Government's basic state pension cannot pay.
When he referred to the difficulties, the hon. Member for Langbaurgh said that the Labour party was interested only in the culture of grabbing money. He said that we always want more and that we are not interested in efficient expenditure. I can assure him that hon. Members on both sides of the House are very interested in efficient expenditure and a decent customer service. However, we need to know where the money is coming from and when so that we are not paying 1991 bills as a result of a late Government handout and afterthought in respect of computerisation. If we had known about the grant, we could have planned an efficient service. We cannot do that because of the short notice.
Because of the lottery of funding, whether that be through the assisted status scheme, city challenge, or a development corporation, we must fish from pond to pond to try to run an efficient local government service.
I am with the hon. Gentleman all the way. Yes, let us have efficient services, but let us have a culture that delivers public money to local authorities so that they can function efficiently. Local councillors at whatever level and of whatever party are finding it impossible to do an efficient job because of the incompetence of central Government.
6.29 pm
Mr. Paul Murphy: It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam). Opposition Members take to heart her comments about the culture of local government.
Before I comment on the debate proper, I make a technical point to the Under-Secretary of State for Wales about precisely which document we are dealing with. Some days ago, we obtained from the Vote Office the Local Government Finance (Wales) Special Grant Report No. 40 under section 88 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. Earlier this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon), the Opposition Deputy Chief Whip, indicated that we are dealing with the Local Government Finance Special Grant Report (Wales) 1992, under section 146 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. The confusion over which document we are to use, coupled with other matters that have been mentioned in the debate, including the revelation that hot air balloons will be used to value the people of Wales, or at least their houses, do not inspire much confidence in how the Government will deal with the implementation of the council tax.
Although we are dealing with grants of £6 million paid to Welsh district councils to administer the new council tax, hon. Members talked about the adequacy of that settlement and the detailed nature of the implementation of the new council tax. In Wales, the figure is £6 million, so we are told—that figure is in both books, so I assume that it must be right—although local government treasurers in Welsh district councils still believe that that is not adequate to cover the various aspects of the implementation of the council tax. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) said that his two district council treasurers are not happy with the settlement that they have received, and nor is the treasurer of my local authority. When we look at the various factors that make up expenditure for the implementation of the tax we can see why they are unhappy. It is not simply a matter of having the staff to administer in their offices. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) and the hon. Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) both talked, although from different sides of the argument, about the need for a register. Whatever the Government say, a large number of billing authorities in Wales will have to establish some form of register to enable the council tax to work properly, and that will cost a great deal of money.
Reference has also been made to computers. If local authorities in Wales had not had the foresight to invest in computer hardware and software, they would be in serious difficulties in implementing yet another new local government finance system.
My hon. Friends the Members for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) and for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) referred to discounts, banding and benefits. All those aspects of the new local government finance system which we are to introduce in a year will cost a great deal of money. The Government—in this case, the Welsh Office —have calculated precisely how much they will give each local authority on a rule-of-thumb basis. That is not good enough. That system is based on the number of properties in a local authority area, not on the number of payers.
The hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) referred to the dismal Jimmies in the finance departments of our

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local councils. That is a slur on what they do. Staff in local government finance departments must, within two or three years, deal with an enormous number of unnecessary changes in local government financial systems. Next year, they will have to deal with the demise of the poll tax. They will have to wrap up that tax; introduce a brand new tax, the council tax; deal with the growing problem of arrears; and deal with the transitional relief of the non-domestic business rate. Combine all those things together and we see that the amount of work that has to be undertaken by our local council treasury departments is beyond the expectations of what they should normally do.
The whole package is ultimately unnecessary. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) rightly said that most people in Wales will regard a penny spent on changing the administration of local government finance to be entirely the responsibility of the Government, because they caused the changes to come about and therefore should pay for their implementation.
If ever there has been an intolerable waste of public funds, it is what has been wasted on local government finance in just a few years. In Wales alone, £100 million has been squandered on the implementation and the sweetening of the poll tax. We must add to that the fact that most of our local councils will have to cut their expenditure in the coming year—although they have not yet been given the revenue support grant, which in itself is a scandal—and they will have to cut services, while the House of Commons will legislate to increase expenditure on administration.
The Conservative party has always said that it is the party of good management. If any local authority had mismanaged its finance in the way in which the Government have mismanaged theirs, they would have been in dire trouble indeed. The hon. Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) had the cheek to talk about wasteful Labour local councils when every penny of the £6 million of Government money in Wales alone was ultimately unnecessary. The Welsh council tax will not end that. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and, although in a different context, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) mentioned gearing. The amount that Welsh local authorities can now raise by way of revenue is extremely small. The effect of that on what is left of local democracy in Wales is indeed very bad.
Mr. Ray Powell: I regret that I was not present for the start of my hon. Friend's speech, as I was attending to House business. I am concerned about finance, particularly when it affects Ogwr borough council. The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment has mentioned the 4,609 council houses that were sold by Ogwr borough council between 1981 and 1991. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has referred to the amount that has been raised by such sales, what will happen to it, or whether it can be used to build houses for my constituents in Ogwr borough who are crying out for accommodation, yet the Government are failing to respond to their demands.
Mr. Murphy: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) that that money should be recycled into the local community to make new houses
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available for our people. However, that is another matter —but at least it would be using public money for good ends.
My point was that, necessary as the report might be, the money has simply been put into the administration of our Welsh local authorities. It has not gone to produce services for our people. One of the most tragic consequences is the instability and even chaos which have entered our local government system.
We have seen enormous changes during the past five years. We have seen value added tax increased to pay for the appalling chaos of the poll tax. The cost of implementing the council tax will lead to a tremendous lack of confidence among people in local government and in Wales as a whole in any regime of council finance that the House approves either today or in the weeks and months ahead.
Mr. Morgan: Before my hon. Friend finishes his speech, will he refer to the applicability in Wales of the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) that major savings could be made by local authorities when they implement the new calculation procedure by following some new Tory slogan of, "Do your banding while you're ballooning" or, "Do your ballooning while you're banding"? Will he comment on the idea that if the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) was still the leader of Bradford city council he would probably hire Virgin Atlantic to do the ballooning because then it could be called the Branson Pickle?
Mr. Murphy: I am not sure how I can incorporate that idea into my final remarks, hut, nevertheless, I found it enjoyable.
There is a special case for Wales. I address that case to the person who will speak last in the debate—the Under-Secretary of State for Wales. The changes in local government finance and the £6 million that we are approving this evening to implement the council tax have to be set alongside the changes in local government that the Welsh Office and the Government say will come about in Wales. Will the Minister assure us, and, indeed, Welsh local government, that they will implement their so-called reform of the structure of local government at the same time as they implement the council tax next year?
Will the county councils have to hold elections next year? Will they have to budget and plan? If the county councils have to set their budgets and the district councils have to collect the money for the county councils, all local government in Wales will effectively be in financial limbo. It will be frozen in the financial sense. Unless we know with some certainty what will happen to Welsh local government, all that we have dealt with this evening with regard to local government finance in Wales will be meaningless. I hope that the Minister will tell us, within the confines of the motion of course, whether implementation of the council tax will proceed alongside the reform of local government in Wales.
Of course, we shall not oppose the reports. By so doing, we would plunge many local authorities into penury. But we accept them with a certain reluctance based on the uncertainty and instability in the local government systems in both England and Wales. I hope that the Minister will give us a clear idea of how that instability can be overcome, at least in the Principality.
6.43 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): We have had a good and useful debate, especially because we have heard speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House who have had experience of local government. As one who served on Cardiff city council for 13 years, I especially valued their speeches.
I must first respond to the query of the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) about the reports. Due to a drafting error, the reports were originally laid under the wrong power. We immediately withdrew them and have relaid them under the correct provisions. The amounts of grant set out in the reports did not change.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) fascinated me when he said that he had seen a bright spot on 10 April when he realised that he would not be practically involved in local government finance. It must have come as a blessed relief to him, and I suspect to every other member of the Labour party, that he would not be plunged into government with all the dreadful promises that the Labour party had made.
The hon. Member for Brightside went on to quote The Times. He suggested that councils were already engaged in a campaign against the threat to their survival. In the Principality there is the broadest agreement about the progress that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is making on the reform of local government. There is the broadest agreement that we should move to unitary authorities. That will be accomplished by 1995. I suggest that England might want to take a leaf out of Wales' book about how to make progress in that direction.
The hon. Gentleman pursued the need for a register. My hon. Friends—especially my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles)—effectively disposed of that. I suspect that the need for a register is being pursued only out of a socialist yearning to keep everything on a register. The community charge register will be used only to provide an estimate of each authority's revenue-raising power in the first year of the new council tax. It is clearly the best information available for that purpose. From the second year of the tax, the previous year's figures will be used as the basis of rate support grant. Thus, I emphasise that there will be no need for a register beyond the transitional phase.
The hon. Gentleman estimated that authorities would need much more cash. He should note that the reports before the House relate only to 1991–92 and 1992–93. Costs in 1993–94 will be taken into account in the RSG settlement for that year. I suspect that the figure that he quoted was for all three years. He complained that banding would be inaccurate. It is surely self-evident that a system which relies only on broad value bands will be less subject to error than a system based on precise valuations. As the hon. Gentleman advocates the latter type of system, he should be careful not to criticise the accuracy of our system.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the regulations were late. We have already provided all the key regulations that the authorities need. Some regulations remain to be made. The absence of less critical regulations is not inhibiting local authorities' progress. The most important regulations which remain to be made are on transitional relief. The key figures in those regulations are linked to the RSG settlement. Obviously they cannot be made until the
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RSG settlement details are available. But we have already told local authorities the structure of the transitional scheme and we shall shortly issue our draft regulations. Local authorities will therefore have perfectly adequate information on which to base their computer systems.
Mr. Blunkett: Perhaps the Minister will tell us why the provisional grant settlement has been deferred from its usual slot at this time of the year to the autumn, thus causing the local authorities considerable problems in planning their financial strategy for 1993–94.
Mr. Jones: If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I shall come to that in a moment. I am responding to the points that he made. He also referred to charge capping. As I have already said, council tax and transitional arrangements will be taken into account in the settlement for the forthcoming financial year.
It is essential that the Government retain a strong capping power to ensure that the introduction of the council tax is not used as an excuse for irresponsible and unnecessary expenditure. On the question about transitional reductions, the Government are committed to limiting the increase in bills which households will face as a result of changing to the council tax. The transitional scheme may vary with property bands. Details of the scheme cannot be decided until property valuation is completed.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) asked about interest on capital costs covered by supplementary credit approvals. They will be met through RSG. I was intrigued that the hon. and learned Gentleman congratulated the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), who is not with us in the Chamber, on his local success and perseverance. I wonder whether the hon. and learned Gentleman would make the same comments about the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis). The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery objected to paying himself in Montgomeryshire. I have to ask him, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon), where he thinks that the money comes from. What dangerous naivety does he live in? As my hon. Friend said, the Government do not have any money of their own. It comes from taxpayers in Montgomeryshire and elsewhere. We all have to pay. The special grant arrangements and revenue support grant are the appropriate way forward.
Mr. Morgan rose—
Mr. Jones: Excuse me, but I must make progress.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery asked me to reject the notion that all community charge has to be paid. He seeks to rival the Labour party in being more extreme and more left-wing in that respect. The Government have repeated time after time that there can be no amnesty. I fully support—
Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones: Forgive me, but I must make progress.
I fully support the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) that it is irresponsible to let some people off when the majority have paid and would have to pay for those who do not.
Mr. Carlile: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones: No—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. The Minister is not giving way.
Mr. Carlile: He should.
Mr. Jones: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that time is running out, and I wish to respond to everyone who has contributed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) made an excellent contribution and gave us her experience of five years on Sheffield city council. It is little wonder that the hon. Member for Brightside wanted to dismiss his time there as the distant past. She was able to explain that, under the leadership of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), Sheffield was in a shambles. I appreciated her argument that Derbyshire cricket club brings more credit to the county than Derbyshire county council. That would not be difficult.
The hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) was concerned that disabled people might be overlooked. I hope that they will not be. We are aiming to provide reductions for people who are substantially and permanently disabled, which will ensure that no disabled person pays a higher bill because they need more space as a result of their disability.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) asked whether supplementary credit approvals were possible. They will be available up to a total of £41.2 million in England and will be provided against expenditure on preparation. Each authority will have a maximum allocation, based on the number of properties. As the Minister said at the outset, if any SCAs are not applied for they will be recycled to other authorities that may need them. The hon. Gentleman also alleged discrimination against Stoke-on-Trent. There is no discrimination against his authority. It receives less grant than other authorities because it has fewer dwellings. A common amount for each authority would be nonsense. Why should a small shire district get as much as Birmingham or Manchester?
My hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates) robustly advocated our progress in shouldering the burden of paying for local government finance. How right he was. The consequences of the "Don't pay" campaign advocated by Opposition parties was merely to shove the burden on to someone else. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend say that Conservative successes in two local elections in his constituency were the logical outcome of that campaign.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. M organ)— my neighbour and an old school friend—mentioned the need for a higher level of grant support in Wales. I appreciate his point. The level of support in Wales is appropriate, and it will continue to be. We have taken that into account in setting different, lower property bands for the council tax in Wales.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) related his six-year experience of local government. I agree with his tribute to many people in local government who give so much of their time to serve their electorates.
The hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) apologised for the fact that she could not be here for the winding-up speeches. I was glad of her welcome for the
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grant reports. I appreciate her desire to make the best case for her part of the world. That is the natural and imperative duty of all hon. Members, and I applaud her spirit in seeking to work with my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh.
The hon. Member for Torfaen claimed, unsurprisingly, that some councils in Wales feel that the special grants that we have prepared are not enough. Generally, the special grants have been welcomed by Welsh local councils. Three Welsh local councils were used in the survey by CSL which helped us to introduce the grants—Delyn, Newport and Monmouth.
In his opening speech, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary told the House about the considerable degree of work that is under way to ensure that preparations for the council tax proceed smoothly to its introduction on 1 April next. There is close collaboration between central Government, local government and key organisations such as the Valuation Office agency. I have been very heartened by the input made by all concerned and, speaking from my own experience in Wales, by the constructive and professional approach that local authorities are taking to preparing for the new tax.
The valuation banding exercise is nearly complete, and considerable progress has been made on other important aspects of implementation, including, on the Government's part, secondary legislation and practice notes. In Wales, provision has been made for the electronic transfer of valuation lists in a variety of formats that best suit the needs of each authority. Most Welsh councils will have lists sorted in community order. At all stages in the preparatory process we have taken care to consult local government and other interested parties and to consider their views carefully.
Mr. Morgan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones: I know that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West has so much hot air to contribute—but not in the time left to me.
Final decisions on any transitional arrangements under the council tax cannot be arrived at until details of local tax bases are complete and have been analysed. We have not yet made a decision on whether transitional arrangements will be put in place for Wales. We will consider the need for transitional relief if significant numbers of households face large increases as a result of the new tax. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales considers, in all the circumstances, that a scheme of transitional relief is appropriate, he will consult the local authority associations on the arrangements and how to fund them. Draft regulations setting out a framework for the scheme—if there is to be one—have been issued.
The level of council tax and transitional arrangements will also have implications for total standard spending and aggregate external finance under the local government revenue settlement for 1993–94. The Government wish to take those implications into account and for that reason —this brings me to the point mentioned by the hon. Member for Brightside—they announced last month their decision to postpone the provisional settlement for 1993–94 until the autumn. I am sure that the House will agree that it is essential that we take into account the most up-to-date information in determining the settlement.
The Government's decision to make special grants available in respect of council tax preparation costs has

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been welcomed by local authorities. The grant allocations set out in the two reports before the House will he of considerable help to local authorities in their preparations.
Mr. Morgan: Will the hon. Member give way?
Mr. Jones: I know that the hon. Gentleman has the old school tie connection. I suppose that I cannot resist that.
Mr. Morgan: Will the hon. Gentleman take up the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) about employing hot air balloons to conduct the valuation and handing exercise? If so, can he tell us how he will use some of the expense that that might save? He has spent a lot of Welsh Office money on changing the notepaper since he introduced his new title. He does not want to be called Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State; he wants to be called Parliamentary Secretary.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is outside the province of the motion. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough—
Mr. Morgan rose
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not expect to have a discourse with the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Jones: I am sorry that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. It was a silly intervention and turned out to be nothing more than something out of his hot air department again.
For those authorities whose expenditure exceeds their grant allocation, by far the greater part of the excess will be met from central Government support within aggregate external finance under the local government revenue settlements for Wales and England.
The grant allocations and arrangements set out in the special grant reports for England and Wales are generous and fair. They clearly demonstrate the Government's commitment to facilitating the smooth and timely implementation of the council tax on 1 April 1993 which, contrary to the recent gloomy prognostications made by the hon. Member for Brightside, is firmly on course.
I apologise to any hon. Member if I have not replied to their questions in the short time available, and in the time spent dealing with interventions, some of which I should not have wasted my time on. I will endeavour to write to all the hon. Members to whom I have not replied. I commend the reports to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Special Grant Report (No. 4) (House of Commons Paper No. 61), which was laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE (WALES)
Resolved,
That the Special Grant Report (Wales) 1992 (House of Commons Paper No. 80), which was laid before this House on 19th June, be approved.—[Mr. David Hunt.]

Community Charges
6.59 pm
The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. John Redwood): I beg to move,
That the draft Charge Limitation (England) (Maximum Amounts) Order 1992, which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.
The range of local authority responsibilities is enormous—from education and planning to refuse collection; from social services to street lighting. The range will soon be extended to cover care in the community. Local authorities enable local people to have influence over the quality, efficiency and range of local services. That is the stuff of local debate and the substance of local elections. The local delivery of certain services—many of them essential to their communities—is a central feature of a pluralist society.
Because of the range and scale of their responsibilities, local authorities spend very large sums of money. In each county and district area, local authorities spend well over £1,000 for every man, woman and child each year. For example, last year, the total spending per adult was £1,840 —a very large sum of money. Total local government expenditure is now running at around £65 billion. That means that local authorities have a great deal of choice and discretion over how many and what kind of non-statutory services to supply, and discretion over the style, quantity and quality of many statutory services. Of course, everyone in the House believes in local government and wishes it to flourish.
It gives me no pleasure, therefore, to move the motion. I should prefer there to be no need to cap at all. But, unlike Labour Members, we are prepared to face up to the problems that excessive public expenditure can pose. Most now agree that there should be overall limits on both public expenditure and taxation. Some Labour Members are looking a little quizzical, but the Labour party proposed caps for its regional assemblies in its general election programme. The right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) is always trying to exert some control over the spending proclivities of his hon. Friends, although we know that he is often unsuccessful. As local authority spending is now nearly 9 per cent. of gross domestic product and about a quarter of total public expenditure, that, too, has to be under some control to ensure that total public expenditure is under control.
For the 1991–92 budget cycle, we acted by announcing provisional capping criteria in the preceding autumn as authorities had suggested. When authorities came to set their budgets, they knew our intentions for capping. The result speaks for itself. Local authority budgeted spending was about only 0.5 per cent. more than the amount that we provided in our settlement for that year.
The Local Government Finance and Valuation Act 1991 allowed us, in the 1992–93 budget cycle, to consider authorities budgeting below £15 million for the first time. We again announced provisional capping criteria in advance of authorities setting their budgets.
What has happened this year? More than 400 authorities have budgeted within or very close to the limits implied by the provisional criteria. Overall, the total of local authority budgets is about 1 per cent. more than the amount for which we made provision in our settlement for 1992–93. That result is an achievement of our capping

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strategy. I should also like to see it as a tribute to the good sense and responsibility of much of local government. All that is a far cry from the alarmist comments of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) on Second Reading of the Local Government Finance and Valuation Bill, when his remarks went over the top.
This year's capping round began last November when the former Secretary of State for the Environment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), announced the provisional criteria for designating authorities for capping which he intended to adopt. Local authorities were told, at that time, that they should not assume that small amounts of spending above the criteria would be allowed. My right hon. Friend said that he intended to consider the effect of boundary changes on authorities' budgets for 1991–92 and 1992–93.
My right hon. Friend stated, when he laid before the House the 1992–93 settlement reports on 23 January 1992, that he stood firmly by his intentions for the capping criteria which he had announced on 26 November. On 12 March, the former Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), confirmed to the House, in a written answer, the intention to use the same provisional criteria.
Local authorities knew in advance of setting their 1992–93 budgets what to expect. Our aim this year was to act to achieve as much as possible in advance by laying down clear and fair guidelines, with as little as possible having to be done by actual capping.
On 14 May, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment took his capping decisions. He had regard to all appropriate considerations, including the budgets which authorities had set, the effect of boundary changes on authorities' budgets for 1991–92 and 1992–93, and those provisional criteria.
My right hon. and learned Friend made only one modification to the original criteria by including a de minimis proviso—where the reduction from capping would be less than £1.50 per adult, he agreed not to cap. In deciding that, he had regard to a number of considerations applicable to this year. As he told the House, it should not be assumed that in any future year we would include a similar de minimis proviso.
On the basis of those clear principles, 10 authorities were designated for capping. Of the 39 county councils, 37 budgeted below the criteria. All of the 36 metropolitan districts budgeted below the criteria. Of the 33 London boroughs, 30 budgeted below the criteria. Of the 296 non-metropolitan districts, 291 budgeted below the criteria.
I remind the House that no authority is capped if it budgeted at or below its standard spending assessment. To those Labour Members who dismiss SSAs as inadequate, I emphassise that, in total, they increased by almost 7 per cent. this year—well above the expected rate of inflation —which built on a substantial 19.4 per cent. rise in 1991–92. We have listened to local authority representations on those issues and we have acted.
Hon. Members: No, the Government have not.
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): That is not the case if my hon. Friend considers the London borough
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of Hillingdon, which has done everything in its power to act responsibly in its financial management. Because of the concerns expressed by the three hon. Members who represent seats within the borough of Hillingdon—my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) and for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and myself—my hon. Friend should be aware of the special circumstances in the borough, namely, the large influx of refugee children who must be accommodated because Heathrow happens to be in the borough. Hillingdon is also affected adversely by the financial formula—because many of its schools—three quarters of them in Ruislip-Northwood—have opted out. Therefore, the Minister should be much more generous in our case.
Mr. Redwood: I am well aware of the worries of my hon. Friends who represent constituencies in Hillingdon. They have been assiduous in putting their case to the Government. In February, there was a meeting with the Prime Minister, and the Government again considered their representations. Unfortunately for my hon. Friends, we concluded that the SSAs were fair and that, therefore, the capping had to apply in the way that I have reaffirmed tonight. I assure my hon. Friends that the representations were considered carefully. No one could have done more than my three hon. Friends in putting the case for Hillingdon very forcibly to the Government.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Although I accept the decision that the Government have made on the SSAs, of which many will not approve, it would be welcome to both sides of the House if the Government told the Department of the Environment and other Departments—in the case of Greenwich, the Department of Health which is responsible for social service SSAs—that they should be willing to receive deputations and examine the way in which factors work. As other hon. Members will no doubt point out, the fact that Greenwich looks after children at the cost of £39 a year, when the neighbouring borough of Lewisham, with virtually identical characteristics, spends £139, shows that the factor system operates beyond all reason.
Mr. Redwood: Of course I shall look again at any representations for next year's SSAs that my hon. Friends or Opposition Members wish to make. The Department always looks carefully at the data for each year—the base data on which needs are assessed are often revised annually—and at the methodology, when people present new arguments or fresh evidence that needs to be considered.
Sir Dudley Smith: Although this is not the time to debate SSAs in detail because the figures are before us, will my hon. Friend undertake to continue the dialogue on SSAs with my hon. Friends and I from the Warwickshire area? We genuinely believe that the SSAs for our county are flawed.
Mr. Redwood: I assure my hon. Friends who represent Warwickshire that I shall look carefully at any points, on the data base or on how the SSAs are calculated, made by any hon. Member who feels that those need investigating. Some councils feel strongly about those matters. My right hon. and learned Friend and I need to be persuaded that there is something wrong with the theory and application of SSAs. They apply to many councils and must be fair across the country.
Mr. James Pawsey: First, I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. This is the fourth time that he has given way in his speech and I appreciate the impact that that has on his speech.
Although my hon. Friend makes an eloquent and persuasive case, he must admit that there is considerable power in the argument advanced by hon. Members representing Warwickshire. He may agree that Warwickshire has been hard done by. Although I acknowledge the additional £4 million granted to my county on appeal, the strength of Warwickshire's case is outlined, first, in the booklet that my hon. Friend has received and, secondly, in the booklet on the standard spending assessment. I hope that my hon. Friend, our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and officials at the Department will carefully consider how the SSAs—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. Interventions are getting longer and longer. [Interruption.] They may be of good quality, but they are too long.
Mr. Redwood: I am gratful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend. I repeat my reassurance that if there is a problem with the base data for next year or for the method of calculation for next year, we shall consider it. I am sure that my hon. Friends will not be shy in coming forward with suggestions and proposals.
Mr. George Stevenson: The Minister will appreciate that my intervention is as crucial as those of Conservative Members. Something is clearly wrong with the SSAs when Stoke-on-Trent receives £657 per head, and Wandsworth and Westminster receive £1,500 or £1,600 per head. Is there a time limit on the Minister's willingness to receive representations from local authorities that believe that their SSAs are inadequate or unfair?
Mr. Redwood: Written submissions on that subject should be sent to the Department as soon as possible, because we need to make decisions for next year in good time. Particularly with the introduction of the council tax, local authorities need to know in good time what the position will be. So the window is not long but I am willing to look at new evidence. The best way to proceed is for the hon. Gentleman to send in a written submission. We can then see whether a meeting would be a good idea or whether the submission covers a new point.
Standard spending assessments have risen by about 7 per cent. this year and they rose by 19.4 per cent. the preceding year, which represents a substantial rise in permitted spending and in the grant based on that calculation. Each SSA is based on a complex formula designed to measure the needs and requirements in different local areas by a common standard. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) referred to one or two inner London areas with relatively high SSAs, but he could have mentioned others under Labour control that have even higher SSAs. Those are based on formulae according to the number of people in different categories and the type of needs in the area. He is at liberty to obtain from the Department the basis of the calculations and satisfy himself that many other inner London areas get higher SSAs than the two that he mentioned.
Mr. Nick Raynsford: The Minister says that the SSA formula is complex. Does he agree that mistakes could be made? He will recall his meeting last week with a delegation from the London borough of Greenwich, when we discussed the particular needs of refugees and he stressed that those would be reflected in the SSAs. Having taken advice on that, it is clear to me that the SSA formula does not adequately reflect the position of recently arrived refugees. There is a substantial time lag. The need is not unique to Greenwich; other London boroughs have a similar problem. Does the Minister accept that Greenwich is being penalised by a lack of provision for those needs?
Mr. Redwood: As I have said, the Government are satisfied that the SSAs for the current year on which capping is based are fair and correct. We review from time to time the data and formulae for ensuing years. The hon. Gentleman can see that in the past adjustments have been made to reflect changing circumstances. I remind him that the Greenwich SSA is 8 per cent. more than in 1991–92, so it is above the national average increase, and 32 per cent. more than in 1990–91. So the news is not nearly as bad as he suggests.
For each of the 10 designated authorities, my right hon. and learned Friend proposed caps or maximum amounts for their budgets. He took account of all appropriate considerations in taking those decisions and the proposed caps took account of all the relevant information available to us. As in previous years, we took the view that where, on the basis of the information then available to us, we judged that authorities were able to reduce their budgets by the full amount implied by the criteria, they should be required to do so, particularly as nearly all other local authorities had lived within the criteria—some with considerable ease.
The designated authorities were notified on 14 May of their designation, the general principles on the basis of which they were designated and the amount of our proposed cap. They then had a period of 28 days in which to inform us whether they accepted the proposed cap. If they challenged the cap, they had to suggest an alternative figure together with a supporting case.
In the event, two authorities—Langbaurgh and Middlesbrough—accepted the proposed caps. Langbaurgh's proposed cap represented a small relaxation compared with the amount implied by the principles. The other eight authorities challenged. Basildon and Greenwich proposed caps of £2.96 million and £1.62 million respectively below their original budgets. The others wished to maintain their original budgets.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and I have met delegations from each of these authorities to hear their oral representations in support of their written cases for a reduced cap. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State very carefully considered the points made at those meetings, together with all the other available relevant information before taking his decisions.
In the case of five authorities—Cheltenham, Gloucester, Greenwich, Hillingdon and Lambeth—he decided that caps should be set at the level originally proposed. For the remaining three—Basildon, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire—he has decided that, in the light of their particular circumstances, some relaxation was justified.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear".] I am glad that my hon. Friends think that that was a wise

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judgment. As a result, we have decided to increase the caps for those authorities by £1.95 million, £2.59 million and £4 million respectively.
I must emphasise that our aim during the capping process has been to require a designated authority to reduce its budget to such a level that it would no longer be excessive or represent an excessive increase. Where we judge that an authority can achieve that maximum reduction without the risk of inappropriate reductions in front-line services, we have required that of them, however tough and demanding it might be.
It is only in those cases where the circumstances of an authority are such that we judge that it would not be right within the financial year to demand the full reductions of that authority that we have decided to require a smaller reduction.
I must make it clear that, in those three cases where we have allowed an increase in the cap from the level that we originally proposed, we did so after extremely searching analysis of each of the authority's individual circumstances. My right hon. and learned Friend considers the caps of each of the eight authorities to be reasonable, achievable and appropriate, in the light of all of the individual circumstances of the authorities involved. If the House approves the draft order, it will be for each authority to decide how to live within those caps.
I have little doubt that we shall hear much from Opposition Members about the effects of capping. I can only say that time and again there are dire warnings issued about the consequences of capping which, in the event, are simply not borne out. It is for authorities to order their priorities within their caps and we are satisfied that they will be able to provide an appropriate level of service within the caps if they choose to do so.
More than 97 per cent. of local authorities have budgeted sensibly this year. Just 10 authorities, four fewer than for last year, have been designated for capping. That is the second lowest number of authorities capped in the history of rate and charge capping, despite a great increase in the number of authorities within the scope of capping following the abolition of the £15 million threshold by the Local Government Finance and Valuation Act 1991. That is an achievement in which local government as a whole can take some pleasure. It is certainly a pleasure to me.
I regret that it has proved necessary to designate even 10 authorities. Next year, with the advent of the council tax, I hope that it will not be necessary to designate any. But let there be no doubt about our resolve to ensure that the transition to the council tax is not accompanied by any great surge in spending; we are determined that the substantial Exchequer support that we now provide for local government is used to keep local taxes at affordable levels and is not frittered away on unnecessary additional spending. Local government, for its good future, needs an independent tax, which has to be brought in at sensible levels. Our aim for next year, as for this year, is that local authorities budget in line with what the country and their local taxpayers can afford.
The order, if approved, is the final step to bring the 1992–93 capping process to a conclusion. It reinforces our strategy of expenditure control and about 1.4 million charge payers stand to benefit. I commend it to the House.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind hon. Members that the amendment has not been selected and that Madam Speaker asked for brief speeches.
7.22 pm
Mr. David Blunkett: The first speech that I made from the Front Bench as shadow spokesman for local government four years ago was on capping. Given the exigencies of time, this may be my last speech in that role, so it is fitting that it should also be on capping.
It is suitable to quote back to the devil the devil's own propaganda, which the Minister may care to comment on. The propaganda contains phrases such as:
"Tax capping is a democratic obscenity."
Those words were uttered not by me, but by the editor of The Times this morning. He stated:
"Since discretionary local spending is not included in the Treasury's planning total for public expenditure, this accretion of power is pure meddling, the restless fidgeting of Treasury and environment ministers and officials. Mr. Howard and Mr. Redwood, immured in the corridors of Whitehall, have the same contempt for tiers of government below their own as do Mr. Delors and his colleagues in Brussels."
Knowing the warm feeling that the Minister of State has towards Mr. Delors and the Brussels bureaucracy, I am sure that those sentiments will give him pause for thought.
Here we are again with a Government preaching choice and denying it to the local electorate, espousing responsibility and declaring the electorate and the elected irresponsible, preaching opportunity and demanding cuts in the education, social services and leisure facilities that offer that opportunity.
Mr. Redwood: I resent the implication that I do not believe in or respect local government. I believe in it and think that it has an important role to play, as I made clear in my opening speech. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that, if it were in office, the Labour party would take no interest in the total level of local authority expenditure and would not control the amount of grant paid by central Government? Is he saying that the Labour party would give local authorities any money that they asked for, which is what the hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting?
Mr. Blunkett: The Minister's righteous indignation will have to be aimed at the editor of The Times, not me. No doubt he will take up the matter in other quarters.
We have always made it clear that money raised and spent locally is not the business of the national Exchequer but that of local people. That principle is accepted across the democratic world, including the United States of America, and is one to which we in this country should adhere.
Mr. David Wilshire: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that all expenditure, whether public or private, has an effect on a national economy? If he does, will he explain how any central Government could wash their hands of one part of expenditure?
Mr. Blunkett: The expenditure that the Government have to raise by borrowing is something that the Government have to take into account. We disagree with the Government on what should be counted as part of the public spending totals raised through borrowing. We believe that the practices of other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

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Development are more sensible, as they allow subsidiarity so that money can be raised from the markets at democratic levels below that of the national Government. That makes the economies of those countries much more effective and less likely to come under the pressures of the Maastricht treaty arrangements. I am sure that hon. Members from all parties would be interested to examine those policies.
There is no evidence that locally raised and spent revenue has a major impact on inflation or the Government's ability to raise from the markets the money that they need. Hence the Government's own belief that when they increased value added tax the effect on the economy was marginal. However, they seem to believe that £3 on the poll tax of the people of Gloucester will have a dramatic impact on our economy in future and the Government's ability to manage their economic policy—in so far as it exists.
Mr. Wilkinson: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's generosity in allowing me to intervene yet again -in the debate.
The cap will reduce the community charge in Hillingdon borough by the princely sum of £5 per head. To my knowledge. I have not yet had a single letter from a constituent complaining at the level of community charge this year.
Mr. Blunkett: I can only accord with what the hon. Gentleman says—the staggering £5 reduction has obviously evoked an enormous and grateful reaction from the Hillingdon electorate and will clearly make an enormous difference to the bridging problems of the current account deficit with which the Chancellor is struggling!
Mr. Terry Dicks: I wish to take up the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), as I have received complaints about the additional charge to poll tax payers that was necessary in order to look after refugee children. If that responsibility had been accepted by central Government, even those letters would not have arrived in my post bag.
Mr. Blunkett: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not even have received letters about the refugee children were it not for the fact that his constituents knew that, in order to meet that responsibility, which was perfectly reasonable, given the location of Heathrow airport.. their own services had to be cut. However, that is the prospect they face. It is a moral disgrace to ask the residents of a specific locality to pick up the bill for meeting such responsibilities and thus suffer reduced services. In order to fulfil their duty to the refugee children who come from around the world, Hillingdon residents inevitably have to suffer reduced services. They can do nothing about that, any more than the residents of Cheltenham can do anything about the land taken over from Tewkesbury, which has resulted in the cuts necessitated by the cap placed on them.
If it were not so serious it would be ridiculously funny to debate a £5 reduction in the bills of people in Hillingdon, £3 in Gloucester and £12 in Cheltenham.
The amount in Warwickshire is peanuts, though not in terms of cuts in services. All hon. Members arid all commentators know that it is daft. Eight authorities are
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being capped to reduce by a tiny fraction the amount raised by local people. Neither electors, chambers of commerce and trade, newspapers, parents, MPs nor councillors in Warwickshire agree with Warwickshire being capped.
Sir Dudley Smith: I do not like to agree with the hon. Gentleman, but he is absolutely right. There is unanimity among all the political parties and everybody in local government.
Mr. Blunkett: The irony is that the only people who are in favour of Warwickshire being capped are those who do not have to live there. Those people are not worried about the day-to-day policing of the streets and do not share the concern of parents of schoolchildren or the anxiety of elderly people who need to be cared for in residential homes or by home helps in their own homes. They are not concerned about the quality of fire cover. The same applies to Gloucestershire, which is hardly the most profligate authority in Britain. Hillingdon, Warwickshire and, of course, Basildon are Conservative authorities. What about Basildon?
Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blunkett: I shall give way to the hon. Member for the Billericay tendency.
Mrs. Gorman: In Basildon the cap will mean savings of £41 per charge payer per year. They would have had to pay a very high £361. That saving is welcome. We are spending the money not on such worthy causes as refugee children but on sports and parks facilities on which Basildon spends £32 per head per year. The average for the country is about £10. Those are the sort of facilities on which Basildon wasted money, and the people of Billericay and Basildon are delighted at the cap.
Mr. Blunkett: The voters of Basildon exercised their right to vote and elected a Tory council. That is democracy. The new leader of Basildon council can hardly be described as a wet. His local papers are already calling for his resignation for his incompetence in handling the closure of the local theatre. For the Billericay and Basildon tendencies theatres are persona non grata. The idea of culture has not yet filtered down to Basildon from the Department of National Heritage. Perhaps the new Secretary of State will step in to ensure that the measly £3,000 which would have kept the theatre open for an extra week to allow a children's production to be held is made available. [Interruption.] A Conservative Member says that we should shed tears. The town manager of Basildon said after the election that meeting the cuts would be devastating for Basildon. That could hardly be described as a reflection of socialist fervour. The idea that welfare rights and advice centres, youth services and facilities for the disabled that are not available from the county should not be cut should not be dismissed by sneers about tears. The people who will feel those cuts will not see anything to sneer about. But that is what the people of Basildon voted for, although on 21 May even the leader of Basildon council agreed that if the cuts had to be implemented on the basis of the original cap it would be "Goodbye Basildon".
Mr. James Hill: Nonsense.
Mr. Blunkett: I did not say goodbye Basildon: it was said by the hon. Gentleman's colleague, the leader of the Conservative council. I was not surprised that the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) welcomed the £7 million cut that his friends in the Conservative council have vigorously tried to resist now that they are in power. The hon. Member for Basildon welcomed the announcement that Basildon would have to contribute to the poll tax safety net, not understanding that locally raised money would be given away.
Conservatives are so well versed in local government finance that they are engaged in flights of fancy, such as commending to the Prime Minister the new airline agreement for Europe. Many of them are up in the air and flying away rather than having their feet on the ground and being concerned about policing, safe, clean and acceptable streets, and comfortable and safe neighbourhoods in which to live. We have not spoken enough about protecting people from an increasingly brutish and unacceptable society in which self-interest rather than self-reliance has been the order of the day. There is litter and filth and graffiti and people fear to walk on our streets at night.
In addition to education and care for our children and those in social service care and a desire for decent leisure and cultural facilities, we are interested in a civilised and decent society in which people can walk safely on the streets. Cutting policing in Warwickshire or Gloucestershire does not help one iota towards that aim. As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) has said, such aims are not helped by penalising an authority and making it impose more cuts because, compared with neighbouring boroughs, it got a poor standard spending assessment for the provision of children's services. Conservative Members spoke about provision in Lewisham. Wandsworth receives almost double the amount per person for children's services that is allocated to Greenwich.
At the Adam Smith Institute the Prime Minister spoke about expectations in schools. They were wise words and would have been commendable and taken seriously if, at the same time as the Prime Minister spoke about parachuting teachers to inner-city schools and increasing expenditure on them, his capping regime and his formula funding mechanisms were not cutting the spending on such schools and preventing increased expectation by parents and improved education for children. Greenwich spends £7 million more than its standard spending assessment on education. The same amount above the Government's SSA has been spent on social services in Lambeth, but the borough is expected to cut that amount in order to meet some centrally determined preconception of what should be spent on local people.
It is time for a return to a bit of basic democracy, the kind of thing that is commonplace on the continent where nobody holds councillors in the contempt in which they are held by the Government and Conservative Members. People on the continent respect local democracy and accept the right of local people and their representatives to decide what is right for them. It is short-sighted and centralist and Delorsian in its corporatism and in its harking back to the past to continue the capping regime and the diktats of central Government. That is why we are opposing the order. That is why we believe that capping is fatally flawed. That is why we believe that at some stage in the future, despite the best efforts of the continuing regime
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in Westminster and Whitehall, we shall return to a position where decentralised and devolved local government, with real subsidiarity, will be able to take decisions on behalf of local people—local people will have voted for it—and there will be respect for that local democracy, which is the life blood of any civilised society.
7.40 pm
Mr. Michael Shersby: The decision of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to cap Hillingdon, in which my constituency is situated, is both unnecessary and unjustified. Hillingdon's original budget was £167,140,000 and the cap proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend is £166,270,000. In other words, it is proposed that Hillingdon should spend £870,000 less than that it had planned, despite the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend knows that the borough faces extraordinary items of expenditure which are not of its own making but are the direct consequences of national policies. Those items include the costs of caring for 31 unaccompanied refugee children from Ethiopia, Uganda, Angola and the territory of Eritrea. I heard today that there are now another five children from Zaire and Afghanistan. The cost to Hillingdon of caring for these children last year was £936,000, a substantial sum and one that is in excess of the amount by which Hillingdon is being requested to reduce its expenditure.
My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities knows that, because of the outstanding and unique success of Hillingdon in 15 per cent. of its schools applying for and achieving grant maintained status—more than any other local authority in the United Kingdom—the allocation of funds through the schools formula will mean that Hillingdon will lose another £1 million. That is because the allocation of funds is based on central costs of 16 per cent. of the aggregated schools budget. In effect, this means that GM schools will receive the same cash amount for 1992–93 as they would have been eligible to receive under the old rules when they were local education authority schools.
As the LEA has fewer funds with which to do its job, it has to cut its staff costs. By the end of 1991–92, Hillingdon's education department had shrunk by 78 posts, from 216 to 138. The savings achieved for 1992–93 as a result are £6.17 million. There are now only 120 staff in post in the education department. But still Hillingdon loses £1 million as a result of the formula, which has been rigidly applied.
My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities knows all about this. As he has told the House, together with my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) and for Ruislip—Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), I went to see my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 18 February to acquaint him with the situation which we foresaw. We wished especially to emphasise the problem that Hillingdon faces in caring for unaccompanied children who are literally dumped at Heathrow and who have to be looked after. We wanted my right hon. Friend to know also of the difficulties that result from the financial formula that affects grant-maintained schools.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was extremely sympathetic and understanding. He understood the problem immediately. As a result, he arranged for a

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delegation from Hillingdon to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who was then the Secretary of State for the Environment. Hillingdon was obliged, due to the extraordinary items of expenditure to which I have referred, to reduce its expenditure by the amount referred to by my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities. It had to do so as a result of policies that the Government had implemented.
My hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Ruislip—Northwood have made it clear in interventions—I am about to emphasise the point —that Hillingdon has an outstanding record. Since the Conservative group came to office in May 1990, with a majority of only one, it has reduced expenditure by £30 million. It has also reduced staff posts by about 1,400. I suggest that that is a truly remarkable record. It has put the borough council's finances on a sound footing. The community charge, which is £295, is by no means excessive.
Why is it that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State seems to think that Hillingdon is spending so much? I suppose it must be because of the shining example that is set by his Department in keeping down its running costs. We can only assume that it is under firm control and observing strict disciplines and that my right hon. and learned Friend is anxious to pass on the example to Hillingdon. It seems that my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities has this message for Hillingdon: "At all costs you must cut your expenditure by £870,000 and adhere to the same strict disciplines that I am imposing on my Department in Marsham street."
As the House will know, for the past nine years I have been a member of the Public Accounts Committee. That has caused me, like you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to develop an inquiring mind about the cost of running central Government. Economy, efficiency and effectiveness are the watchwords of the denizens of Committee Room 16, who meet twice a week to take evidence from witnesses from the Department of the Environment and elsewhere.
I have been doing some work on my own account. I have examined the central running costs of the Department of the Environment to see how it is setting the magnificent example that it wants Hillingdon to follow. What do I find? I find that at constant prices expenditure increased from £172 million in 1990–91 to £193 million in 1991–92. It is planned to increase expenditure still further to £202 million in 1992–93. My right hon. and learned Friend's Department increased its expenditure by no less than 12.3 per cent. in 1990–91. If we take the total running costs of the Department, including those of the Property Services Agency and the Office of Water Services, at 1992–93 prices, the cost to taxpayers, including those in Hillingdon, increased from £212 million in 1990–91 to a massive £256 million in 1991–92, an increase of 20.5 per cent.
Then there are staff costs. Hillingdon is being told, like other local authorities, that it must keep down its staff costs, despite the fact that it has already shed 1,400 staff. The Department says that that reduction is not enough. What is the Department doing? What example is it setting for us? I find that the Department's staff has increased from 5,930 in 1987–88 to 6,425 in 1991–92. I wonder what has happened to the envelope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley, who is now the President of the Board of Trade, gave to his permanent secretary when he
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took office. It seems that it has been lost. It does not appear that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State is doing very much to set an example for local authorities by curbing expenditure on excessive staff costs.
Mr. Wilshire: This is riveting stuff. Does my hon. Friend agree that he is making a case for capping the Government as well as local government? If that is so, I am happy to support him.
Mr. Shersby: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention.
Unfortunately, worse is to come. One of the central problems facing Hillingdon is the schools formula and the way that it is working for GM schools. I have examined the expenditure of the Department for Education and its staffing. I find that its staff has increased by 288 since 1987 to this year.
I invite the House to consider the costs that Hillingdon will incur in setting a new budget. I was told today by the director of finance that the cost of rebilling will be £165,000. That, too, has to be found out of the capped budget. What will the community charge payers of Hillingdon gain from being capped? The answer is £4.86, which is 1.3p a day—hardly worth the effort, I suggest.
The Minister is gravely in error in capping Hillingdon. Nothing much will be gained as a result of his decision and a great deal will be lost. I invite him to consider the effect of his decision on the morale of my colleagues on Hillingdon borough council who, for the past two years, have had to take the most difficult decisions in order to achieve very considerable improvements in the public service and in the financing of the borough. Something else will be lost—my vote in the Division Lobby tonight.
7.50 pm
Mr. John Fraser: I begin with a few words about the annual argument that we have about local government. The distribution of democratic power in this country is between central Government and local government. In other nations there are different balances —in the United States between the federal Government and individual states and in Germany between the federal Government and the lander. The division of democratic power here between central Government and local government ought to be a matter of constitutional agreement that rises above disputes between the parties. Since this Government came to power in 1979, there have been about 50 statutes regulating local government. There ought to be a constitutional separation of powers upon which we can all agree. There ought not to be continual arguments in the House about interference with another tier of government. If I judge rightly the mood of the House, there is consensus about the degree of independence of local government in these matters. The odd person out is the person representing central Government.
Mrs. Gorman: Not a bit of it.
Mr. Fraser: We have just listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), who gave the impression that neither he nor some of his colleagues intend to support the Minister 100 per cent. Matters relating to the constitutional division of power ought to be ones on which the House and the parties can agree. We

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should not continually be resurrecting the body of local government and digging up the tree by the roots, if that is not too much of a mixed metaphor.
My borough of Lambeth set a budget of £333 million. The Government believe that its budget should be reduced to £328 million, a reduction of £4.4 million, or a reduction in poll tax of about 50p a week for the people living in the borough. The saving would be less than 50p a week because of poll tax reduction schemes and rebates. One is not, therefore, talking about a great deal of money.
The Department of the Environment increased Lambeth's standard spending assessment by £20 million, but the capping exercise has restricted the increase in its expenditure to £17 million. If the order is approved, Lambeth's poll tax will be reduced from £448 to £422 per person. In absolute terms, a poll tax of £448 is too high. It impoverishes the area by taking money out of the local economy. It is particularly harsh on relatively poor, elderly, single people living on their own who, as a result of the Government's machinations, pay substantially more than is paid by their affluent neighbours.
That level of poll tax leads to anti-social habits, such as evasion. When people get into the habit of evading their public duty of paying the poll tax, the habit tends to spread into other areas. My biggest argument against the poll tax is that it begins to undermine people's relationship with local government and with the state. Eventually it could lead to criminal activity. The Government had to accept that it was so destructive that they had to abolish it.
I do not believe that at this time of the year, coming up to July, it is worth while to cut the poll tax. At the very most, the effect on poll tax payers would be marginal—a reduction of 50p at the most. My experience—and I believe it to be the experience of most other hon. Members —is that there has been little lobbying against the current level of poll tax, as against the level that the Government propose. Since the effect on poll tax payers will be marginal, it seems to me to be plain crazy to alter the level of local taxation when we are at least a quarter of the way through the financial year.
The effect, however, on those who consume services —this is particularly true of education—will not be marginal. It will be both deep and severe. The effect of the capping order on the revenue that is collected by way of the poll tax will be huge. There will be irreparable losses as revised bills are sent out and as frustration over the continuously revised poll tax translates itself into non-payment. Bad debt—irrecoverable poll tax—will be the consequence of asking Lambeth to rebill and recap its rebates. It will throw the present collection system—which is beginning to work reasonably well in my borough—into confusion.
Two alternatives could have been proposed. The first is to allow councils such as Lambeth to write off their bad, irrecoverable debt without treating it as expenditure.
Mr. Redwood: Whew!
Mr. Fraser: The Minister says "Whew!". When the Government wanted to sell British Airways—when the private investor was to get his sticky hands on British Airways—what did the Government do? They wrote off bad and irrecoverable debt. If the Minister says "Whew!" like that, can he tell us whether the Government intend to
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write off bad and irrecoverable debt when they sell off British Coal in order to allow the private investor to get his sticky fingers on British Coal?
Mr. Roy Thomason: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fraser: No, because a lot of hon. Members want to speak in the debate. It would be better, therefore, if I did not give way.
When it came to selling off British Steel, did not the Government write off bad and irrecoverable debt? The same applies to Rolls-Royce. I do not know, therefore, why the Minister said "Whew!"
The right thing to do is to allow boroughs to get rid of their bad and irrecoverable debt, which is largely the result of rate penalties. When we had the rate penalty system, if a tenant moonlighted owing £1 in rent and it was written off, it counted as expenditure and the local authority lost £1.60 in grant. That was the result of central Government's interference with local government finance. Consequently, local authorities throughout the country kept the bad debt on their books. The consequence of writing it off was that it would count as expenditure and would lead to even greater penalties than the level of debt that was being written off.
The second alternative is that the Government should recognise and accept the truth about the population of the borough of Lambeth and the realities of collecting poll tax. I accuse the Government of ignoring the truth about the population of Lambeth and of ignoring the borough's ability to collect in order to stigmatise the borough. I know that not everything is perfect in Lambeth. I do not represent the borough; I represent the people of Lambeth.
Let me give an illustration of how the Government have ignored the realities. The Office of Population Censuses and Surveys states that the adult population of my borough is 180,000. The first results of the 1991 census showed that Lambeth had an adult population of 179,000, or thereabouts. That is almost exactly the same as Lambeth's estimate of its own population but, without any figures to back them up, the Government say that the adult population of Lambeth liable to pay the poll tax is 189,630. They calculate that there are 10,000 more people than the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys estimates and 10,000 more than appeared on the 1991 census. With a poll tax of about £422 to £448 a year, the missing 9,000 people represent £4 million of imputed income, which is almost exactly the amount of the Government cap in the order. If the Government were to believe their own statistics, their own census and their own OPCS, we should not need to discuss the order. The Government are denying us the money because their population figures are wrong, but ours are right.
We could reduce the poll tax substantially if the Government would recognise the problems of collecting the poll tax in a borough where 40 per cent. of all public sector tenants live on the poverty line, and in which 25 per cent. of the total population live on the poverty line. The 20 per cent. rule also makes it especially difficult to collect the poll tax. If the Government recognised the difficulty of collecting the poll tax, which was the underlying reason for abolishing that tax, they would accept our figure of about 82 per cent. collection rates. If the Government were to accept our figures for the population and for the collection

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rates, we could cut our poll tax by £74 per person, which is much greater than the 50p a week which will result from the order.
I conclude by giving three more reasons to oppose the order. First, as many hon. Members have said, it is undemocratic. If people are not content with the level of the poll tax or with their local services, they will have a simple solution in two years' time: they can get rid of councils with which they are not satisfied. There is growing evidence that the choices that people are making in local government elections are independent of those that they make in national elections.
I admit that the Minister spent five minutes talking to me behind the Speaker's Chair and listened to my views, but he refused to meet local government officers, a delegation from the local community, voluntary groups or churches. The police also wanted to talk to him, but he refused to meet any of those people and has overridden any local views except those of the leadership of the local council. That is wrong and it ignores the local democratic view and public opinion. After all, the results of the level of poll tax and of the conduct of our local authority led not to a backlash against Labour but to the loss of the Tory seat in Streatham only a few months ago.
Secondly, the order means a waste and a loss of revenue. It will cost about a quarter of a million pounds to rebill and to recalculate rebates in a borough which has such a high level of poverty and where there are so many rebates to be recalculated. That alone will cost about a quarter of a million pounds, but a bigger loss of revenue will come from the confusion that will result from rebilling. That will mean that millions of pounds will be lost, so the cap implies not only an explicit cut in expenditure of £4 million in the current year but serious cuts in the future as irrecoverable poll tax has to be written off as a result of the order.
The order devalues and dilutes the council's revenue for future years. That means that in the future a child or some children somewhere in my borough will not go to medical school or law school or become an artist or a creator because the amount spent on their education in my borough will have been cut as a result of the loss of revenue arising from this order. That is already happening in every London borough. The amount spent on children's education is reduced because of bad debts which were incurred before they were even born—
Mrs. Gorman: It is because people do not pay their rent.
Mr. Fraser: No, it has nothing to do with that. The hon. Lady should tell us why the amount spent on the education of a child of five in my borough should be reduced because of rent which a tenant did not pay eight years ago. Why should a child who is now four or five years old be penalised because of a debt which is now irrecoverable and which was incurred more than five years ago? That is the result of the way in which education is financed. It is also a result of the abolition of the Inner London education authority and the consequence of lumping the problems of London boroughs and their old debts together with other provisions.
The third reason to oppose the order is the cuts themselves. Lambeth had not planned to increase its spending greatly. It plans to spend an extra £4.4 million on education and an extra £1.6 million on social services. We read in the Evening Standard tonight that children in
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London are at greater risk of drug and child abuse than in any other part of the country. Lambeth also plans to spend about £50,000 extra on the disabled.
As a result of the cuts, the passport out of poverty provided by education will be curtailed to some extent because, in a borough such as Lambeth, education is the value-added element which can be added to a child's basic assets. The lives and opportunities of young people, children and the disabled will be adversely affected. I do not think that playing with people's lives is worth 50p or less a week.
8.6 pm
Mr. Alan Howarth: I have sought to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, out of sad necessity. I regret very much that Warwickshire has been capped. It is not an authority which has sought to confront the Government; it is not loony or extravagant but is a well-run Conservative-controlled authority, committed to providing a proper level of services on a cost-effective basis. The quality of its management has been praised by the Audit Commission whose opinion, I believe, the Government hold in some regard.
In Warwickshire we certainly understand the need for economy in the public finances, and Warwickshire county council has not sought to impose excessive burdens on its charge payers. Indeed, the increase in its precept since the introduction of the community charge has been the ninth lowest of any county council. But Warwickshire is being capped. That is because the Government's standard spending assessment understates Warwickshire's needs.
Warwickshire's needs are certainly no less than the average. Sadly, mortgage repossessions and infant mortality are above the county council average. Household disposable income and gross domestic product per household are below the county council average. That is recognised by the Minister's colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry and by the European Community in no fewer than three different programmes. Nearly half the population of Warwickshire lives in priority areas as defined by the DTI or the European Community. In the case of the European Community, Warwickshire is eighth out of the thirty-nine English county councils with regard to the proportion of the population in objective 2 areas. However, according to the Department of the Environment's assessment of need, Warwickshire is thirty-fifth out of 39 authorities.
Why is the Department of the Environment's assessment of Warwickshire's needs so peculiar? I cannot believe that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, of all people, is lagging behind the European Commissioners in common sense and realism. The explanation is that he has inherited responsibility for a system that places excessive weight on a restricted range of indicators of need. I shall outline briefly two distortions and one confusion in this massive system.
The area cost adjustment is intended to compensate local authorities for the costs of employment in the south-east of England. We in Warwickshire submit that the new earnings survey is an inappropriate guide. A high proportion of local authority labour costs are centrally determined, and there is little real flexibility for local authorities in respect of pay—for example, in the cases of the police, of fire fighters and of teachers.

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I am glad that my former colleagues in the Department of Education and Science managed to achieve a pay review body for teachers and that its recommendations have been accepted. However, if the Government will the ends, they must also will the means. It is not reasonable to require Warwickshire's education budget, already desperately stretched, to be cut in other aspects to enable the authority to honour that commitment.
There is an arbitrarily drawn frontier between the charmed area of the south-east, which benefits from the area cost adjustment, and the rest of the country. Unfortunately for us in Warwickshire, the boundary is drawn along the Oxfordshire-Warwickshire border. If we were in Oxfordshire, we should receive an extra £15.2 million, and then we would have no problems with our budget.
In different capacities I have had the opportunity to study the additional educational needs element in the formula at close quarters, and in my judgment it has two faults. The first is that the three indices of social deprivation on which it is based are too narrowly selected. In truth, additional educational needs, as defined by people of common sense, are diverse and pervade the whole school population. The weighting attached to additional educational needs in the standard spending assessment is excessive—22.5 per cent.—so that too high a proportion of resources is allocated according to socio-economic factors rather than according to pupil numbers. The result is underfunding of basic provision across the country. The cost to Warwickshire of the introduction of the additional educational needs element was £6.7 million in 1990–91.
As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, I have been a member of the ministerial team for "Action for Cities", and I fully share the Government's commitment to finding effective ways to bring better services to people in inner cities and to improve the quality of life there. But I question—as, I suspect, does my hon. Friend—whether massive transfers of resources from the shire counties are really the right way to achieve that. In Warwickshire the effect has certainly been to take from a county which is efficiently managed but austerely financed. I have no ill will towards Birmingham—although I admire Warwickshire's concept of education service delivery rather more than that of Birmingham—but we find it galling that Birmingham city council does not even spend up to its education SSA.
Sir Dudley Smith: My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, as is clear when he talks about the inner cities problem, but will he ally with that case what he said earlier —that less deserving shire counties, too, are getting more than Warwickshire?
Mr. Howarth: My hon. Friend is taking us back to the area cost adjustment consideration, and I certainly do not disagree with him about that.
The weighting of the additional educational needs element has been somewhat reduced within the overall system. I understand the political difficulties in taking the process further, but I believe that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of the Environment and the Department for Education should consider it further, because injustices and impracticalities are built into the formula.
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The confusion which I mentioned earlier consists in the contradictory requirements of different Whitehall Departments. I mentioned teachers' pay, and I shall cite one other instance. The Home Office requires Warwickshire to spend more than it does on the fire and rescue service, whereas the DOE insists that it should spend less. The budget is £2.4 million, or 32 per cent., above its fire SSA, yet Warwickshire's expenditure remains below the minimum on which the Home Office insists. We have received stern admonition from Her Majesty's inspector and from Home Office Ministers, yet when Warwickshire attempts to meet the Home Office requirements we find ourselves capped.
I ask the Minister of State, as I have already asked my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Home Office, to deal with this flat contradiction which places Warwickshire councillors in an impossible position and causes my constituents to suffer. I hope that the Minister will not simply accept that there is an impasse between those two massive Departments of State.
I could say more about the technical features of the system which operates so powerfully to the detriment of Warwickshire, but the case has been strongly set out and powerfully substantiated in a two-volume submission by the county which I commend to a wider readership. The issues raised in Warwickshire's case are issues of principle, and of national concern.
If the system of SSAs is to command respect, the anomalies within it and the damage that they cause must be eradicated. It will not do to plead, as the Government did last year, the overriding need for stability—because such stability means a perpetuation of injustice.
In the meantime, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister and to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for listening to and responding to Warwickshire's case. I believe that my hon. Friend recognises that the present position is not intellectually acceptable nor politically presentable, and I know him well enough to know that he cannot be satisfied with such a state of affairs.
The £4 million increase in Warwickshire's budget permitted under the order is a significant improvement for the county. But I remind my hon. Friend that it still leaves the county £3 million short of the expenditure that a responsible Conservative-controlled county council believed was the minimum appropriate budget. Already our education and youth services have suffered severely, and the police are experiencing the greatest difficulty in providing the service which the Home Office requires, which they wish to provide and which my constituents want from them.
The charge that the council has to make for home helps has risen by 25 per cent. above the rate of inflation, and something similar has happened with meals on wheels. Charges for lunches in old people's luncheon clubs are rising by even more than that. I recently visited the Earlswood senior citizens luncheon club, where people were incensed, but also bewildered and hurt, by the 50 per cent. increase in the cost of their luncheons.
The Government have implicitly conceded the inadequacies of the SSA for Warwickshire. The cap was lifted by £2.8 million last year, and between last year and this year formula adjustments have given us another £1.3 million. Now the Government have enabled us to spend an additional £4 million. They must now follow through the implications of that analysis and those decisions.

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I shall vote for the order, because I shall not vote against an increase of £4 million for my county, but I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to recognise the disruption, damage and distress suffered in Warwickshire last year and again this year. It would be intolerable to have to repeat that experience for yet another year. The waste of time, energy, money and emotion involved in such proceedings is deplorable, and the sheer unfairness is unacceptable. I urge the Government to embark upon a thorough review of the standard spending assessment now, in the interests of justice and of good government.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. I inform the House that no fewer than 14 hon. Members hope to catch my eye. It would appear that some of them will be disappointed, but it would be helpful if hon. Members were to bear that in mind and to make their speeches as brief as possible.
8.19 pm
Mr. Bill Olner: I shall try to be brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
When the Minister began to speak, there were so many Conservative interventions that I thought for a moment that I was watching a re-run of "Yes, Minister". I am sorry to see him sitting all alone on the Front Bench.
The issue that we are discussing is fundamental to the welfare of my constituents and the people of Warwickshire in general. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) spoke of the £4 million that the Government are contributing, but one could be forgiven for saying that they are contributing nothing at all. The elected members of Conservative-controlled Warwickshire county council have determined the level of service that is needed, and, although I consider their estimate far too low, they decided that £299 million was the amount required to provide that service.
That money is being collected. It began to be collected in April or May. I have received no letters from constituents saying that they are paying too much—although I have received plenty of letters from elderly people whose meals-on-wheels charges have risen by 50 per cent., and in some rural areas the service has been disbanded. Home-help charges have risen by some 25 per cent. It does the Government no good to become involved in horse trading. There is no rhyme or reason for their failure to accept the excellent document presented to them by Warwickshire county councillors, who made some good points when they arrived in a deputation attended by all Warwickshire Members.
I do not understand why the Government have relaxed their restrictions by only £4 million. I hope that all my hon. Friends representing Warwickshire will support the amendment that I have tabled with my hon. Friend the Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien) because it goes back to the original principle that local democracy means elected members determining the level of service that is required, along with the people whom they represent. That is patently not happening now.
The main problem is the standard spending assessment. As others have pointed out, Warwickshire county council was poll tax capped not only this year but last year. The
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formula has been wrong from the beginning, and I fear that nothing will be done to correct it in future years. The Government's £4 million is no more than a relaxation.
In the past few years, Warwickshire has cut more than £13 million from its budgets. That has meant an enormous reduction in education and youth service facilities, and there is still a shortfall. Warwickshire councillors will have to exercise the wisdom of Solomon if the motion is passed; in determining that shortfall I hope that my amendment will be accepted, so that the council can set the budget that it agreed.
There is a £4.2 million shortfall in the education budget, a £1.5 million shortfall in the social services budget and a £1.4 million shortfall in the budget for transport and fire and rescue services. Those are only figures, of course, but there is more to it than that. Last week, I hoped to question the Minister for Health about the implications of the Children Act 1989; I understand that she is to receive a delegation from Warwickshire's social services department, and I trust that Warwickshire Members in particular will bear this in mind. Even with the increased funds mentioned by the Minister, the council will not have enough money to ensure that more than scant regard is paid to the implementation of the Children Act. It will be unable to move to the next stage of that implementation.
People in my area deserve better than this. Warwickshire is made up of five districts, many of which suffer from social deprivation. As has been mentioned, RECHAR money is payable in some of those districts. The county does not consist only of leafy Stratford-on-Avon, Kenilworth and Warwick; it has another side—the industrial side.
Warwickshire used to boast a thriving mining industry and a heavy engineering industry. Sadly, both those industries have been in decline for some time. It is now recognized—not only in the House but in Europe and the relevant agencies—that they need more money. The stranglehold of the standard spending assessment and all that it implies prevents my local authority from putting into practice policies that would create an additional economic stimulus.
I urge every hon. Member to vote against the motion —not because I do not welcome the £4 million, but because, if Warwickshire is to fulfil its obligations to its people, it needs the budget set by its Conservative county council. It needs £299 million.
8.26 pm
Mr. Douglas French: The House gave my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment power to charge cap authorities on one of two grounds: that their budgets are excessive, or that the increase in those budgets in relation to the previous year is excessive. In his capping notice to the city of Gloucester —which I have the honour to represent—my right hon. and learned Friend said that his ground for capping was the fact that the increase in its budget between 1991–92 and 1992–93 was excessive.
How did my right hon. and learned Friend arrive at that view? He took the proposed budget figure of £10.343 million, compared it with the revenue support grant of £9.2 million for 1991–92 and then announced that that produced an increase of 12.4 per cent., which—by his standards—is excessive.

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I would argue that the base line figure with which my right hon. and learned Friend should compare the proposed budget is £9.7 million rather than £9.2 million. I believe that he has wrongly applied the rules that he himself set. In 1991, the boundaries of the city of Gloucester were extended, and the city took in an extra 6,000 people who had previously been in Stroud and Tewkesbury. It became Gloucester's responsibility to look after those 6,000 people, and its charge-paying population was effectively increased by 9 per cent.
I entirely accept that my right hon. and learned Friend calculated Gloucester's SSA for 1992–93 to reflect the boundary change. I do not dispute that the calculation reflects the increased population's spending needs. The SSA, however, is not the issue; the issue is the way in which the base line is calculated. The question is, where did the money come from to provide services for those 6,000 people in 1991–92, the year in which the transfer took place?
It would have been possible for the Department to increase the council's revenue support grant. There was time for it to do that, but it did not. Had that been done, the present argument would not have arisen: the base line expenditure figure would have been unambiguously £9.7 million. Instead, the districts agreed on an inter-district transfer of £510,000 to Gloucester, which was designed to cover the spending requirements of those 6,000 people.
That transfer was made with the full approval of the Secretary of State and in accordance with the guidelines set down by him. For all practical purposes, therefore, this was revenue support grant, but it was received indirectly, via another council. If it had been retained by the council from which it came, it would have been treated as revenue support grant. So it was not extra expenditure in any sense. It was money spent by Gloucester that would otherwise have been spent by Stroud and Tewkesbury, and would, of course, have been included in those authorities' base-line calculations.
To Gloucester's original budget of £9.2 million was added £510,000, making £9.7 million in all—but with one difference: under the rules, the amount was paid into the council's general fund and had to be treated as -other income". The result was that the section 95(4) calculation, which is used by the Secretary of State in his year-on-year comparisons, was artificially reduced by £510,000. If the money representing the rate support grant had been treated as rate support grant, the council's section 95(4) calculation base line would have been £9.7 million.
So the question is "What was the amount of money spent by Gloucester in 1991–92?" because that is the yardstick for judging whether the 1992–93 expenditure is or is not excessive. Was it the original figure of £9.2 million, before any population transfer took place? My right hon. and learned Friend thinks that it was. He takes £9.2 million as the base line and argues that a proposed budget of £10.343 million represents an increase of 12.4 per cent. That breaches his guidelines and therefore triggers the cap.
My right hon. and learned Friend and I agree on one thing: the figure of £9.2 million is the one that would have been correct if no population had been transferred; there is no doubt about that. My right hon. and learned Friend believes, however, that the same figure was correct as a
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base line even after population change funds had been transferred and spent. In my opinion, that is illogical, unfair and absurd. It is absurd to take the same base-line figure for two different sets of circumstances.
I shall not invite my hon. Friend the Minister to consider where my right hon. and learned Friend's methodology would lead if, instead of the population increase being 9 per cent., it had been 99 per cent. Would he then stick to his unadjusted base-line system? That simple illustration shows that there is a flaw in my right hon. and learned Friend's approach.
Is it not common sense that, because the £510,000 was transferred in respect of the 6,000 people, it should be deemed to be a legitimate addition to Gloucester council's 1991–92 budget? Gloucester did not spend £9.2 million in that year; it spent £9.7 million, with the Secretary of State's approval. It seems reasonable, therefore, that it should be able to apply a 6.5 per cent. increase to the £9.7 million and propose a budget of £10.343 million.
That seems reasonable now and it seemed reasonable when the council did it. But the city of Gloucester took no chances. It took vigorous steps to discover the Secretary of State's views in respect of the effect of boundary changes on budgets. The council wrote to the Department several times seeking clarification. In a letter about charge capping dated 17 December, the Department replied:
"As far as the Secretary of State's intentions for charge capping for 1992/93 are concerned you will be aware that the paper circulated to all local authorities on 26 November …stated that 'the Secretary of State … intends to consider the effects of boundary changes on authorities' budgets for 1991/92 and 1992/93.' That remains the position."
The letter continued, with respect to capping:
"As the Secretary of State made clear in his statement to the House of Commons on 26 November, his intentions are at present firm but necessarily provisional."
That is not exactly a model of clarity, but one accepts that obfuscation is sometimes a necessary instrument of Government.
Admittedly, that letter does not say that the Secretary of State intends to make full allowances for the boundary changes, but it emphatically does not say that he intends to make no allowances for them whatever.
In the event, the letter of 17 December was not sent to Gloucester city council until 11 March. With it came a covering letter, which said:
"This letter"—
meaning the letter of 17 December—
"actually from this office"—
one wonders where else it might come from—
"appears never to have been sent. I therefore enclose a copy, with apologies for this oversight."
By 11 March, the Department must have known that the budget-making process was not only well advanced but probably already accomplished. Whatever grounds for lack of clarity there may have been in November and December, the time for a clear decision had surely arrived by the middle of March. If it was the intention to treat the budget as if no population change had ever been made, it was time to say so, but the opportunity was not taken. I submit that the covering letter could and should have said that the Secretary of State had decided that no account would be taken of the money spent in respect of the additional population. It did not do so, even though the writer of the letter must have known that that was the information that Gloucester city council would need to know. Nor did the author of the letter show any sign of

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appreciating that there would come a point—in fact, that, there had come a point at that stage—at which further failure to set a budget would become an offence.
I submit that, if a clear and unequivocal statement had been made, at that time or earlier, to the effect that the £510,000 that had been spent must be treated as if it had not been spent, we would not be discussing this subject tonight, because Gloucester would have followed the instructions that it had been given. Members and officers of Gloucester city council from all parties believed that they were acting in accordance with the rules set down by the Secretary of State. One of the things on which we have cross-party agreement on Gloucester city council is that there was no intention to breach the capping guidelines. Indeed, there is abundant evidence in council correspondence and council minutes that the council had no intention whatever of breaching the rules. It was the council's wish and intention to keep within them. Why else would the council have had lengthy debates to that end? The council was debating not by how much it should seek to breach the guidelines but how to trim its budget to ensure that it was within the guidelines and did not run the risk of being capped. That is in keeping with the tradition of a prudent authority, which is what Gloucester has been. It has not been profligate or irresponsible. One may sometimes argue about the particular headings of expenditure priorities that it chooses, but, overall, it is a prudent authority.
It was not until the council received the notice of designation on 14 May 1992 that it became aware that the Secretary of State had not taken account at all of the boundary changes. What became evident then was that, on the Secretary of State's offbeat and eccentric method of calculation, Gloucester had breached the capping guidelines. It is not simply my view or that of Gloucester city council that the method is offbeat and eccentric. Section 55 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 refers to the designation of authorities from 1993 onwards making specific provision for including in budget comparisons an amount to recognise boundary changes. Parliament has clearly recognised that year-on-year comparisons of budgets which do not take into account boundary changes may well be unfair.
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities for listening to representations from Gloucester city council. However, I repeat to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and to my hon. Friend the Minister that the city council has not been profligate. It is committed to economy and efficiency. The amount by which its proposed budget exceeds the SSA is less than 117 other district councils, many of which are spending considerably above their SSAs. However, they remain within the year-on-year yardstick and are therefore not caught by the provision.
Furthermore, the amount in question is £190,000 or £3 per head of population. Subject to the precise re-billing arrangements, the reduction in budget is likely to approach £300,000. To insist on a cap of £10.15 million in those circumstances is not a sound illustration of how to treat charge payers' money responsibly. It will disrupt the city's financial management and confer a stigma on the council marking it as irresponsible. It is also likely to prejudice the council's case for unitary status. I regard the cap as entirely unacceptable.
While I thank Ministers for listening courteously to my representations, and those of councillors, I record my profound dissatisfaction with the fact that Ministers have
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not been persuaded by our arguments. Therefore, I regret that I cannot support the Government in the Lobbies tonight.
8.41 pm
Mr. Nigel Jones: Snap: we in Cheltenham have exactly the same problem as that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. French). I thank him for setting out his case so clearly and I will not bore the House by describing the experiences of Cheltenham borough council.
Cheltenham council has also kept to the SSA, but we have suffered a larger boundary change than that in Gloucester. An extra 20 per cent. has been added to our boundary. The good people of Leckhampton, Up Hatherley, The Reddings, Prestbury and Swindon village have been added to the responsibilities of the borough council. There was a similar transfer of funds from Tewkesbury to deal with that change last year. We have no quarrel with the Minister over the SSA. We are being capped on the year-on-year comparison of spending in exactly the same way as Gloucester.
By setting a budget to stay within the cap, much of the routine maintenance will be capitalised, thus removing it from the revenue budget. As a result, the town centre toilets will close. It will therefore be a very inconvenient place to be when the pubs close. Senior citizens' bus passes will be means-tested. I know of no one who fought for a place on Cheltenham borough council who placed such changes in their manifestos. However, the council must adopt such measures to save small amounts of money to get down to the capping limit.
I join the hon. Member for Gloucester in appealing to the Minister to reconsider the position in Gloucester and Cheltenham. If we consider all the councils that were brought under the capping threshold with budgets of less than £15 million, only Cheltenham and Gloucester have had boundary change problems. That bodes ill for the local government review. Those examples may make councils anxious that boundary changes might lead to their being capped in future.
I would like to pay the Minister a small tribute. I have been double-capped: Cheltenham borough council and Gloucestershire county council have both been capped. I took a delegation from Gloucestershire to meet the Minister. Hon. Members may recall that when the original capping legislation was announced by the Secretary of State on 14 May I asked him whether he would be genuinely open to persuasion by the councils affected and he said that he would be. I thank the Minister for being open with us. We believe that we had a fair hearing when we met him.
Gloucestershire had a powerful case which was made clearly by senior council members Frank Thompson and John Sewell, the chief executive Michael Honey and the county treasurer Richard Cockcroft. I thank the Minister for being genuinely open to the Gloucestershire appeal. I also thank him for the relaxation of the cap by £2.59 million.
I met senior officers and members of the council in Gloucester yesterday. Although there was no sense of euphoria, there was a feeling that the Minister had listened and they were grateful for that. It must have had some effect on them, because I am pleased to report that when

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I attended the annual cricket match between Gloucester county council and Somerset county council, we won by 26 runs.
The question centres on the formula for calculating the SSA. Many of the calculations in the formula are based on the 1981 census. However, there have been great changes since then. There has been an increase in Gloucestershire in post-16 stay-on rates in our schools. That is remarkable and I am sure that the Government, like me, welcome that. We have also been very successful in statementing special educational needs. We have made great progress in that respect and some of our less fortunate children can now make more progress than they would otherwise.
Gloucestershire also now has a higher unemployment rate because of the rundown of defence needs following the end of the cold war. Although we all welcome the end of the cold war, we must find a new role for those people in the county who have been made unemployed as a result of that welcome move. There has been a 43 per cent. increase in free school meals in Gloucestershire and that costs money. The population in Gloucestershire has also been growing since 1981. Indeed, Gloucestershire was one of the boom counties of the 1980s.
The cuts which the county council had considered before the £2.59 million adjustment to the cap involved compulsory redundancies for teachers. We are reconsidering that to discover whether compulsory redundancies are now necessary. However, when I spoke to senior officers yesterday, they said that there would still have to be some compulsory redundancies. At one stage, it seemed that up to 200 jobs would be lost, although not all compulsorily and certainly not all full-time jobs. However, I know of no county councillor who was elected on the basis of a programme of making teachers redundant. I know of no school governor—and I am a governor of three schools in Cheltenham—who believes that making teachers redundant is a good idea.
The chief constable has also warned that 15 police posts would have to be held vacant despite the fact that since 1979 we have had a 237 per cent. increase in crime. Indeed, there was a 32 per cent. Increase—the third highest in the country—in 1991 alone.
Gloucestershire is a low spending authority. We spend less per head than the neighbouring counties of Warwickshire, Avon and Wiltshire and slightly more than Hereford and Worcester. We are way down the shire county average in respect of education spending.
During the formation of the budget and, indeed, during the general election, no one contacted me to complain about the level of the poll tax, but I was bombarded with letters from parents, elderly people and people who have no direct interest in education except they knew we should not make cuts. They all wanted us to maintain spending on education in Gloucestershire. They understood the argument because Gloucestershire has been forthcoming in passing the education budget to schools so that school governors have had to cope with their own budgets. They would have an informed debate not only among themselves but among parents and other people in the community.
At every public meeting that I held during the general election, I asked people whether they wanted us to cut spending on education, and they said no. I gave them the
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other side of the argument, that if they wanted to maintain spending on education and on the police they must be prepared to pay for it. When I asked, "Are you prepared to pay for it?" without exception they said yes.
The difference between the new cap and the budget which the county council would like to spend is 5p a day for the standard poll tax payer or 1p a day for those on the 20 per cent. rate. The cost of rebilling throughout Cheltenham, Gloucester and the county council area might be up to £1 million. That is a waste of money. I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify whether the relaxation that has been announced for the three councils will raise their SSAs or allow higher spending this year. If it does not raise their SSAs, there will be significant problems next year.
I am not alone in questioning the principle of capping. Last week, I asked whether the Minister thought capping increased local accountability. It takes from elected councillors the right to carry out the programmes on which they were elected and it denies the people who elected them the high quality services for which they voted.
8.51 pm
Mr. Terry Dicks: I shall be brief, because my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) made an effective speech outlining the situation regarding Hillingdon. Some would say that this charade is a dog's breakfast, but no dog in Hillingdon would eat such a mess as that which is provided by the Minister and his colleagues in the Department. For year after year, the nonsense coming out of the Department of the Environment with regard to local authorities has got worse. It is as bad as it could ever be.
The poll tax—the community charge—was to give local democracy a chance to work; if local authorities taxed highly, they would be turned out of office by the electorate. That is an excellent principle, and I voted for it. When we saw charge capping, which is contrary to that principle, it was said that it would give people the freedom to elect high-spending authorities or low-spending authorities. The minute some high-spending authorities came in, and we could have seen a change, what happened? The Government said, "We cannot have that. We will go against the principle on which we introduced the community charge, and introduce capping." That is the issue that we are discussing. The principle was right, but the implementation was worse than a dog's breakfast, and capping just makes nonsense of the situation.
Labour and Conservative Governments have continued to put statutory obligations on local authorities and then deny them the resources to meet those obligations. In Hillingdon, which is a port authority, we have homeless families coming in. We now have refugee kids. Although the Government have told us that we have to let them in, it is their responsibility. They say, "Hang on, Jack. We are telling you that you have to house them, but we are not allowing you to find the money to do it properly. We are not accepting our national responsibility."
One thing that I recommend to my authority, and I did so 14 years ago, is that the next refugee kids who come in should be dumped in Folkestone and Wokingham. Let the local authorities in the areas in which the Minister and the Secretary of State reside see how they cope when they have to put their hands into their pockets to feed, clothe and house those refugee kids. I am serious about this matter.

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If the Government will not listen to reason and recognise the justice of our case, we will, unfortunately, have to take some action to make them aware. If we dump them in Wokingham in a couple of weeks and leave them outside the town hall, the Minister responsible will say, "This is a local responsibility, not a national responsibility. Although the Government control who comes into the country, you will understand why you should have them and bear your share." It is reasonable for the Minister to consider that point. If we do not do something drastic, the Government will go on only listening. I respect my hon. Friend the Minister for listening, but what is the point of listening and accepting the argument and then doing damn all about it afterwards? There is no point whatsoever.
My authority, Hillingdon, budgeted to cope with that national problem locally. It did as it was told. It raised money through local resources and then set it aside. That was not good enough for the Government. They said, "You have to find it locally; it is a local responsibility," although we thought that it was a national one. The minute we found the money and put it aside they said, "Oh no, no; we are going to cap you." We lose at both ends. It is like being stuck in the middle of the channel tunnel with a cork in each end. We cannot win.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge has said, my local authority has done everything that the Government have wanted from it from day one in May 1990. It has made savings of £30 million and reduced staff by 1,400. It has acted faster than any other local authority in respect of grant-maintained status for schools. What do we get? We get one big kick up the backside from the Government for doing so. is it any wonder that my Tory colleagues on Hillingdon council say, "Why the hell do we bother"?
As my hon. Friend said, the public sector borrowing requirement is £28 billion. The Government have the audacity to say to Hillingdon, "You are £800,000 over the top." It is the Government's concern, but we are blamed for it. What sort of example is that? How can I say to my council colleagues, "Listen to the Government; theirs is the right advice on local issues; you must do as they say because they know best"? Know best? Like hell.
I have always said that perhaps we should get rid of the Foreign Office, because the Foreign Office acts in British interests only if they coincide with those of the Foreign Office. I have also said that, because the Treasury does not understand the difference between capital and revenue spending and abuses local authorities because of that, we should get rid of it. I have now arrived at the point at which I think that the Department of the Environment should join them. We should get rid of the three to start with—there will not be much left by the time I have finished. There is no logic in what the Government are doing with regard to local authorities.
My hon. Friend the Minister has said that he is a friend of local government and that he wants to continue as such. I have my doubts whether the Government really want local authorities to continue effectively and acceptably. I speak as somebody who has had nearly 14 years' experience as a local authority member. If we do not want to give local authorities the resources to do their job, and if local government legislation costs them money to meet their responsibilities, we should do away with local government altogether. Let us be honest about it. Do not let people become elected and work their whatsits off locally to make the right decisions and then slap a cap on
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them and say, "It is for the benefit of this country." That is the biggest load of rubbish that any hon. Member could have to listen to. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that he will not get me in the Lobby with him tonight.
8.57 pm
Mr. John Austin-Walker: In the previous debate the Under-Secretary of State for Wales stressed the importance of decisions being based on up-to-date information. The evidence that was presented by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) shows that decisions on standard spending assessments and capping have not been based on the most up-to-date information available.
Other hon. Members praised the Minister for having listened to the representations made by the various local authorities. He certainly gave the impression of listening when the London borough of Greenwich met him. But what has come out since has shown that he heard and understood nothing that was said about the way in which the SSAs were essentially flawed.
When the Government considered the implementation of SSAs they had a series of options. One would have given Hackney, for example, a poll tax of £48. An alternative option would have given it a poll tax of £606. I give that as an illustration of the arbitrary nature of SSAs. They are crucial to the decisions that are made. If the SSA for a particular service overestimates the required spending, the council is effectively overpaid. But if the SSA underestimates the required spending, as in the case of the London borough of Greenwich, the inevitable result is that services are cut or the poll tax is considerably increased. In the case of Greenwich, both have occurred.
Let me compare what has happened in Greenwich with what has happened in Westminster. The Government say that SSAs are a fair assessment of what a local authority needs to spend to provide a reasonable level of service. The "other services" block of the SSA for Westminster assumes that the cost of those services will be six times the cost of the same services in Havering, and three and a half times the cost in Croydon.
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy statistics show that Westminster's actual expenditure on "other services" was twice, not six times, that of Havering and twice, not three and a half times, that of Croydon. I put it to the House that the difference between Westminster's SSA for "other services" and its actual expenditure represents a gift to the poll tax payers of Westminster of £301.17 each. If such a gift were given to the poll tax payers of the London borough of Greenwich we might have a negative poll tax. Or if the safety nets were removed we would have a poll tax of no more than half the current amount.
Ministers have argued consistently that Greenwich is not an inner-London borough with inner-London characteristics but an outer-London borough with outer-London characteristics. I say again to the House that that is based on misleading, outdated information. All the current information contradicts that argument. Ministers also suggest that the council is extravagant and top heavy. Yet in his recent management letter the district auditor said that only four London authorities had a lower ratio of central support staff to total staff.
Greenwich's problem is the basic inadequacy and unfairness of the SSAs. Will the Minister explain one thing to the House? There are various principles on which the

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capping regime may be brought into play. I understand that if the SSA of the London borough of Greenwich was only £1.87 million higher—far less than many of us believe that it should be—the expenditure limit would be £4.1 million higher. I ask the Minister to explain that and, if he can do so, to justify it to the House and the poll tax payers of Greenwich.
The social factors on which the SSA for Greenwich is based assume that Greenwich is a borough which is not in particular need and has outer-London characteristics. The Woolwich Arsenal ward of my constituency has the highest level of unemployment in London. I represent a constituency and borough in which the three wards around the town centre are among the 10 most deprived wards in London. Yet we have a significantly lower SSA than that of boroughs such as Wandsworth.
Let us compare the social needs in Wandsworth and Greenwich. The homelessness figures for 1990 show that in Greenwich 16.4 people per thousand population are homeless. In Wandsworth the figure is 13.9. The level of residence-based unemployment is higher in Greenwich than in Wandsworth. The number of long-term claimants in Greenwich is higher than that in Wandsworth. The number of 18 to 24-year-old claimants is higher in Greenwich than in Wandsworth.
The average earnings survey was mentioned. It is relevant when determining the social needs of the boroughs and areas that we represent. According to the new earnings survey, average earnings in Greenwich are £78 per week lower than the Greater London average. The percentage of employees earning less than £200 a week is higher in Greenwich than in Wandsworth, as is the percentage of employees earning less than £270 per week. Yet the difference between the standard spending assessments of Greenwich and Wandsworth is enormous. I shall focus on children's services, where we find the greatest disparity between the Government's assessment of the amount that Greenwich needs to spend and its expenditure. Greenwich spends £22 million on children's social services, which is 50 per cent. above its SSA. I believe that that is the largest gap between SSA and actual spend of any authority.
I shall again compare Greenwich and Wandsworth. The Government's SSA for children at risk in Greenwich is £253, and it is £332 for Wandsworth. The social index figure for children in Greenwich is £39 and is £209 for Wandsworth. The Government work on the basis that Greenwich has the lowest assessment for children at risk of any inner-London borough. The reality of the figures shows that Greenwich has the highest infant mortality rate in inner London; it has the second highest figure for placement of safety orders; it has the third highest number of children on the child protection register and, it has the fourth highest number of under-fives in care.
I know that Ministers have sometimes said that Greenwich could set a lower poll tax if it spent at the same level as its neighbouring authorities. That may be true if we consider such neighbouring authorities as Bexley. If one asked the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) How many day nurseries are provided for the under-fives in his constituency by the London borough of Bexley, the answer would be, "None." if one asked the hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) how many
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were provided in his constituency, the answer would be, "None." If one asked the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) the same question, the answer would be, "One." One day nursery for the entire borough of Bexley.
In Greenwich we do not believe that that is an adequate level of provision for our under-fives. I was struck by the statement yesterday by the Under-Secretary of State for Education. He claimed credit for provision for under-fives and said that that was important in terms not only of nursery education but of the Government's record in providing day care for the under-fives. That day care is provided by Labour local authorities in areas of acute social need, such as Greenwich—[HON. MEMBERS: "Come on.''] It is all very well for Conservative Members to say that.
When the Minister sums up, will he explain the disparity between the SSA for Greenwich and its expenditure? Will he tell the House how Greenwich can bridge that gap? It could not be done without decimating social services, where the largest gap occurs.
There is also a disparity between the treatment of Greenwich and Wandsworth as regards education. When the Government produced figures for relative grants to local authorities they said that Greenwich received £690 per adult for education, whereas Wandsworth received £536, as if we were being treated better in Greenwich than those in Wandsworth. Those were the cash figures per adult, but Greenwich has the highest school-age population of any inner London borough. For the record, I shall give the figures if we take the children into account: for primary schools, £2,377 in Greenwich and £2,562 in Wandsworth; and in secondary education, £3,480 in Greenwich and £3,756 in Wandsworth. Those are the real figures, which have an impact upon the service level which the local authority is able to provide.
On 14 May, on the BBC "Nine O'Clock News", the Secretary of State for the Environment said:
"It's very difficult to get a formula that pleases everyone".
I agree with him, and I also agree with the leader of the Conservative group on Greenwich borough council, Councillor Peter King. Of the SSA formula, he said:
"It treats some authorities badly, it treats Greenwich very badly. To some extent the SSA formula is mathematical modelling gone mad."
The SSA formula is inadequate for the distribution of grants, and it is ludicrous for determining the expenditure of local authorities.
9.10 pm
Mr. Roy Thomason: I shall be brief as I know that many other hon. Members wish to speak.
As the former chairman of the Association of District Councils, it is natural that I should believe in the independence of local government. Within the functions delegated to it, it should be free to settle policies and to execute them. As I understand it, that is the principle of subsidiarity on which we talk so much in other debates. It means the delegation of decisions to the levels closest to those affected by those decisions, so far as that is practicable..
A second and more important principle determines that local government must act within the parameters set by the Government acting through Parliament. Sovereignty rests here as the democratic institution of the nation as a whole, including its Executive. We allow treaties to be made on

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our behalf relating to European institutions. In that way, we pass some sovereignty to them. Likewise, we delegate functions to local government.
Local government has no divine right to govern its own communities. Its powers stem entirely from the Government acting through Parliament who must determine the national interest. One such item of national interest that must be determined is the levels of public expenditure. Local government is responsible for the expenditure of £60 billion per annum. The effect of that on inflation, the rates of interest and other levels of economic policy can never be ignored by any Government of any political colour. How can some Opposition Members object to monetary control passing to Europe and, at the same time, support it being passed to town halls? The truth is that sovereignty must always be vested in and controlled by the elected body of the nation as a whole.
Capping is based on SSAs and criticisms of them are bound to be made—hon. Members have advanced such powerful cases today. However, I can remember criticisms being levelled at the grant distribution formula of the past generation—grant-related expenditure. The way in which it passed money to local government was absolutely horrific. We all rightly complained about it. That system depended on 64 different formulae, but the present grant distribution mechanism is based on six principal formulae. It is much simpler and, therefore, much easier to understand.
Hon. Members are right to say that we must be balanced between simplicity and equity.
Dr. Lynne Jones: If the system is so simple, can the hon. Gentleman explain why, in Birmingham, the SSA for capital financing is £60 million when actual expenditure, which is based on historical spending, is £165 million? Where is the sense in that?
Mr. Thomason: The answer is that, historically, Birmingham city council has chosen to spend large sums of capital moneys. That decision was made by the democratically elected councillors of Birmingham and I defend their right to do it. Equally, they must accept the constraints imposed upon them by Government, which are in the interests of the nation as a whole.
I have heard the arguments of my hon. Friends who represent constituencies in Warwickshire and Hillingdon —my hon. Friends, the Members for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth), for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks). They were right to raise their concerns, but the expenditure—and this has been accepted by Labour Members—by which those authorities exceed their cap limit is very small. Opposition Members say that, if it is so small, we should not bother about it at all. If it is less than £1 million—a tiny part of Hillingdon's budget of £167 million, or Warwickshire's budget of £299 million —why bother about it at all? We must bother about limits because they must be set at some point. We need them to deal with councils like Lambeth, which was represented in the debate earlier by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser), who is no longer in his place. He was arguing strongly for substantial additional expenditure in Lambeth and saying that we should write off that authority's past inability to collect the community charge. That would invite non-payment and is an extraodinary position to take.
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The House must acknowledge that some 6.5 million payers of community charge pay an average of £99 per annum less than they would have done if capping had not been introduced. There is a need to impose national criteria because, unfortunately, some people in local government are prepared to act irresponsibly. It is sad that it is necessary, but we require it.
Although appeals have been successfully made by Basildon, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, limits still need to be imposed on authorities to retain that control and ensure that some of the wild men and women representing local government—I am glad to say that they are very few—are not given the opportunity of throwing the national economy off course.
I support the proposals.
9.16 pm
Mr. Nick Raynsford: I enjoy the opportunity of speaking after the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason), who has at least given some relief to the Government. His speech was out of keeping with all the previous contributions by hon. Members directly involved in local authorities that have been subject to capping, who have seen the unfairness and unsatisfactory nature of the process. We have heard a litany of complaints from hon. Members far better placed, because of their knowledge of local factors, to see how badly that system operates. The complaints span the political spectrum and, sadly, they have met with a stony-faced response from Ministers.
Those of us who represent the London borough of Greenwich have three principal reasons for believing that the Government's approach is wrong. First, the clear evidence of need in the area has been spelt out eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker), so I need not repeat it. Those needs are not being adequately met because the authority's expenditure has been capped repeatedly in recent years, forcing a series of cuts in its budget. The Minister talked glibly about dire warnings of cuts that had not been borne out in reality. Clearly he is far removed from what is actually happening. In Greenwich in recent years there have been forced closures of two day centres for the handicapped and two holiday hotels for the elderly, which were hugely popular and about which I have received many complaints from elderly people who enjoyed their holidays in them and no longer have that facility. Seven lunch clubs, three day clubs for the elderly, two day centres for the handicapped, three day nurseries, three branch libraries and two swimming pools have also been closed. Those are just some of the services that have had to be cut as a consequence of the Government believing that they know best and imposing cuts from the centre against the wishes of local electorates and democratically elected local councils.
The second complaint is over the unfairness of the standard spending assessment formula. Again, my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich spelt that out, as did the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) in an earlier intervention. It is significant that, across the political divide, hon. Members representing the borough of Greenwich all believe that the SSA formula is unfair and adversely affects the borough. I shall not go into detail, but I shall give two specific illustrations. In the social services, the children element is grotesquely inappropriate for an

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authority with a high incidence of need that is reflected in a variety of ways. The standard spending assessment allows just £39 per child on the children needs index, compared with that of Lewisham—the next lowest placed inner London borough—which has £155 per child. The borough of Wandsworth has £208 per child and Westminster has £252.
It is significant that if Greenwich children's social index was raised to the level of the next lowest inner London borough, Lewisham, the SSA in Greenwich would be increased by £6.7 million—an amount close to the effect of the cap in reducing the budget that the council now proposes.
The second illustration is in respect of education. I have had a series of meetings with head teachers and parents who are deeply concerned about the impact of budget cuts on the quality of education and schooling in Greenwich. The formula penalises an authority that has a significantly rising school roll at both primary and secondary levels. The Greenwich school population is rising by about 4 per cent. per annum.
The formula is based on the school rolls in January of the preceding financial year and fails to take account of the impact of recent increases. If the formula were based on current school rolls in Greenwich rather than the previous date, the result would be to increase the SSA in Greenwich by £7.4 million—an amount almost in line with the difference between the capping figure and the authority's own budget.
If only one of those two factors were accepted, Greenwich would no longer be subject to capping and could agree and implement a budget, thus avoiding the devastating consequences of capping.
Our third complaint is specific to the issue of refugees. I raised the subject in an earlier intervention but did not receive an adequate response from the Minister, who I am glad to see has returned to the Chamber. A delegation from Greenwich came to see him last week and forcefully stressed the additional social service and education costs faced by the London borough of Greenwich and other authorities—whose representatives have been vociferous in today's debate—due to recent arrivals of significant numbers of refugees from many parts of the world. I am thinking particularly of refugees coming from Vietnam via Hong Kong, and from Somalia and Eritrea.
The costs that the authority has to incur are not reflected in the SSA. That point was put to the Minister, but he denied it. The Minister strongly assured the delegation that the SSA would reflect those additional costs. We challenged him and I have subsequently taken further advice from the Library. It is clear that the view that the Minister expressed to the delegation last week was wrong.
If the Minister advised the Secretary of State on a capping figure based on the advice that he gave us last week, he will have misled the Secretary of State and the Greenwich capping figure will have been wrongly calculated. Therefore, I invite him to reconsider the matter. The mistake is clear to me from the advice that I received from the Library, and from the advice that the Minister's officials have given to him and placed in the Library. The advice is as follows:
"There is a time lag between the arrival of asylum seekers and their inclusion in the data on which SSAs are based."
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I invite the Minister to recognise that he was wrong last week and the unfair formula will adversely affect Greenwich and other authorities with a significant number of recently arrived refugees. If he does not, he will have offered advice on the imposition of a cap based on erroneous information, which will be unjust to the people of Greenwich.
We see a sad and sorry picture of the imposition of centralised diktats by Ministers who cannot possibly understand the intricacies and detailed implications for local communities of what they are doing. They are imposing the diktats out of ideological conviction. However, as the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) said in his elegant speech, the Ministers do not apply the same logic to the Department's spending. Their actions are causing much hardship and misfortune in local communities. That is unjust and should be deeply regretted. I shall certainly vote against the order tonight.
9.24 pm
Mrs. Teresa Gorman: The Opposition are a rum lot. The man in the street would characterise their attitude to public spending as, "Give 'em the money", because Labour always behaves as if money grows on trees and will appear on command. If Labour were asked to characterise my party's attitude to public spending it would say that we were like a Scotsman with his pockets sewn up. All that Labour can do is gripe when the Government announce a relaxation for some people in the community charge. That shows Labour's muddled attitude to public spending.
The Opposition have always made a muck of local government spending. I represent people who had the misfortune a short time ago to have their local affairs conducted by a Labour-controlled Basildon council. Year after year, they were subjected to massive increases in the community charge. Ours was one of the worst areas in the country, and last year compared with this we overspent by about 100 per cent. Our SSA was £22 million, but the council chose to spend £27 million and that could not be allowed to continue. Fortunately, the citizens of Billericay and Basildon saw through that and swept Labour from office. There was a 61 per cent. turnout and a massive swing of 15 seats. We wiped the floor with Labour.
The Conservative councillors are perfectly willing to conform to the Government's spending requirements in a full year, but by the time the new budget is in place the council will be six months behind a normal year's spending. When Labour was in control it set the budget for March, but we were not able to put our new budget into effect until July, and it cannot be implemented in time to make the savings that the Government rightly require in a full year. The new Basildon councillors are committed to that target and the Government, rightly and sensibly, have given us a respite to allow us to conduct the affairs of the council properly and to provide the necessary local services within a target that can be met by local people.
We are grateful to the Government for recognising the plight of Basildon's ratepayers. The cap will allow a reduction from the extremely high figure of £361—one of the worst in the country. It can be reduced by £41 and that will be gratefully received by the people in the area.
There have been adverse comments about the behaviour of the councillors who have taken over. Hon. Members have spoken about the notorious Towngate

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theatre. It could have carried out its commitments and obligations until the end of July, but the committee running it chose to close it and cause some inconvenience. That was quite unnecessary. There was absolutely no need for the remarks by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). The hon. Gentleman chose not to say that the Billericay and Whitford parts of the constituency were deprived of such facilities for years because the Labour council running Basildon did not think it worth while to pander to the Conservative majority of voters in that part of my constituency. It deliberately deprived Conservative areas and we raised the necessary money to provide our own theatre and arts facilities. Labour councillors even deprived us of premises, but now they have got their come-uppance—and about time too.
An enormous debt has been inherited. Debt charges are £7 million, a third of the standard spending assessment. It is an enormous sum to have to find. It will take time to reduce the debt charges. The previous Labour council left our financial affairs in a dreadful mess. The Conservative party is now in office and it can examine what went on. It is clear that there is a great deal to do and a massive amount of waste to eradicate. If that is to be done humanely, we shall need more time to get ourselves on our feet.
The previous Labour council left us with seven mini-council area offices. They were completely unnecessary and merely duplicated work. In closing them, we have, unfortunately, to make redundancies, which must be funded. That is another great expense which the Conservative council has had to meet.
The Government have done the right thing by introducing a little relaxation to enable the council to get on its feet. They have done the right and proper thing by the council and, as I have said, it intends to meet the targets. Some extremely gratuitous remarks have been made about the splendid Conservative leader of the new council, Mr. Tony Archer. He is doing an excellent job. He has committed himself and the new Conservative council to maintain a high standard of public services and to provide them economically by applying Conservative standards and contracting out. He will adopt the principle of ensuring that every penny counts so that those who have to pay the community charge receive good services at a price that they can reasonably afford. In other words, there will be value for money.
I commend the Government for what they have done. They have made a splendid effort. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) and I are extremely grateful.
9.32 pm
Mr. William O'Brien: The hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) must have been fast asleep during the debate. Of the six Conservative Back-Bench Members who have contributed to the debate, four denounced or criticised the Government for bringing forward the order. It seems that the hon. Lady does not recognise that sort of attitude.
It has been demonstrated by the House on more than one occasion that the poll tax is all wrong. It has been demonstrated again this evening that poll tax capping is all wrong. It is unfair and undemocratic and causes local authorities to cut services. When we were discussing the
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Bill that introduced poll tax capping, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who is now the Secretary of State for the Environment,
said that capping
"is not a measure to be used as a matter of course … it is important that there should be such a reserve power …to protect the charge payers … against extreme cases of extravagant and irresponsible local authorities."—[Official Report, 25 April, 1988; Vol. 132, c. 51.]
We have learnt this evening that if a local authority is spending £5 per head per year more than the Secretary of State feels that it should be spending, he will apply the capping mechanism. In Gloucester, expenditure is only £3 per head per year over the SSA, but the right hon. and learned Gentlemen is applying the capping procedure, notwithstanding that he said in 1988 that it was a "reserve power". That demonstrates the difference between the meaning of those words in 1988 and the application of the power in 1991 and now in 1992.
How misleading and hypocritical the Government are when they talk about accountability and the principle of giving freedom to people and allowing them to decide for themselves. On 5 March 1990 the former Secretary of State for the Environment, Nicholas Ridley, said:
"Should a Government stop councils from overspending or should people who elect councils stop them? I think it should be the latter."
Nicholas Ridley was advocating freedom for individuals through the ballot box. How does freedom for people to decide the outcome of the work and efforts of local authorities feature in the Prime Minister's citizens charter? How can the Minister say that Nicholas Ridley was wrong in March 1990?
Hon. Members with Warwickshire constituencies have said, both in their speeches and in interventions during the debate, that no one in Warwickshire has said that he is in favour of his local authority being capped. Where is the freedom for the people of Warwickshire to decide what the level of expenditure should be in their local authority area?
When the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason) was the Conservative leader of the Association of District Councils he expressed shock at the decision to apply the capping procedure to small district councils. He said:
"I am shocked that the Government should so attack many of its own supporters in local government, particularly district councils which have raided their balances to keep charge levels down this year and maintained services. It is also shocking that the Environment Secretary should completely ignore all the assurances previous Ministers gave when the capping provisions were introduced that low spending authorities would be excluded from the controls."
What a somersault the hon. Member for Bromsgrove has done since he became a Member of Parliament. How many people would have thought 12 months ago, when the leader of the ADC, who is now the hon. Member for Bromsgrove, expressed shock at the Secretary of State's decision to introduce capping for district councils that he would now be saying that capping is a good thing for district councils?
Mr. Thomason: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. O'Brien: When I have finished, I shall certainly give way.
How can the hon. Gentleman turn his back on the colleagues he left behind at Chapter street? He said then that they had to oppose the capping procedures. Does he not feel that the people in Chapter street are entitled to his

349
support? Are not those who work in local government just as much entitled to his support now as they were when he was the leader of the ADC?
Mr. Thomason: My constituents are entitled to my support and they expect value for money in local government services. I have not changed my position over the independence of local government, but I take the view that it may be necessary to introduce capping for those authorities that are prepared to spend and spend again. Fortunately, there are few district councils that are prepared to do that. Most of them are extremely careful. My position remains the same.
Mr. O'Brien: At the time that the hon. Member for Bromsgrove expressed shock he was representing people who had elected him through the ballot box, just as he is now representing people as a Member of Parliament. The only change is that now that he has left the local authority scene and come to Parliament he has changed his mind. That is a measure of the lead that has been given by the former leader of the ADC.
When we discussed this legislation on Report the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) said:
"That is why local authorities with small budgets are exempt from these clauses."—
the clauses referred to capping.
"The real risks to local and national economies come from the huge spending authorities which spend vast sums rather than from the small ones."—[Official Report, 25 April 1988; Vol. 132, c. 41.]
When the hon. Gentleman intervened during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) we found that he had changed his mind and done a complete somersault. He said that the small spending authorities were also a drain on national expenditure. That is another somersault committed by a Conservative hon. Member who now says something different from what he said when the legislation was introduced. However, I made it clear at the outset that of the six Conservative hon. Members who had spoken, four condemned the Government for capping certain authorities, and I am sure that local government appreciates such a stand.
The order is not targeted at high spending authorities and there is evidence, which has been mentioned several times this evening, which proves that. What is the position of the hon. Member for Spelthorne on the attack on low-spending authorities? Many local authorities have, under protest, accepted Government capping and have reduced their budgets accordingly. The record shows that Langbaurgh reduced its budget by £2 million, Middlesbrough reduced its budget by £1.4 million and my authority of Wakefield has made reductions of more than £4 million.
However, such cuts, which are the result of capping, often mean that the poorest sections of our community lose out disproportionately. Children, the disabled and the elderly are the people who suffer most as there have been increases in the charges for meals on wheels. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) is not a Labour Member of Parliament but he expressed concern that people would suffer because of the increaseas in charges for meals on wheels as a result of poll tax capping. The home help service and many other services are being
350
cut, and the living standard and quality of life of the people on the lowest incomes have suffered dramatically as a direct result of poll tax capping. That was spelt out clearly by my hon. Friends the Members for Norwood (Mr. Fraser), and for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) who pointed out how cuts had affected the quality of life of people in their constituencies because of a reduction in services.
What hope is there for local authorities which face the 1990s with a reduction in resources, increasing demands for services, reduced flexibility, reactive budgeting and a worsening financial outlook, all brought about by capping? What future is there for local authorities facing such a scenario?
Since the draft capping order was published, three authorities have had their caps adjusted. The hon. Member for Billericay said how much her authority appreciated the reduction in its cap. Basildon's cap has been reduced by £1.95 million, Colchester's by £2.59 million and Warwickshire's by £4 million. We are not against authorities having their SSAs increased or their caps reduced but the question is, why does that apply only to those authorities?
Labour hon. Members asked that question, but it was also asked by the hon. Members for Stratford-on-Avon and for Gloucester (Mr. French). Labour hon. Members said that expenditure per adult, per schoolchild and per elderly person in their areas was identical to that of other authorities and yet their authorities were being capped because the Government had set the level of expenditure for those services at a lower level than was necessary in their communities. What hope is there for local authorities under a Conservative Government who attack them?
Of a total of 650 Members of Parliament, 266—or 40 per cent.—are former members of local authorities. One hundred and fifty one members of the Opposition and 111 Conservative hon. Members have all had experience of local government. All those 266 Members know the evil and devastation brought about by poll tax capping orders. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Conservative Members are afraid as, because of their experience in local government, they know that if they spoke honestly and fairly about poll tax capping they would say that it is a devastating way of reducing services to local people.
Former Labour councillors, many of whom have described the unfair and undemocratic way in which poll tax affects the provision of services by local authorities, will vote against the order. There is no doubt that those 151 Members who have served in local government will vote against the order, as will their right hon. and hon. Friends. But what I would like to see, and what people outside the House would like to see, is the 111 Tory MPs who have served in local government joining the Opposition and voting against the order. What the people of the Association of District Councils and the Association of County Councils would like to see is some solidarity from their Conservative colleagues in the Lobby tonight, and a vote against the order. Conservative hon. Members' experience, like ours, must weigh in favour of our colleagues—those councillors on whom Conservative Members appear to be turning their backs tonight. That must weigh on their consciences, as it would on ours.
We are trying to save local government; we are trying to make it work. The Minister says that he is in favour of local government, but he should demonstrate that from time to time by supporting it. I appeal to all hon. Members

351
who have served in local government to take the opportunity to defend it, and to give the people who work and serve in it a chance to continue what we fought to do —to improve services. If hon. Members want to protect local government services, the only way to do so is o vote with the Labour party against the capping order.
9.47 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Robin Squire): This has been an interesting debate, which has rightly commanded interest on both sides of the House. As usual on such annual occasions, most hon. Members who have spoken are from authorities which have been capped, whether the caps have been reduced or not. I especially welcomed the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason), who drew on his wide experience in local government.
Many points have been raised by individual Members, and before I deal with as many of them as time allows I shall reiterate some key points about this year's capping. I may not be able to deal with all the matters raised, but, if I do not, I undertake to write to hon. Members in response to their points.
This year, as for 1991–92, we announced our intentions for the capping criteria well in advance. The capping principles that we adopted in May gave effect to those provisional criteria, with the addition of a de minimis proviso.
The success of our capping strategy has been clearly demonstrated; only 10 authorities exceeded the capping principles, and local authority budgets overall came within about 1 per cent. of the amount provided for in the revenue support grant settlement.
Of course, as my hon. Friend the Minister of State said at the beginning of the debate, we should prefer not to have capped any authority, but not to have designated the authorities in question would have been to fail to face up to our responsibilities for the economy as a whole, and for protecting local charge payers from the effects of excessive budgeting—
Mr. Mike O'Brien rose—
Mr. Squire: Time is very tight, so I shall see how I go before giving way. I had less than 15 minutes to speak. As the House knows, I usually give way, but I am under great pressure of time.
I shall deal briefly with the contributions from both Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen—the hon. Members for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien). We heard the same record; they still refuse to recognise any responsibility for controlling local authority expenditure under any circumstances—although during the general election campagin they said that they would cap regional assemblies. It does not add up—but then we know that things do not add up when we are talking about the Labour party.
Again we have heard the great ode to Wandsworth and Westminister. Let me list the standard spending assessments for some other councils in inner London. I shall not give many examples; I shall give just enough to provide the flavour. In Hackney, the standard spending assessment is £2,117 per adult; in Tower Hamlets, it is £2,048; in Islington, it is £1,722; and in Lambeth, it is
352
£1,667. It is necessary to continue for some time before we reach Wandsworth's SSA, which is £1,388 per adult. Opposition Members imply that, if they were in government, they would not seek to measure need in their distribution of grant. I will pay them the tribute of saying that I do not believe them, but that is the logic of their position.
The hon. Member for Brightside said that the amounts involved were small—£3 or £5. Let me stress that capping does not exist solely to protect charge payers, although that is certainly its key aim. It exists to safeguard our national economic strategy. The sums with which we are dealing amount to £33.5 million: that may be nothing to Labour, but we consider it a significant figure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. French) and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) made what they concede were similar points about boundary changes. I hope that the House will forgive me if I deal with the matter very carefully, for it is rather complex. In their challenges to the proposed caps, both Gloucester and Cheltenham argued that they should not have been capped in the first place, and that they had been caught by the capping criteria only because of a technicality
The increased population costs did not show up as part of Gloucester's or Cheltenham's demand on charge payers for 1991–92. Both councils have argued that we should have taken that into account in measuring the difference between their 1991–92 and 1992–93 budgets for capping purposes. In other words, they argued that the true increase in their budgeted spending was less than the simple difference between this year's and last year's overall budget figures, and that they should therefore have escaped capping.
Both councils received a large increase in their standard spending assessments in 1992.93 to reflect the boundary changes. Neither my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester nor the hon. Member for Cheltenham disputes that; it is common ground between us. If the councils had budgeted in 1991.92 at or below their SSAs, they could have increased their budgets this year by the full amount of the increase in SSAs; but both councils budgeted above SSA in 1991.92, and that was before the boundary change. They are now saying, in effect, that they should be able to continue to spend above SSA, notwithstanding the large increases that they have received. Cheltenham has increased its budget by 16.6 per cent., leaving it 9 per cent. above SSA; Gloucester's budget has increased by 12 per cent., to 2.4 per cent. above SSA.
Only yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester wrote to me asking me to think again about the treatment of Gloucester city council. I am sure that he will forgive me if I briefly summarise the terms of the reply that he received. The Government carefully considered all the points made by both Gloucester and Cheltenham councils in support of their challenges, and all other relevant matters, in reaching a decision. We fully understand the councils' arguments about the effect of their boundary change on their base budgets for capping purposes. The councils say that they misunderstood our intentions. I am sorry if that is so, but I do not believe that they had grounds for assuming that their base budget for capping purposes would be adjusted in the way that they were advocating.
The then Secretary of State for the Environment, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade,

353
announced his provisional capping criteria to the House on 26 November 1991. Subsequently, Ministers told the House on two separate occasions—my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on 23 January and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, then the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities, on 12 March—that it remained the Government's intention that the provisional criteria should be the criteria that they would adopt to select authorities for capping in 1992–93.
The Government considered that, in all circumstances, a specific additional allowance in the capping criteria for the effect of the boundary changes—over and above the full reflection of the changes in the 1992–93 SSAs—was not appropriate.
Let me deal now with the question of asylum seekers, which was raised by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) and my hon. Friends the Members for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks). My colleagues from Hillingdon have raised the matter before. Hillingdon argues that we should make a special allowance for that cost, which is estimated at around £1 million.
We considered the council's arguments on that point —and, indeed, all its other arguments—very carefully, and decided that, in all Hillingdon's circumstances, a relaxation in the proposed cap was not appropriate.
An authority's standard spending assessment is an objective measure, based on a large number of indicators, of what it is appropriate for that authority to spend in the light of its own particular circumstances. Within the SSA, there is an allowance for the cost of services, such as education and social services, that authorities have to provide to children in their area. I cannot, of course, say that the cost of looking after every child arriving in Hillingdon is taken individually into account in calculating the authority's SSA. That would be impossible in a formula-based assessment. But the SSA does, I believe, give a fair overall assessment of an appropriate level of spending in Hillingdon given the characteristics of the area. Moreover, my hon. Friends will have heard my hon. Friend the Minister of State give an undertaking, which I now repeat, to look again at any representations made by hon. Members and at their suggestions for improving or changing the standard spending assessment.
I shall give Warwickshire Members a detailed answer at a later date, as I am afraid I do not have time to do so now. Instead, let me summarise the position. I understand from my long-term hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-onAvon (Mr. Howarth) and from the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) that they remain unhappy about the SSA in Warwickshire. I must point out that, compared with similar neighbouring authorities, Warwickshire does not do as badly as hon. Members may think. At £782, its standard spending assessment per head is of the same order of magnitude as those of Hereford and Worcester, at £785, and Avon, at £798.
To the hon. Members for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) and for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker), I would simply say that Greenwich has a history of overspending. It has been capped in every year since capping started in 1985. That is a record. For yet another year, the Government are obliged to step in to protect charge payers in Greenwich from the financial consequences of their council's actions.
354
In the past two years, capping has knocked a total of £74 off the charges set by the council. This year's cap will reduce charges by £56. I am sure that, notwithstanding hon. Members' comments, the vast majority of people in Greenwich are only too grateful for capping.
Mr. Raynsford: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Squire: I have undertaken to write to hon. Members on points that I cannot cover in the time available.
I turn, with some relief, to Basildon. My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) distinguished herself in the debate by welcoming the action taken by the Government. We have listened carefully to everything that Basildon has said in its challenge.
Mr. David Amess: Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to local press reports, the hon. Members for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) will be in my constituency at the weekend leading a demonstration which will be supported by Militant Tendency? Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment at my not being able to express the views of my constituents in the debate tonight?
Mr. Squire rose—
It being three hours after commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Order [19 June]:|
The House divided: Ayes 312, Noes 254.

Division No. 41]

[9.59 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Budgen, Nicholas

Aitken, Jonathan

Burns, Simon

Alexander, Richard

Burt, Alistair

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Butler, Peter

Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

Butterfill, John

Amess, David

Carlisle, John (Luton North)

Ancram, Michael

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Arbuthnot, James

Carrington, Matthew

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Carttiss, Michael

Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

Cash, William

Ashby, David

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Aspinwall, Jack

Chaplin, Mrs Judith

Atkins, Robert

Churchill, Mr

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Clappison, James

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Baldry, Tony

Coe, Sebastian

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Colvin, Michael

Bates, Michael

Congdon, David

Batiste, Spencer

Conway, Derek

Bellingham, Henry

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

Bendall, Vivian

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Beresford, Sir Paul

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Cormack, Patrick

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Couchman, James

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Cran, James

Booth, Hartley

Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)

Boswell, Tim

Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Bowden, Andrew

Day, Stephen

Bowis, John

Deva, Nirj Joseph

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Devlin, Tim

Brandreth, Gyles

Dickens, Geoffrey

Brazier, Julian

Dorrell, Stephen

Bright, Graham

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Dover, Den

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

Duncan, Alan

Browning, Mrs. Angela

Duncan-Smith, Iain

355

Dunn, Bob

Kirkhope, Timothy

Durant, Sir Anthony

Knapman, Roger

Dykes, Hugh

Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

Eggar, Tim

Knight, Greg (Derby N)

Elletson, Harold

Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)

Emery, Sir Peter

Knox, David

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

Lawrence, Sir Ivan

Evennett, David

Legg, Barry

Faber, David

Leigh, Edward

Fabricant, Michael

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Lidington, David

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Lightbown, David

Fishburn, John Dudley

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Forman, Nigel

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Lord, Michael

Forth, Eric

Luff, Peter

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

MacKay, Andrew

Freeman, Roger

Maclean, David

Gale, Roger

McLoughlin, Patrick

Gallie. Phil

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

Gardiner, Sir George

Madel, David

Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

Maitland, Lady Olga

Garnier, Edward

Major, Rt Hon John

Gill, Christopher

Malone, Gerald

Gillan, Ms Cheryl

Mans, Keith

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Marland, Paul

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Marlow, Tony

Gorst, John

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Grant, Sir Anthony (Cambs SW)

Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Mates, Michael

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Grylls, Sir Michael

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Mellor, Rt Hon David

Hague, William

Merchant, Piers

Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie

Milligan, Stephen

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Mills, lain

Hampson, Dr Keith

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Hannam, Sir John

Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

Hargreaves, Andrew

Moate, Roger

Harris, David

Monro, Sir Hector

Haselhurst, Alan

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Hawkins, Nicholas

Moss, Malcolm

Hawksley, Warren

Needham, Richard

Heald, Oliver

Nelson, Anthony

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Neubert, Sir Michael

Hendry, Charles

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Hicks, Robert

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Norris, Steve

Hill, James (Southampton Test)

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

Oppenheim, Phillip

Horam, John

Ottaway, Richard

Hordern, Sir Peter

Page, Richard

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Paice, James

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

Patten, Rt Hon John

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

Pawsey, James

Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Pickles, Eric

Hunter, Andrew

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Porter, David (Waveney)

Jack, Michael

Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Powell, William (Corby)

Jenkin, Bernard

Rathbone, Tim

Jessel, Toby

Redwood, John

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Richards, Rod

Jones, Robert B. (W H'f'rdshire)

Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Robathan, Andrew

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

Key, Robert

Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

Kilfedder, Sir James

Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

King, Rt Hon Tom

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

356

Ross, William (E Londonderry)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

Thornton, Sir Malcolm

Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

Thurnham, Peter

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Sackville, Tom

Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexl'yh'th)

Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

Tracey, Richard

Shaw, David (Dover)

Tredinnick, David

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Trend, Michael

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Trotter, Neville

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Twinn, Dr Ian

Sims, Roger

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Viggers, Peter

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Walden, George

Soames, Nicholas

Waller, Gary

Spencer, Sir Derek

Ward, John

Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Waterson, Nigel

Spink, Dr Robert

Watts, John

Spring, Richard

Wells, Bowen

Sproat, lain

Wheeler, Sir John

Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

Whitney, Ray

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Whittingdale, John

Steen, Anthony

Widdecombe, Ann

Stephen, Michael

Wiggin, Jerry

Stern, Michael

Willetts, David

Streeter, Gary

Wilshire, David

Sumberg, David

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Sweeney, Walter

Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

Sykes, John

Wolfson, Mark

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Wood, Timothy

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Yeo, Tim

Taylor, Rt Hon D. (Strangford)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Temple-Morris, Peter

Mr. Irvine Patrick and Mr. Sydney Chapman.

Thomason, Roy

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

Adams, Mrs Irene

Chisholm, Malcolm

Ainger, Nick

Clapham, Michael

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Allen, Graham

Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

Alton, David

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

Clelland, David

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Armstrong, Hilary

Coffey, Ms Ann

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Cohen, Harry

Ashton, Joe

Connarty, Michael

Austin-Walker, John

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Barnes, Harry

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Battle, John

Corbyn, Jeremy

Bayley, Hugh

Corston, Ms Jean

Beckett, Margaret

Cousins, Jim

Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

Cox, Tom

Bell, Stuart

Cryer, Bob

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Cummings, John

Bennett, Andrew F.

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Benton, Joe

Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

Bermingham, Gerald

Dafis, Cynog

Berry, Roger

Dalyell, Tam

Betts, Clive

Darling, Alistair

Blunkett, David

Davidson, Ian

Boateng, Paul

Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

Boyce, Jimmy

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Boyes, Roland

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Bradley, Keith

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

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Denham, John

Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

Dewar, Donald

Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)

Dixon, Don

Burden, Richard

Dobson, Frank

Byers, Stephen

Dowd, Jim

Caborn, Richard

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Callaghan, Jim

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Campbell, Ms Anne (C'bridge)

Eagle, Ms Angela

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Enright, Derek

Campbell, Ronald (Blyth V)

Etherington, William

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Cann, James

Ewing, Mrs Margaret

357

Fatchett, Derek

Jones, leuan (Ynys MÔn)

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Fisher, Mark

Jones, Ms Lynne (B'ham S 0)

Flynn, Paul

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

Foster, Derek (B'p Auckland)

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Foster, Donald (Bath)

Jowell, Ms Tessa

Foulkes, George

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Fraser, John

Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C & S)

Fyfe, Maria

Kennedy, Ms Jane (L'p'I Br'g'n)

Galloway, George

Khabra, Piara

Gapes, Michael

Kilfoyle, Peter

George, Bruce

Kirkwood, Archy

Gerrard, Neil

Leighton, Ron

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Lewis, Terry

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Litherland, Robert

Godsiff, Roger

Livingstone, Ken

Golding, Mrs Llin

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Graham, Thomas

Loyden, Eddie

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Lynne, Ms Liz

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

McAllion, John

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

McAvoy, Thomas

Grocott, Bruce

McCartney, Ian

Gunnell, John

MacDonald, Calum

Hain, Peter

McFall, John

Hall, Mike

Mackinlay, Andrew

Hanson, David

McLeish, Henry

Harman, Ms Harriet

McMaster, Gordon

Henderson, Doug

McNamara, Kevin

Heppell, John

McWilliam, John

Hill, Keith (Streatham)

Madden, Max

Hinchliffe, David

Mahon, Alice

Hoey, Kate

Mandelson, Peter

Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

Marek, Dr John

Home Robertson, John

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Hood, Jimmy

Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

Hoon, Geoff

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Martlew, Eric

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Maxton, John

Hoyle, Doug

Meacher, Michael

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Meale, Alan

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Michael, Alun

Hutton, John

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Jackson, Ms Glenda (H'stead)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)

Jackson, Ms Helen (Shef'ld, H)

Milburn, Alan

Jamieson, David

Miller, Andrew

Janner, Greville

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

Moonie, Dr Lewis

358

Morgan, Rhodri

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Morley, Elliot

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

Short, Clare

Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

Skinner, Dennis

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Mudie, George

Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)

Mullin, Chris

Smith, Rt Hon John (M'kl'ds E)

Murphy, Paul

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Soley, Clive

O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

Spearing, Nigel

O'Brien, William (Normanton)

Spellar, John

O'Hara, Edward

Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

Olner, William

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Steinberg, Gerry

Patchett, Terry

Stevenson, George

Pendry, Tom

Strang, Gavin

Pickthall, Colin

Straw, Jack

Pike, Peter L.

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Pope, Greg

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Tipping, Paddy

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)

Tyler, Paul

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Vaz, Keith

Prescott, John

Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

Primarolo, Dawn

Wallace, James

Purchase, Ken

Walley, Joan

Quin, Ms Joyce

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Radice, Giles

Wareing, Robert N

Randall, Stuart

Watson, Mike

Raynsford, Nick

Wicks, Malcolm

Redmond, Martin

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

Reid, Dr John

Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

Robertson, George (Hamilton)

Wilson, Brian

Roche, Ms Barbara

Winnick, David

Rooker, Jeff

Wise, Audrey

Rooney, Terry

Worthington, Tony

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Wray, Jimmy

Rowlands, Ted

Wright, Tony

Ruddock, Joan

Salmond, Alex

Tellers for the Noes:

Sedgemore, Brian

Mr. Ken Eastham and Mr. Eric Illsley.

Sheerman, Barry

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Charge Limitation (England) (Maximum Amounts) Order 1992, which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.

Mentally Ill and Handicapped Prisoners
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Boswell.]
10.13 pm
Mr. Tom Clarke: I first raised these matters on an Adjournment debate similarly entitled —[Interruption.]
Madam Speaker: Order. Would hon. Members leaving the Chamber do so quietly so that we can get on with our business?
Mr. Clarke: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am sure that I shall be awarded injury time.
I am delighted to see that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are present, as well as the Minister of State, Home Office, because the problems of mentally ill people in prison might be helped by their interest.
I first raised this matter in an Adjournment debate, similarly entitled "Mentally Handicapped and Mentally Ill Prisoners", on 16 July 1986. I should have liked to report that there has been more progress since then. However, as there has been no progress, there is need for this debate.
I had hoped for an Adjournment debate in February but, unfortunately, that was not possible. As the Minister knows, prior to that I had visited Brixton prison and saw some examples of dedication on the part of the staff, but also matters which I am sure will worry the House deeply and will help us to concentrate on the issues under discussion.
The governor of Brixton prison, Dr. Coyle, is extremely dedicated. Without dwelling on such important issues as F-wing and other aspects of psychiatric care, I thought it would be right to give a flavour of my visit by quoting a letter that the governor wrote to The Independent in response to some criticisms made last October, which I think were unreasonable. Two points in the governor's letter are well worth making. He said, first, in respect of his prison:
"For many years, in excess of 1,000 prisoners have been crammed into some 700 cells … Among this number of prisoners about 300 on any one day require medical supervision of one form or another. The vast majority has been remanded for psychiatric reports. That is the equivalent of a medium-sized psychiatric hospital. It is important to remember that Brixton is not a psychiatric hospital."
Elsewhere in his letter Dr. Coyle wrote:
"In the past 12 months there have been two deaths by suicide in Brixton Prison. These are two too many but they have to be seen in context and comparisons can usefully be made with the experience in psychiatric hospitals similar in size to the medical wing at Brixton. During the same period staff have successfully intervened to prevent 38 prisoners taking their lives. That indicates a level of care of which Brixton can be proud."
The governor was absolutely right. Sadly, many of the problems that he outlined are shared by other prisons and are worthy of our consideration.
The Minister will be aware of the Gunn report, which found that about one third of sample male prisoners and 59 per cent. of females were diagnosed as having some kind of psychiatric problem.
The review of health and social services for mentally disordered offenders and others requiring similar services, chaired by Dr. John Reed, also reported on various groups
360
and their needs. We know that every person in those circumstances is unique, and is entitled to an individual assessment and to understanding of his or her problems.
The Gunn report was published in 1990 and revised in 1991. The Minister will be aware of its contents. I found that one of the most distressing points made in the report was:
"In some prison hospitals, it is possible to see an acutely psychotic patient locked in a cell for the whole day. He may be clad only in a canvas shirt with no possessions or furniture other than a mattress, possibly soaked in urine or soiled with excrement. Compulsory treatment can only be given in an emergency. Patients kept in such conditions in the health service would be the cause of public outcry and an inquiry. The situation is no more defensible when it occurs in prison."
I entirely agree.
Of the Gunn report, The Guardian said:
"At least one in five sentenced prisoners is thought to have a mental disorder. A study funded by the Home Office and published in October put the incidence as high as 14,000 of the 38,000 sentenced prison population, with 1,100 so ill that they require immediate treatment."
That is extremely worrying to the medical staff who seek to serve such prisoners, to voluntary organisations, and to the families of those individuals.
In December 1991, the Health Service Journal reported at length on the problem. I do not wish to weary the House by quoting exactly from that article, but it was interesting that it appeared under the heading "Prisoners who know not what they have done". The fact that there are people in prison experiencing enormous difficulties, who often are unable to cope with the environment in which they find themselves and who do not know why they are there, tells us a lot. Surely there must be better ways of dealing with such persons. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that the Government and their various Departments are at least aware that such problems exist in many prisons and not just in Brixton.
My worry is that, as I understand it, there has been no policy statement that explicitly covers the care and treatment of those in need of mental health care who remain in prison. However, the Government have published one document, to which I hope to refer. I am concerned about strategy and about the Government's approach to reducing the numbers and to coping with those who are in prison. Of course, it is increasingly accepted that too many mentally disordered and disturbed offenders are in prison who should not be there. However, there is no clear strategy across relevant Government Departments to ensure that services are available, and no single Department has lead responsibility for the care of mentally disturbed offenders.
If, as I understand it, the Government's policy is to reduce the number of such people coming into the criminal justice system, may I ask what is being done to achieve that end? How are such people being taken out of the system? Are they being dealt with in accordance with a proper assessment of the difficulties that they face? If the debate achieves nothing other than to obtain a clear statement from the Minister on the Government's approach to those important issues, its importance will be confirmed.
In preparing for the debate, I received a number of letters and representations from voluntary organisations. Colin MacKay, of the Scottish Society for the Mentally Handicapped, wrote to me, saying:
"There are no adequate alternatives to prison particularly for people with a mild or moderate handicap who persistently offend … The police have little training in mental handicap and may fail to recognise it, or not know what to do about it

361
There is a Scottish Office circular on interviewing mentally disordered suspects but it is a long way short of the more rigorous English Code of Practice under PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act).
Because of time constraints and the inadequacy of legal aid, defence lawyers may not pick up the fact that a person has a mental handicap."
Clearly we are dispensing with the law in that case, to the detriment of vulnerable people who face those difficulties. I know that the Minister does not have specific responsibility for Scotland, but Scotland has that problem. He may wish to take that on board and discuss it with his colleagues at the Scottish Office.
How firm have the Government been in emphasising the powers available to the courts and other relevant agencies to divert mentally disturbed offenders from the criminal justice system, not just in England and Wales but also in Scotland? We must deal with what is often described as the "revolving door syndrome". Organisations such as MIND frequently refer to the problem in that way. Many prisoners are likely to be serving short sentences for petty offences and will not be subject to any statutory supervision by the probation service on release. Many may also be homeless and rootless. The Minsiter will know what the Butler report had to say on that as long ago as 1975. Although I recognise that the Home Office and the Mental Health Foundation funded the three NACRO diversion projects to encourage changes in current arrangements, I wish to ask genuinely what progress the Home Office feels is being made on those important points.
The Minister will acknowledge that the Government have had the benefit of a number of reports, not simply the views of voluntary organisations, important though they are, like NACRO, MIND and the Scottish Society for the Mentally Handicapped, but also their own Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons' report from January 1990 to March 1991, which said:
"It is our view that there is an urgent need for the Prison Service to review facilities for disabled and handicapped inmates, staff and visitors in all establishments."
That was a profound comment, and when it is made at that level the House is entitled to hear of the response from the Home Office and other Departments involved.
There is also the report of the Reed committee. The Minister may wish to deal with that, but also with the representations made to his Department by MENCAP, MIND, the Patients Association, and many others who realise the importance of the issues raised.
The British Medical Journal expressed concern about such reports and what it considered to be elements of Government inaction when it, too, wrote an article headed, "Mentally disordered prisoners: reports but no improvements".
There is a real worry that, because the Government do not like information, we seem to be failing to get the response that the problems in those prisons, and of individuals in prisons, invite. The enormous strain on the prison medical service is self-evident. The whole House would wish to congratulate those who deal with such difficult issues. In November 1991, the Home Office published a consultation paper on the reform of the prison medical service. What will follow? What are the Government doing, given that the consultation document was published? What do they feel about the responses that
362
they have received, and how much support are they giving to the prison medical service, which would be under enormous strain even if it were not for the problems of the large numbers of mentally ill or mentally handicapped persons who find themselves in prison?
The issues raised are particularly significant. We are concerned about the numbers of such people who find themselves in prison. We are also worried about the strain on, and demands made of, the staff, because clearly the management of such persons is out of all proportion to their numbers. I mentioned Brixton, but I think that suicide attempts occur elsewhere, which is why the rights of the individual have to be protected, and the Gunn report was based on the facts available to its author.
I shall put three specific questions to the Minister in the hope that, even if he cannot reply to them tonight, he will write to me with a considered response from the Home Office. According to The Independent on 1 June, £100 million is needed to support medical and nursing staff to meet the problems of mentally ill offenders. I do not know whether that figure is accurate, but I want to know whether the Government have made an assessment on resources and, if so, what conclusions they have reached.
Secondly, can the Minister tell us of the Home Office plans for pilot projects in the prison health service?
Thirdly, as we hear much about the privatisation of the prison service, and bearing in mind the vulnerable groups who are the subject of today's debate, it would not be unreasonable to ask whether the national health service will still be involved in the interests of such people. What are the Minister's thoughts on that matter, particularly in respect of mentally ill and mentally handicapped prisoners?
I thank the Minister for listening to my comments. Dr. Coyle, the governor of Brixton prison, said of the staff in prison who address the problems:
"There is a comradeship in adversity".
I want that comradeship to continue, but the adversity should be reduced. Do the Government share those objectives?
10.32 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on his success in securing tonight's Adjournment debate to raise the important issue of mentally ill and mentally handicapped people in prison. Over the years he has demonstrated a sincere regard for the rights and circumstances of those who are mentally ill and mentally handicapped. His was a well-informed and thoughtful speech. I hope that what I say this evening in the time available will answer some of his worries and set out clearly our present practices and policies for the future. There will be some items that, in the time left me, I shall not be able to cover. I shall take up his request and write to him on those matters.
The issue of mentally disordered people in prison has recently rightly commanded much public and media attention. It is now widely understood that the imprisonment of a mentally disturbed offender can aggravate his or her mental disorder. It is the Government's policy that mentally disturbed offenders should receive care and treatment from the health and social services. They should be diverted from the criminal justice system at the earliest possible opportunity. The hon. Gentleman and I are agreed on that.

363
Mentally disordered people should he prosecuted, but only where that is required in the public interest. In other cases alternatives to prosecution should be found. To encourage that, the Government have issued guidance to the police, courts and the probation service, and are pursuing with the police ways of improving their working relationship with health and social services. Together with the Mental Health Foundation we have provided funding for three pilot projects organised by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders to encourage the diversion of mentally disordered offenders from the criminal justice system. We are giving the foundation an annual grant of £250,000 to enable it to support diversion projects.
We are now also planning a series of regional conferences for senior managers and representatives of health and social services and the criminal justice agencies to help them to plan an improved response by their services to the needs of the mentally disordered who come before the courts. However, criminal offences are committed by people who suffer from mental disorder, and from time to time those people will inevitably find themselves before the courts. The courts should be guided by the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983, which enables mentally disordered offenders to be directed away from prison.
To ensure that the provisions of that Act are fully understood and complied with, the Home Office issued detailed guidance in 1990. This drew to the attention of the courts and others the need to make greater use of their powers under the Mental Health Act. Those powers include the ability to remand a defendant to hospital for psychiatric reports. Persons remanded to prison or convicted prisoners may be transferred to hospital following medical reports that the individual concerned is suffering from mental disorder.
Furthermore, prison sentences for offenders who are mentally disordered at the time of their appearance in court may be avoided altogether if the court so decides, and the offender detained in hospital.
There has been a significant improvement in the number of prisoners transferred to hospital. During 1991, 470 prisoners were transferred under sections 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act, compared with 325 in 1990 and 137 in 1986. This represents an increase over the past year of 45 per cent. and prison medical officers and Home Office officials are continuing their efforts to identify and transfer prisoners to hospital where appropriate. We expect to transfer at least 600 this year.
The policy is clear. Imprisonment is not appropriate for the mentally disordered. However, the Government are aware that, despite the improvements, there is still some way to go. There are still in our prisons some mentally disordered offenders who should be directed to hospital, and some who are mentally disordered but are not detainable under the Mental Health Act and cannot, therefore, be transferred to hospital solely because of that mental disorder. For this second group the commitment must be to provide adequate facilities and specialised care and support.
It was to assist us to establish the extent of this problem that we commissioned research from Professor John Gunn of the Institute of Psychiatry in 1988. This was one of the two reports to which the hon. Member for Monklands,
364
West referred. The report was published last year and a copy is in the Library. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has read it with care.
The report commented on the existing facilities for the treatment of mental disorder in prison, and made recommendations for improvement. We are giving careful consideration to Professor Gunn's recommendations and are in the process of developing a strategy for the care of those prisoners with mental health needs for whom transfer to hospital is not appropriate. A joint Home Office and Department of Health review of health and social services for mentally disordered offenders and others requiring similar services was announced by my hon. Friend the then Under-Secretary of State for Health in November 1990. The hon. Gentleman also referred to that report.
The steering committee of the review met at the beginning of 1991 under the chairmanship of Dr. John Reed, senior principal medical officer at the Department of Health, and has since been referred to as the Reed committee. It has to date made good progress and is due to end next month when the steering committee will submit a final report to Ministers.
The review has published eight interim reports, together with an overview document. These are the reports of the prisons, hospital and community advisory groups which were issued to interested bodies for consultation in November of last year, and they have elicited some 200 responses from a range of agencies.
On 2 June reports of the advisory groups concerned with finance, staffing and training, research, academic development and services for mentally disordered offenders with special needs were issued for consultation purposes. The advisory groups have made 87 recommendations that are intended to improve the co-ordination and delivery of care and treatment for mentally disordered offenders. These provide guidance on the range and magnitude of health and social services provision that may be required, as well as the systems necessary to identify and assess the needs of those who should be diverted from the criminal justice system to more suitable treatment centres. Several of the recommendations for the mental health care of mentally disordered prisoners are entirely in accord with proposals that are set out in the White Paper on the prison service entitled "Custody, Care and Justice" and in the recent consultation paper on contracting for prison health services.
The reports underwrite the Government's policy that mentally disordered offenders who need care and treatment should receive it from the health and social services rather than from the criminal justice system. It is not our intention that action should be delayed merely because the review is still taking place. Indeed, we are at present considering, with colleagues in the Department of Health, the present recommendations with the aim of identifying those that can be implemented at an early date. One such is the provision of additional beds in regional secure units. A further £18 million has been allocated to the building programme. This should ensure the provision of an extra 400 medium secure beds by the end of 1994.
The recommendations contained in the reports provide an opportunity to make radical improvements to the way in which mentally disordered offenders are treated in our society. As the hon. Gentleman implied, they have considerable resource implications. The cost of a bed for such transfers from the prison system to a local hospital

365
could cost £30,000 to £40,000 a year. Transfer to a regional secure centre could cost upwards of £70,000 a year a bed. The cost of a bed in a special hospital would be similar. It is important that we get our plans right because they are certainly costly.
With the close co-operation that has been achieved between our Departments through the review I believe that we can develop a system whereby the mentally disordered should be cared for as far as possible in the community under conditions of no greater security than is justified and with the quality of care and attention that they require.
I intended to refer to several other matters but my time is limited. I shall deal, however, with the hon. Gentleman's question about the impact of the private management of prisons. I hope that in the end it will be small. I say that because I hope that we shall divert, before they get to prison, offenders who need treatment elsewhere. Should such offenders arrive in a prison, which will happen from time to time, the medical service in the prison—whether provided under contract by the national health service or by a private health provider—will operate in the same way
366
as the rest of the prison service. It will diagnose those who should not be in prison and they will then be moved out of the prison service into an NHS institution—it will be an NHS institution for the foreseeable future. There will be no difference in approach between the privately managed prision and the public sector prison.
The hon. Gentleman referred to Brixton when talking about the need to give appropriate treatment. He is aware that we have been developing an acute psychiatric unit in Brixton that will provide a high standard of medical and nursing care and an improved regime for acutely disturbed inmates for whom transfer to hospital is not immediately possible or perhaps not necessary. The building works are completed and arrangements are in hand to select personnel who are qualified to staff the unit. The unit will be brought into use once the staff are in post.
I shall write to the hon. Gentleman about the matters that I have not had time to cover. I am glad that he has given me the opportunity to put on record what I have this evening because he has raised an important subject.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Interception of Communications
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to improve the safeguards against abuse of the Interception of Communications Act 1985.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  None. I have every confidence in the existing arrangements for oversight by the Interception of Communications Commissioner and tribunal of the operation of the Act. I refer the hon. Member to the reference in paragraph 7 of the commissioner's report for 1991, Cm 1942, to the determination of the agencies involved in the interception of communications to obey the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

  Prisoners (Labour)
  Mr. Quentin Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are, in relation to the last full year for which figures are available,(a) the total value of the economic contributions made by prisoners' own labour to the funding of the prison service, (b) the value of the sales of goods produced by prison labour to third (outside) parties and (c) the proportion which the answers to (a) and (17, respectively represent of the total annual cost (including depreciation, interest and other capital costs) of the prison service or so much of this information as is available in any form; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The last full year for which figures are available is 1990–91. The information is as follows:(a) £47.6 million; (b) £5.7 million; (c) 0.03 per cent. (a); 0.004 per cent. (b).

  The figures at (a) and (b) represent the sales value of goods and services applied by prison industrial workshops, laundries, farms and gardens, excluding VAT. They do not include the economic contribution made by inmates working in prison kitchens or engaged in other domestic work, on which information is not available.

  The total cost of the Prison Service in 1990–91 was £1,464.2 million. This figure includes capital expenditure, but excludes depreciation and interest on capital employed.

  Dog-fouling
  Mr. Sproat
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from local authorities regarding the need to strengthen the ability of local authorities to enforce byelaws about dog-fouling; what consideration he is giving to the introduction of legislation to make the fouling by dogs of footways and other areas to which the public have access, an offence; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  We have received two recent representations from local authorities about the powers 192
  available to them to enforce byelaws for the regulation of dogs. I have been informed that the Government Departments concerned are considering whether further legislation on the subject of dog fouling would be appropriate.

  Personal Correspondence
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what powers an immigration officer may copy personal correspondence in the possession of persons applying for temporary visitors' visas on arrival in the United Kingdom; and for how long such copies may be retained by his Department.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Under the Immigration Act 1971 an immigration officer may examine and detain for up to seven days a document produced to him or found on a search.

  It is standard practice to photocopy such documents and the copies may be retained as long as considered necessary, but are normally destroyed after three years.

  Police Accommodation
  Mr. Hendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many empty police houses there are for each police authority area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Details of empty police houses as at 31 March 1991, which are the most recent figures available, are set out in the table. Of the total of 1,614, the number due to be reallocated to serving police officers was 710 and the number identified for sale as surplus to requirements was 517.

  Empty police houses as at 31 March 1991

  Police Authority

  Empty houses

  Avon and Somerset

  38

  Bedfordshire

  3

  Cambridgeshire

  17

  Cheshire

  27

  City of London

  0

  Cleveland

  2

  Cumbria

  65

  Derbyshire

  80

  Devon and Cornwall

  20

  Dorset

  25

  Durham

  22

  Dyfed-Powys

  34

  Essex

  47

  Gloucestershire

  35

  Greater Manchester

  70

  Gwent

  29

  Hampshire

  40

  Hertfordshire

  17

  Humberside

  21

  Kent

  40

  Lancashire

  61

  Leicestershire

  8

  Lincolnshire

  34

  Merseyside

  7

  Norfolk

  11

  Northamptonshire

  13

  Northumbria

  32

  North Wales

  70

  North Yorkshire

  42

  Nottinghamshire

  14

  South Wales

  50

  South Yorkshire

  8

  Staffordshire

  32

  Suffolk

  25

  Surrey

  6

  193

  Police Authority

  Empty houses

  Sussex

  12

  Thames Valley

  56

  Warwickshire

  11

  West Mercia

  56

  West Midlands

  15

  West Yorkshire

  9

  Wiltshire

  25

  Metropolitan Police

  1385

  Total

  1,614

  1 Includes flats.

  Mr. Austin Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish a list of empty residential property in the London borough of Greenwich in the ownership of the Metropolitan police and the type of accommodation available; how long each property has been vacant; and what is the intended future use.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The information is as follows:

  Property

  Type

  Number of units

  Period vacant months

  Future use

  Swanne House

  Maisonnette

  3

  9

  Awaiting allocation

  Swanne House

  Maisonnette

  1

  4

  Awaiting allocation

  Swanne House

  Maisonnette

  1

  3

  Awaiting allocation

  Lynher Lodge

  Flat

  1

  11

  Under review

  Lynher Lodge

  Flat

  1

  3

  Awaiting allocation

  Rennetts Wood House

  Flat

  2

  6

  Under review

  Rennetts Wood House

  Flat

  1

  18

  Under review

  Rennetts Wood House

  Flat

  1

  1

  Awaiting allocation

  6c Vanburgh Park Road

  Flat

  1

  14

  Under review

  6d Vanburgh Park Road

  Flat

  1

  6

  Under review

  Eltham Hill/ Kingsground

  Flat

  9

  Withdrawn from allocation prior to disposal

  Shooters Hill Road

  Flat

  3

  Awaiting conversion for operational use

  Asylum
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consultations he has held on the provisions of the Asylum Bill to be introduced this Session; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Ministers and officials are frequently in contact with various refugee and voluntary organisations active in the asylum field and are generally familiar with their views. I have had a number of meetings with interested organisations and we are ready to consider any particular points they may wish to raise.

  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received in respect of reforms to the procedure governing asylum application in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Between July 1991 and April 1992 approximately 2,400 representations were received from hon. Members, interested organisations and members of the public, many being members of organisations such as Amnesty International who sent pro forma letters. Since 194
  April we have received approximately 230 representations from members of the public, many forwarded by hon. Members and mostly pro forma letters from Amnesty International members.

  Refugees
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what payments have been made to the new refugee unit, which was formerly part of the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Since becoming independent of UKIAS on 6 May, the new refugee unit has received £100,000 in May and £206,250 in June. The sum of £200,000 was given to UKIAS last year to finance the separation costs and the unit was given an additional £33,420 in March when still part of UKIAS.

  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with other EC Ministers with regard to refugees from the former state of Yugoslavia; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Discussions on the situation of persons displaced by the various conflicts in the region of former Yugoslavia, took place at a meeting of EC Immigration Ministers in Lisbon on 11 and 12 June. Ministers were able to exchange information on how each member state is coping with these problems.

  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had on the setting up of the new refugee unit; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) announced on 12 March, at column 592, that at the joint invitation of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) and the London representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees a planning group was being established to devise a constitution for a new organisation to provide asylum seekers with legal counselling and representation in appeals. My right hon. and learned Friend and I look forward to receiving the group's proposals. In the meantime, the group has assumed responsibility for the general oversight of the refugee unit which was previously part of the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service and is now called the new refugee unit. I met Mrs. Usha Prashar, who chairs the group, on 26 May.

ENVIRONMENT

  Uniform Business Rate
  Mr. Sproat
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the length of time being taken over uniform business rate appeals; how many such appeals are pending; what percentage have been pending for over three months, six months and one year, respectively in(a) England and (b) the Harwich constituency; and what specific steps he is taking to speed up appeals throughout (i) England and (ii) the Harwich constituency.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Non-domestic rating appeals in England are dealt with by valuation tribunals, and those in Harwich by the Essex North valuation tribunal.
  195
  Information is not available centrally in the from requested. The available information is as follows:

  All tribunals in England

  Essex North valuation tribunal including Harwich

  Number

  per cent.

  Number

  per cent.

  Appeals received

  By the end of March 1991

  597,000

  77

  5,800

  75

  During April to September 1991

  90,000

  11

  1,000

  13

  During October 1991 to March 1992

  92,000

  12

  900

  12

  Total

  779,000

  100

  7,700

  100

  Total appeals cleared

  220,000

  1,500

  Appeals outstanding at end of March 1992

  558,000

  6,200

  Most of the original list appeals in 1990–91 were received towards the end of the financial year.

  Valuation tribunals are independent bodies and the priority and timing of cases is primarily a matter for them. The Department has, however, urged all tribunals to deal with appeals as quickly as possible.

  The Department is responsible for the funding of the English tribunals, and they were provided with additional staff and computer systems for dealing with the 1990 rating appeals. The staffing levels are kept under review.

  Grant in aid paid to UDCs 1987–92—£ million

  Actual outturn (Current Prices)

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  Black Country

  2.443

  23.000

  38.000

  32.000

  46.200

  Bristol

  —

  0.283

  5.000

  13.425

  19.125

  Central Manchester

  —

  2.500

  11.000

  14.000

  16.000

  Leeds

  —

  2.743

  8.750

  14.000

  13.600

  London Docklands

  82–800

  116.415

  225.750

  332–975

  248.710

  Merseyside

  20–942

  20.535

  23.000

  24.000

  25.438

  Sheffield

  —

  7.958

  9.500

  18.967

  13.300

  Teesside

  5.000

  20.697

  36.009

  42.135

  56.230

  Trafford Park

  10.450

  15.500

  13.300

  24.200

  28.100

  Tyne and Wear

  4.000

  24.016

  35.800

  37.750

  40.500

  Grant in aid paid to UDCS 1987–1992—£ million 1987–1988 prices

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  Black Country

  2.443

  24.662

  43.428

  39.556

  61.123

  Bristol

  —

  0.303

  5.714

  16.599

  25.302

  Central Manchester

  —

  2.681

  12.571

  17.310

  21.168

  Leeds

  —

  2.941

  9.999

  17.310

  17–992

  London Docklands

  82.800

  124.827

  257.998

  411.707

  329.043

  Merseyside

  20.942

  22.019

  26.286

  29.674

  33.651

  Sheffield

  —

  8.533

  10.857

  23.452

  17.596

  Teesside

  5000

  22.193

  41.153

  52.098

  74.392

  Trafford Park

  10.450

  16.620

  15.199

  29.922

  37.176

  Tyne and Wear

  4.000

  25.751

  40–914

  46.676

  53.582

  Brundtland Commission
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what contribution his Department made to the proceedings of the reconvened Brundtland commission on environment and development in London on 22 to 24 April.

  Mr. Maclean
  My Department contributed £30,000 towards the costs of the London meeting of the World Commission on Environment and Development in April. The Secretary of State for the Environment also hosted a dinner and reception for the commissioners.

  Urban Development
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide a table of expenditure on each urban development corporation and each urban development area for each year from 1987–88(a) at current prices and (b) at 1987–88 prices.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The tables show annual grant in aid to the urban development corporations for each year from 1987–88(a) at current prices and (b) at 1987–88 prices.

  Regional Offices
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide a table of expenditure showing the running costs of each regional office of his Department and the cost of running sub-regional offices aggregated by region and with Greater London shown separately and excluding the funding programmes operated by the offices for each year from 1987–88(a) at current prices and (b) at 1987–88 prices.

  Mr. Howard
  The costs of running each of my Department's regional offices are set out in the tables. None of these offices has a sub-regional office. Both tables exclude the separate local office networks of Property Holdings and PSAS and, before 1990–91, that of the PSA:
  197

  £ million

  Region

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  (A) Costs of running each DOE regional office at current prices

  London

  3.7

  3.6

  4.1

  3.9

  4.2

  South East

  2.7

  2.4

  3.0

  2.9

  3.3

  Eastern

  1.9

  1.9

  2.4

  2.2

  2.6

  South West

  1.9

  1.7

  2.1

  2.1

  2.5

  East Midlands

  2.5

  2.4

  3.1

  2.9

  3.3

  West Midlands

  3.1

  2.8

  3.5

  3.4

  4.0

  North West

  4.4

  4.2

  5.3

  5.5

  6.4

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  2.8

  3.0

  3.6

  3.6

  4.4

  Northern

  2.7

  2.6

  3.3

  3.2

  3.7

  Merseyside Task Force

  1.5

  1.5

  1.7

  1.7

  2.1

  (B) Costs of running each DOE regional office at 1987–88 prices

  London

  3.7

  3.4

  3.6

  3.1

  3.2

  South East

  2.7

  2.3

  2.6

  2.4

  2.5

  Eastern

  1.9

  1.7

  2.1

  1.8

  2.0

  South West

  1.9

  1.6

  1.9

  1.7

  1.9

  East Midlands

  2.5

  2.3

  2.7

  2.4

  2.5

  West Midlands

  3.1

  2.6

  3.0

  2.7

  3.0

  North West

  4.4

  3.9

  4.6

  4.4

  4.9

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  2.8

  2.8

  3.2

  2.9

  3.4

  Northern

  2.7

  2.5

  2.9

  2.6

  2.8

  Merseyside Task Force

  1.5

  1.4

  1.5

  1.4

  1.6

  County Hall, London
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what factors will be considered in deciding the future use of county hall; and when the matter falls to be determined.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Government will be making a statement on this subject shortly. It will take account of the agreement which the London residuary body have already entered into for the sale of the Riverside building, with an option to withdraw by 31 December of this year, and the financial and wider considerations relating to any alternative proposal for the occupation of the whole county hall site.

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the resources available to English Nature to notify and protect those sites which are of special interest but which await notification or renotification as sites of special scientific interest.

  Mr. Maclean
  Resources for all English Nature's programmes are considered in assessing its corporate plan prior to the annual grant in aid allocation in the autumn. A 13 per cent. increase in grant in aid for 1992–93 was announced last year. The plan for 1993–96 is currently before me.

  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has had with the chairman of English Nature on the fulfilment of English Nature's statutory duties to notify as sites of special scientific interest those areas of land which in its opinion are of special interest.

  Mr. Maclean
  Ministers from this Department meet the chairman of English Nature on a regular basis to discuss a wide range of issues. I shall be meeting Lord Cranbrook on 8 July to discuss English Nature's corporate plan, which includes the provision to be made for the notification programme.
  198
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many management agreements exist between owners and occupiers of sites of special scientific interest and English Nature; how many agreements have been reached in each of the last five years; and how many are estimated to be made in the current financial year and the next financial year.

  Mr. Maclean
  The information requested is as follows:

  Financial year

  New cases

  Renewals

  Numbers reached in the last five years

  1987–88

  273

  —

  1988–89

  313

  —

  1989–90

  221

  —

  1990–91

  323

  —

  1991–92

  271

  359

  Estimated to he reached

  1992–93

  220

  330

  1993–94

  200

  350

  Note: The number of management agreements reached under section 15 of the Countryside Act 1968 at 31 March 1992 was 1,584.

  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many sites are awaiting notification or renotification as sites of special scientific interest; how many are likely to be notified by the end of March 1993; and when the sites of special scientific interest notification programme inherited from the Nature Conservancy Council will be complete.

  Mr. Maclean
  I am advised by English Nature that at 31 March 1992, the renotification of sites in England was 97.7 per cent. complete; 54 sites originally notified under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 remain to be considered for notification under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. By the end of March 1993 the number of renotified and notified sites is expected to be 3,765. Thereafter, English Nature will notify sites as and when the appropriate scientific interest is identified.

  Water Metering
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what guidelines the Office of Water Supply has issued to water companies on fitting water meters to newly constructed properties.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Director General of Water Services has set out charging guidelines for water companies to follow which include the installation of meters where the overall benefit outweighs the cost of installation. Meters can be installed cheaply in new properties and most companies already insist that they are metered. The guidelines encourage all companies to adopt such a policy.

  Housing Finance
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if the Government will reconsider their decision to commute present revenue grants for house improvement and slum clearance in favour of a single capital sum payable to local authorities in September.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  No.

  Benzene
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the level of benzene in petrol in(a) the United Kingdom and (b) the United States; and what discussions he will be having with petrol manufacturers to reduce the levels of benzene in petrol.

  Mr. Maclean
  The maximum permissible benzene content of petrol in the United Kingdom is set by European Community directive 85/210/EEC at 5 per cent. by volume. Typical levels in the United Kingdom are between 3 and 4 per cent. and 1 and 2 per cent. in the United States of America. Government action to reduce people's exposure to evaporate emissions of volatile organic compounds, which include benzene, is directed at reducing emissions to the atmosphere. Major reductions will be achieved by new European Community standards on vehicle exhaust emissions which will come into effect from the end of this year: a second stage of even tighter standards is proposed thereafter. Proposals are expected shortly from the European Commission for directives on the control of fuel evaporation in the distribution network and during refuelling operations. The permitted summer time volatility of petrol in the United Kingdom will also be reduced from 1993. The Government are in discussion with both oil and motor industries on these matters.

  Coastal Zone Unit
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps are being taken to establish a national coastal zone unit within his Department.

  Mr. Maclean
  We have noted the recent recommendation of the report of the House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment on coastal zone protection and planning that a national coastal zone unit be set up within the Government to provide an overview of coastal policy. We will be responding to this recommendation, and to the others made by the Committee, in due course.

  Flora and Fauna
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to implement the EC directive on the conservation of flora and fauna and habitats in the United Kingdom; and what additional resources he estimates will be required for this purpose.

  Mr. Maclean
  The United Kingdom's current nature protection provisions give this country a firm basis for implementation of the directive. We are considering what further provisions are necessary to enable the directive to come fully into force within the two years prescribed.

  At the same time the Government's scientific advisers are working on the criteria for site selection as the first step towards compiling the United Kingdom's national list of candidate sites to be considered as sites of Community importance.

  The resource requirements for implementation over the next few years will be discussed with the country agencies and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee in the context of the normal corporate planning and grant in aid allocation processes.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give an estimate of the number of homeless children in London currently and in 1982; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  The information is not held centrally and my Department does not make estimates.

  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his current estimate of the number of homeless(a) in London, (b) in Wales and (c) in the United Kingdom; what were the comparable figures in 1982; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  The available information represents the numbers of households for whom local authorities accepted responsibility for securing permanent accommodation, under the homelessness provisions of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 and the Housing Act 1985.

  The information for England and London is as follows:

  England

  London

  19921

  38,460

  10,850

  1991

  145,140

  39,590

  1982

  71,620

  20,630

  1 First quarter.

  A new reporting system was introduced for authorities other than non-metropolitan districts from the third quarter of 1982 so the figures for the year are not strictly comparable with those for subsequent years.

  For information about Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland I refer the hon. and learned Member to my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland respectively.

  Darwin Initiative
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures the Darwin initiative is expected to take which the United Kingdom has not already been taking through its research and aid programmes; and what is likely to be its cost.
  201
  Mr. Maclean
  The Darwin initiative will assist in carrying out international studies of available natural resources, the building up of inventories of the most important species and the promoting of exchange of information and techniques for conservation.

  The aim of the Darwin initiative is to build on the work already being done in the United Kingdom and to develop a new integrated strategy for promoting the protection of biodiversity. We are still considering the resource implications.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what relationship he proposes between the Darwin initiative and the work of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research.

  Mr. Maclean
  We are still considering how to involve existing scientific and environmental groups in the Darwin initiative. However, the work of the consultative group for international agricultural research, which includes the development of higher yield crop varieties and the study of sustainable agricultural practices, shares the same long-term goal of the sustainable use of the world's resources promoted by the Darwin initiative.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment in what ways he proposes that the Darwin initiative will help the developing countries to obtain compensation for the commercial exploitation of their genetic resources.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Darwin initiative aims to support the implementation of the biodiversity convention. That convention facilitates the setting up of benefit sharing arrangements between countries providing potentially valuable biological resources and those who develop them.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what will be the role of non-governmental organisations in the action team to be established to develop the framework for the Darwin initiative.

  Mr. Maclean
  Interested organisations in the private and public sector, including non-governmental organisations will be invited to help develop the Darwin initiative.

  Biodiversity Convention
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment If he will make a statement on the implications of the EC's signature of the biodiversity convention for the draft directive on patenting of life forms still under discussion in the Community.

  Mr. Maclean
  The European Parliament is presently considering the draft directive on patenting of life forms, in the context of the recently signed biodiversity convention. It is not anticipated that the biodiversity convention will have any significant implications for the draft directive.

  Building Maintenance, Salford
  Mr. David Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action he has decided to take against Salford city council following the issue of a notice under section 19A of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, part III, for its failure to make the statutory rate of return in respect of building maintenance work in 1989–90.
  202
  Mr. Robin Squire
  My right hon. and learned Friend has given careful consideration to the response which Salford city council has made to the notice served on 1 July 1991, and has today given a direction under section 19B of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1990 in respect of building maintenance work. The direction places restrictions on the extent of building work undertaken by the authority without the express agreement of the Secretary of State.

  Planning Laws (Crown Exemption)
  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to review the exemption of Crown bodies from town and country planning legislation; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir George Young
  Yes. A public consultation paper will be issued in a few weeks' time, embodying detailed proposals by my right hon. and learned Friend and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. With the agreement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, the proposals will also apply to Crown exemption under Scottish planning legislation.

  The usual constitutional position is that the Crown is exempt from all statutory provisions, unless they state to the contrary. For this purpose, the Crown includes the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Crown Estate, Government Departments and Parliament itself. Crown bodies are not entirely exempt from planning legislation; they may, for example, apply for planning permission in anticipation of disposal of their land under section 299 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

  But most Crown development, with the exception of trunk roads which are subject to the provisions of the Highways Act 1980, in Scotland the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984, is undertaken under non-statutory arrangements set out in part IV of DOE circular 18/84, Welsh Office 37/84. All Crown bodies have agreed to these arrangements, whereby a Crown body that wishes to develop land, obtain listed building consent or acquire hazardous substances consent, serves a notice of proposed development on the local planning authority. Where they and the authority fail to reach agreement, the development proposal is referred to the Secretary of State for decision, if necessary following a non-statutory public local inquiry.

  The citizens charter White Paper noted the progressive removal of immunities that shelter Government Departments and Crown bodies from regulations, inspection and enforcement requirements placed on others. My right hon. and learned Friend believes that it is now appropriate to bring Crown exemption under the planning system largely to an end. He proposes that all Crown bodies should be required to apply to the local planning authority for planning permission, listed building consent and hazardous substances consent in the normal way. There will be limited exceptions to this, principally where national or prison security is involved, or for trunk roads proposals, which are already subject to statutory procedures equivalent to town and country planning procedures. One consequence of this proposal will be that Crown developers will be legally required to undertake environmental impact assessments of their proposals, as required by EC directive 85/337, in the same way as other developers, replacing the non-statutory arrangements in DOE circular 15/88—Welsh Office 23/88.
  203
  My right hon. and learned Friend also proposes that any Crown development allegedly in breach of planning control should be subject to the enforcement provisions of part VII of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990; and the statutory regimes in part VIII of that Act for outdoor advertisement control and tree protection should apply to Crown land, with any necessary modifications.

  My right hon. and learned Friend intends to embody these proposals in legislation when a suitable opportunity arises.

  Earth Summit
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list(a) the 12 representatives of non-governmental organisations and (b) representatives of other organisations who attended the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development as advisers to the official United Kingdom delegation.

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside to the hon. Member for. Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on 15 June, Official Report, columns 400–1.

  Disconnections by Water Authorities

  Authority

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  Anglian

  218

  774

  2,268

  1,586

  1,880

  North West

  110

  238

  457

  775

  779

  Northumbrian

  70

  59

  300

  480

  870

  Severn Trent

  650

  1,074

  1,000

  932

  1,101

  South West

  76

  404

  404

  324

  100

  Southern

  115

  1.249

  1,152

  1.164

  1,354

  Thames

  788

  225

  576

  1,594

  935

  Welsh

  90

  350

  950

  2,067

  1,117

  Wessex

  0

  0

  0

  32

  83

  Yorkshire

  25

  189

  293

  560

  999

  Total

  2.142

  4,562

  7,400

  9,514

  9,218

  Statutory Water Companies

  —

  —

  —

  —

  6,037

HEALTH

  Geriatric Patients
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the average number of days geriatric patients spent in hospital after an operation for each year since 1981.

  Mr. Yeo
  The information requested has been collected centrally only since 1987–88. The first reliable figures were for 1988–89 and are given in the table.

  Average post-operative stay

  Year

  Number of days

  1988–89

  9.7

  1989–90

  9.4

  1990–91

  8.9

  The information relates to patients over 65.

  Councillors' Allowances
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has had in regard to the adequacy of payments to councillors; if there is any action he will be taking to increase their allowances; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: I have received a number of representations from local authorities, local authority associations and from individual councillors. Councillors' allowances are reviewed annually in the light of movements in costs.

  Water Disconnections
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the number of water supply disconnections in each of the five years prior to water privatisation for each water authority area in England and Wales.

  Mr. Maclean
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The information the hon. Member requests is set out in the table. Information on disconnections prior to privatisation was only collected by the Department for water authorities as part of the water authorities' annual charges returns. Information on statutory water company disconnections was not collected by the Department prior to 1988–89.

  T-cell Leukaemia
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she will publish the findings of the study undertaken by the North London Blood Transfusions Service on behalf of her Department, into the risks associated with blood transfusions involving human T-cell leukaemia; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Sackville
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) on 15 June at columns 415–16.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list, by regional health authority for the last four years, the number of cases of cancer that have been reported associated with the virus human T-cell leukaemia; and if she will show in her answer the percentage of those cases that proved fatal.

  Mr. Sackville
  This information is not available centrally.
  205
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of patients who receive white cell blood transfusions that have not been screened for human T-cell leukaemia.

  Mr. Sackville
  We are not aware of any general medical opinion that such a study would he beneficial.

  Air Pollution
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will place in the Library the most recent report of the Advisory Committee on Medical Aspects of Air Pollution on the effects of sulphur dioxide.

  Mr. Sackville
  The second report of the Advisory Group on the Medical Aspects of Air Pollution Episodes on sulphur dioxide and acid aerosols is expected to be published later this year. A copy will be placed in the Library.

  NHS Staff (Conflict of Interests)
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what written advice and guidance is given to employees of the national health service including trusts on the conflicts of interest that may arise when they hold a beneficial interest in private care homes or hostels.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Health authorities and trusts as employers are responsible for ensuring that their employees' private interests do not conflict with their public duties. Current guidance issued by the Department in personnel memorandum (86) 7, a copy of which is available in the Library, includes a model contract of employment for general managers of health authorities. This stipulates that the employee must declare to the authority any financial interest or relationship which may affect its policies or decisions.

  Advice on professional conduct issued by the General Medical Council recommends that when a doctor refers a patient to a private care home or hostel in which he or she has an interest, the patient must be informed of that interest before the referral is made.

  Parliamentary electors registered in selected constituencies of West Yorkshire, 1983–1992

  Note: BC = borough constituency: CC=county constituency

  Parliamentary constituency

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  Batley and Spen

  BC

  74,699

  75,131

  75,435

  74,953

  75,334

  75,987

  76,125

  76,327

  77,486

  77,381

  Colne Valley

  CC

  70,455

  70,502

  70,789

  70,827

  71,057

  71,658

  71,755

  72,079

  72,948

  72,935

  Dewsbury

  CC

  70,623

  71,028

  71,879

  71,656

  71,838

  72,183

  72,315

  72,575

  73,767

  73,816

  Huddersfield

  BC

  68,951

  68,814

  68,609

  67,215

  67,247

  66,983

  66,121

  65,921

  68,272

  68,324

  The figures in this table are those supplied by electoral registration officers at the times when the registers come in to use each year.

  Source: Population estimates unit, OPCS.

  Benzene
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if her Department (1) will investigate the link between childhood leukaemia and benzene; and if she will make a statement;

  (2) if she will conduct a study into the number of leukaemia cases resulting from exposure to benzene resulting from petrol fumes.

  Mr. Sackville
  Benzene is toxic at high doses and is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer—IARC—as a human carcinogen, being associated.

  World Health Organisation
  Mr. Hew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what considerations she has given to the report by the World Health Organisation Commission on Health and Environment; and what steps she has taken to develop policies to meet the principles set by the Commission.

  Mr. Sackville
  We have welcomed the report. Its proposals are consistent with the Government's policies, as expressed in the White Paper "This Common Inheritance" published in September 1990 and with the Department's responsibilities for the promotion and protection of the public health.

  Drug Misuse
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people died from drug misuse in the United Kingdom in the last year for which figures are available.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  In 1990, there were 294 deaths registered in the United Kingdom with the underlying cause given as drug dependence or non-dependent abuse of drugs, other than alcohol or tobacco. In addition, it is estimated that there were more than 900 deaths registered where the underlying cause was attributed to poisoning and where drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 were mentioned on the death certificate.

  Electoral Roll
  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the total number of electors registered in(a) Colne Valley, (b) Huddersfield, (c) Dewsbury and (d) Batley and Spen parliamentary constituencies in each year since 1982.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  with blood disorders and leukaemia. The IARC advises on whether a chemical is carcinogen from animal studies and human data.

  The Department's independent expert advisory Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment discussed the question of- the carcinogenic effects of benzene, in relation to not only levels in petrol, but the whole range of sources of exposure of the general population, at its meetings in 1990 and 1991. The committee's conclusions were:
  "Benzene was genotoxic and shown to be carcinogenic in humans. No threshold for carcinogenicity had been demonstrated and therefore there is no entirely safe level with regard to carcinogenic effects. There is evidence of increased

  207
  incidence rates for various leukaemias, mainly nonlymphocytic, in occupational groups exposed to levels in the 10–20 ppm range".

  People's exposure to benzene is greatest at petrol stations, but is of short duration. The exposure of the general population to benzene from all sources combined is very low compared with that of special occupational groups. Studies of these groups have shown that health effects attributable to benzene are difficult to assess. It is therefore not possible, on present information, to establish any direct link between the increased incidence of leukaemia or mortality in children or adults and environmental exposure to benzene.

  The Department, in conjunction with several other Government Departments, is funding research by the small area health statistics unit, which is an independent body based at the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine. It has built up a comprehensive database on the distribution of mortality, by specified cause, and on the incidence of cancer related to small areas of the country. It is currently undertaking studies of the incidence of mortality and cancer in the neighbourhood of industrial installations, including benzene works.

  Cooking and Catering
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps she is taking to ensure that adults with learning difficulties are not precluded from participating in cooking and catering duties by the application of food hygiene regulations consequential on the Food Safety Act 1990.

  Mr. Sackville
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 19 June at column 708.

  NHS Patients
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make it her policy to ensure that patients at present being cared for within national health service provision will not be discharged into the independent sector without their agreement.

  Mr. Yeo
  Guidance issued to health authorities in February 1989 HC(89)5 a copy of which is available in the Library, makes it clear that patients must not be placed in private nursing or residential homes against their wishes if it means that they, or their relatives, will be personally responsible for any charges.

  Health Authorities (Audit Reports)
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will place in the Library copies of the annual profiles of comparative activity by all health authorities prepared by the Audit Commission and resulting from the reports of local auditors;

  (2) what information from the Audit Commission she has made available to Parliament to enable comparative assessment to be made of the activities of health authorities.

  Mr. Sackville
  We are in correspondence with the chairman of the Audit Commission to clarify and agree future engagements for the publication of comparative information on health service activity. In this context we will consider with the commission how the profiles of health authority expenditure, prepared by staff of the commission, can best serve the need for high-quality 208
  comparative information which is a key element in providing greater patient choice and in the successful operation of the reforms.

  The Department publishes each year an extensive range of comparative data on many aspects of the health service in the form of health service indicators. The indicators for 1990–91 will be published and placed in the Library next month to enable comparative assessments to be made of health authority activities.

  Human Genetics
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the answer of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs on 9 June, Official Report, column 129, by what methods Her Majesty's Government are keeping a close watch on developments in human genetics.

  Mr. Sackville
  The Government are monitoring these developments by a number of means. Scientific and medical staff keep up to date through professional literature and close links with medical scientists. Government Departments maintain long-standing contacts with representative patient, professional and international organisations. These include the Medical Research Council and its scientific boards, the Nuffield Foundation which last year set up the Nuffield Council of Bioethics, the Council of Europe and the European Community.

  I would also refer the hon. Member to the reply my right hon. Friend the then Minister of State gave my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) on 17 January at column 675, in which she announced a wide consultation on the report of the Committee on the Ethics of Gene Therapy. The consultation period ended on 18 May 1992 and all the comments will be carefully considered before the Government formulate their response to the report.

  GPs (Computers)
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how much was allocated by each family health services authority to(a) fund-holding general practices and (b) non-fund-holding general practices for the purposes of funding computer equipment in the financial years 1991–92 and 1992–93;

  (2) whether she will list the allocation of funds to each FHSA in the Wessex region for the purposes of funding computer equipment in general practices in the financial years 1991–92 and 1992–93.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  This information is not held centrally.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  International Agreements
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list all the bilateral and multilateral agreements directly or indirectly negotiated by his Department or a body acting on behalf of his Department with(a) Switzerland and (b) Liechtenstein.
  209
  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  There are no bilateral treaties recorded with Liechtenstein. The information requested on Switzerland is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list all the Council of Europe conventions to which the United Kingdom and(a) Switzerland and (b) Liechtenstein are signatories.

  Mr. Garel-Jones
  There are 42 conventions to which the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are all signatories. The United Kingdom and Switzerland are both signatories to a further 29 conventions and the United Kingdom and Liechtenstein one further convention.

  The table lists these conventions.

  Conventions to which the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are signatories.

  Statute of the Council of Europe.

  General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe.

  Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

  Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

  Protocol to the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe.

  European Convention on the Equivalence of Diplomas Leading to Admission to Universities.

  European Cultural Convention.

  European Convention on the Equivalence of Periods of University Study.

  Second Protocol to the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe.

  European Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes.

  European Convention on Extradition.

  European Agreement on the Exchange of Therapeutic Substances of Human Origin.

  European Agreement of the Abolition of Visas for Refugees.

  European Convention on the Academic Recognition of University Qualifications.

  European Social Charter1 3.

  Fourth Protocol to the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe.

  European Agreement on the Exchanges of Blood-Grouping Reagents.

  Protocol No. 2 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Conferring upon the European Court of Human Rights Competence to give Advisory Opinions.

  Protocol No. 3 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Amending Articles 29, 30 and 34 of the Convention.

  Convention on the Unification of Certain Points of Substantive Law on Patents for Invention.

  Protocol to the European Convention on the Equivalence of Diplomas leading to Admission to Universities.

  European Agreement for the Prevention of Broadcasts Transmitted from Stations outside National Territories.

  Protocol No. 5 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Amending Articles 22 and 40 of the Convention.

  European Convention on the Adoption of Children.

  European Convention on Information of Foreign Law.

  European Convention on the Abolition of Legalisation of Documents Executed by Diplomatic Agents or Consular Officers.

  European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage.

  European Agreement Relating to Persons Participating in Proceedings of the European Commission and Court of Human Rights.

  European Agreement on Continued Payment of Scholarships to Students Studying Abroad.

  210

  European Convention on the Social Protection of Farmers.

  European Agreement on the Exchange of Tissue-Typing Reagents.

  Additional Protocol to the European Agreement on the Exchange of Tissue-Typing Reagents.

  European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism.

  Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.

  European Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Concerning Custody of Children and on Restoration of Custody of Children.

  Additional Protocol to the European Agreement on the Exchange of Therapeutic Substances of Human Origin.

  Additional Protocol to the European Agreement on the Exchanges of Blood-Grouping Reagents.

  Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.

  Protocal No. 8 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

  European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

  European Convention on Transfrontier Television.3

  Anti-Doping Convention.2 3

  Conventions to which the United Kingdom and Switzerland are Signatories.

  European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter.1 2

  European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes.1 2

  Convention on Laundering. Search. Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime.1 2

  European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (Revised).1 2

  Protocol No. 10 to the ECHR1 2

  European Convention Relating to the Formalities Required for Patent Applications.

  European Convention on the International Classification of Patents for Invention.

  European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters.

  Agreement on the Temporary Importation, Free of Duty, of Medical, Surgical and Laboratory Equipment for Use on Free Loan in Hospitals and other Medical Institutions for Purposes of Diagnosis or Treatment.

  European Agreement on Travel by Young Persons on Collective Passports between the Member Countries of the Council of Europe.

  European Code of Social Security.

  Convention on the Elaboration of a European Pharmacopoeia.

  European Agreement on the Instruction and Education of Nurses.

  European Agreement on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Detergents in Washing and Cleaning Products.

  European Convention for the Protection of Animals During International Transport.

  European Convention on State Immunity.

  European Convention on the Legal Status of Children born out of Wedlock.

  European Convention for the Protection of Animals kept for Farming Purposes.

  European Agreement on the Transmission of Applications For Legal Aid.2

  Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Information on Foreign Law.

  Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters.2

  Additional Protocol to the European Convention for the Protection of Animals During International Transport.

  European Agreement on Transfer of Responsibility for Refugees.

  Additional Protocol to the Agreement on the Temporary Importation Free of Duty of Medical. Surgical and Laboratory Equipment for use on Free Loan in Hospitals and Medical Institutions for Diagnosis or Treatment.

  Protocol Amending the European Agreement on the Restriction of the use of Certain Detergents in Washing and Cleaning Products.2

  211

  European Convention on the Compensation of Victims of Violent Crimes.

  European Convention on Spectator Violence and Misbehaviour at Sports Events and in particular at Football Matches.

  European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International non-Governmental Organisations.

  Protocol to the Convention on the Elaboration of a European Pharmacopeia.

  Convention to the United Kingdom and Liechtenstein are signatories

  Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe.

  1 Denotes that United Kingdom has signed but not ratified this Convention.

  2 Denotes that Switzerland has signed but not ratified this Convention.

  3 Denotes that Liechtenstein has signed but not ratified this Convention.

  Cyprus
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of the land area of the island of Cyprus is administered by(a) the Government of the United Kingdom, (b) the Government of President George Vassiliou, the Greek Cypriot leader and (c) the Government of Mr. Raul Denktas, the Turkish Cypriot leader.

  Mr. Carel-Jones
  The figures for the respective categories are approximately:

  (a) 3 per cent.

  (b) 57 per cent.

  (c) 38 per cent.

  An additional 2 per cent. lies in the United Nations-controlled buffer zone. We do not recognise the area under de facto Turkish Cypriot administration as forming in any sense a separate sovereign state.

  Lockerbie Bombing
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Spanish Government on the legal proceedings being taken against Monzer al-Kassar in Spain, in relation to Lockerbie.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I have had no such discussions.

  There is no evidence to link Monzer al-Kassar to the Lockerbie bombing.

  Bhutan
  Mrs. Jane Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on relations between the United Kingdom and the Government of Bhutan.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  We have no diplomatic relations with Bhutan, but maintain friendly contacts mainly through our high commission in New Delhi.

  East Timor
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's position in the European Community on human rights issues in East Timor.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  We share the concerns expressed by the European Community about the human rights 212
  situation in East Timor. The United Kingdom, with Community partners, condemned the killings in Dili last year. We fully endorse the view—agreed by all Community countries—that our continuing concerns about the situation there should be conveyed directly to the Indonesians.

  South Africa
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what consideration he has given to the recent Amnesty International report on South African security force complicity in torture and political killings; and what action he intends to take.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Her Majesty's Government are aware of the Amnesty International report on South Africa. We have consistently taken the view that the South African Government must accept primary responsibility for maintaining law and order and should investigate allegations of misconduct by members of the security forces promptly and thoroughly. We have also given practical support to Judge Goldstone's commission of inquiry which is currently examining many of the allegations in the Amnesty report.

  Diego Garcia
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations were made by groups from Mauritius and the Seychelles, to the Minister for Overseas Development in Rio de Janeiro about trust funds for the Ilois from Diego Garcia; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  No representations were made by these groups to the Minister for Overseas Development in Rio de Janeiro.

  Stranded Citizens (Support)
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs under what circumstances financial assistance is denied to British citizens stranded outside the United Kingdom where no alternative means of support is immediately available.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  British citizens who, through unforeseen circumstances, are without funds overseas and who have no other identifiable source of help may as a last resort be given a repayable loan to enable them to return to the United Kingdom. This facility, for which a fee is levied, is not normally available to certain categories, including British nationals normally resident overseas and dual nationals in the country of their second nationality.

WALES

  Contaminated Land
  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what was the evidentiary basis for the statement at page 64 of his Department's survey of contaminated land in Wales, August 1988, that certain areas of the site of the former explosives factory at Pembry, Dyfed are known to be contaminated with phenols and that some remedial measures have been attempted;

  (2) what was the evidentiary basis for the statement at page 50, paragraph 6, Llanelli, of his Department's survey

  213
  of contaminated land in Wales, final report, March 1984, that certain areas of the site of the former explosives factory at Pembrey, Dyfed are known to be contaminated with phenols and that some remedial measures have been attempted.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The surveys were based on desk studies using information from a range of reference sources. Detailed site surveys were not undertaken; instead, information on potential contaminants at individual locations was usually based on known past uses of the land and the materials normally associated -with those uses.

  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will list the categories of phenols which are known to his Department to be contaminating the site of the former explosives factory at Pembrey, as stated in his Department's surveys of contaminated land in Wales;

  (2) if he will describe the remedial measures which have been attempted in respect of the phenols which are contaminating certain areas of the site of the former explosives factory at Pembrey as described in hs Department's surveys of contaminated land in Wales.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  This information is not held by the Welsh Office. However, as is indicated on page 15 of the report "Survey of Contaminated Land in Wales, March 1984", phenol in the soil normally dissipates as a result of leaching and natural degradation. This is something the sampling programme recently commissioned by Llanelli borough council can be expected to check.

  Cooking and Catering
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps he is taking to ensure that adults with learning difficulties in Wales are not precluded from participating in cooking and catering duties by the application of food hygiene regulations consequential on the Food Safety Act 1990.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The Food Safety Act does not prohibit anyone from preparing their own meals or beverages. The Food Hygiene (General) Regulations 1970, as amended, set out the controls necessary for the hygienic preparation of food other than in domestic settings. Environmental health departments advise on controls bearing in mind the nature of any food safety risk, including the type of food handled and the preparation included. Adults with learning difficulties can participate in cooking and catering duties if the hygiene controls can be satisfied.

  Elderly People
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the best estimate of the current number of elderly people(a) aged over 85 years, (b) aged 75 to 85 years and (c) aged 65 to 75 years in (i) Wales as a whole, (ii) in each county in Wales and (iii) in each district in Wales.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The 1990 mid-year estimates of population, produced by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, of age groups over 85, 75 to 84 and 65 to 74 for the counties and county districts of Wales are given in the table:214

  85 +

  75–84

  65–74

  WALES

  44,500

  161,700

  274,100

  Clwyd

  6,900

  24,400

  39,000

  Dyfed

  5,600

  21,400

  36,800

  Gwent

  6,200

  23,100

  41,100

  Gwynedd

  4,900

  16,000

  24,500

  Mid Glamorgan

  6,800

  27,300

  48,300

  Powys

  1,800

  7,300

  12,200

  South Glamorgan

  6,500

  21,000

  35,800

  West Glamorgan

  5,900

  21,300

  36,300

  Alyn and Deeside

  800

  3,400

  6,100

  Colwyn

  1,300

  4,300

  6,300

  Delyn

  900

  3,400

  5,800

  Glyndwr

  700

  2,800

  4,400

  Rhuddlan

  1,400

  4,400

  6,200

  Wrexham Maelor

  1,700

  6,100

  10,300

  Carmarthen

  800

  3,500

  6,300

  Ceredigion

  1,300

  4,300

  7,100

  Dinefwr

  600

  2,400

  4,100

  Llanelli

  1,500

  5,000

  8,500

  Preseli Pembrokeshire

  900

  3,800

  6,800

  South Pembrokeshire

  600

  2,300

  3,900

  Blaenau Gwent

  1,300

  4,600

  7,600

  Islwyn

  1,200

  3,600

  6,200

  Monmouth

  1,100

  4,300

  7,400

  Newport

  1,500

  6,300

  11,500

  Torfaen

  1,100

  4,400

  8,400

  Aberconwy

  1,400

  4,400

  6,300

  Arfon

  1,000

  3,200

  4,900

  Dwyfor

  600

  2,000

  3,200

  Meirionnydd

  800

  2,300

  3,500

  Ynys Mon

  1,200

  4,100

  6,600

  Cynon Valley

  1,000

  3,800

  6,500

  Merthyr Tydfil

  900

  3,200

  5,500

  Ogwr

  1,600

  7,000

  12,400

  Rhondda

  1,300

  4,900

  8,000

  Rhymney Valley

  1,000

  4,500

  8,300

  Taff-Ely

  1,000

  4,000

  7,600

  Brecknock

  600

  2,600

  4,500

  Montgomeryshire

  800

  3,100

  5,200

  Radnorshire

  300

  1,600

  2,500

  Cardiff

  4,700

  15,300

  25,700

  Vale of Glamorgan

  1,700

  5,700

  10,200

  Port Talbot

  800

  2,900

  5,200

  Lliw Valley

  1,100

  3,800

  6,300

  Neath

  1,100

  3,900

  6,500

  Swansea

  3,000

  10,700

  18,200

  Note: Figures may not add up due to rounding.

  Water Quality
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on water quality in Wales.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The National Rivers Authority's 1990 survey of river quality shows that 94 per cent. of river lengths in its Welsh region are of good or fair quality. A total of 90 per cent. of the 50 bathing waters on the Welsh coastline identified under the EC directive met its stringent mandatory standards for total coliforms and faecal coliforms last year. As regards drinking water quality, the first annual report of the drinking water inspectorate published last year confirms that of the tests of water quality carried out in 1990 by Dwr Cymru Cyf, 99 per cent. complied with the rigorous statutory standards set in the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 1989, SI 1989 No. 1147. Meanwhile, Dwr Cymru is continuing with the implementation of its 10-year, £1.8 billion capital investment programme aimed at achieving further improvement to the standards of drinking water, river and coastal water quality.

  Local Management of Schools
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement concerning the effects of local management of schools on remedial schools in Wales and, in particular, how it has affected teacher/student ratios over the last two years.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Welsh Office circular 38/91 required local education authorities to submit by 30 September 1993, at the latest, proposals to extend their LMS schemes to special schools so that they can be funded by LMS formulae. No proposals have been received to date.

  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement concerning the effects of local management of schools on(a) primary and (b) secondary schools in Wales over the last two years; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  As at 1 April 1992, more than 650 primary schools and around 200 secondary schools were in receipt of delegated powers. The heads and governors of these schools can decide for themselves how best to use their budgets to meet priorities within their schools and the needs of individual pupils. It is our intention that all schools will be in a similar position by April 1995.

  Many of the initial doubts and concerns raised with me about LMS have now been dispelled, but there are still some issues that I consider need further evaluation. While circular 36/88 required all local education authorities to review their schemes after three years, it is my intention that the Welsh Office should itself look again in detail at the LMS arrangements. As part of this review, I have commissioned the consultants, Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte, to provide an overview of how LMS is developing in Wales and to suggest areas where improvements can be considered. Their findings will be circulated to LEAs and other interested parties for comment. A copy will also be placed in the Library of the House.

  Pre-school Education
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will make a statement on the level of pre-school education provision in Clwyd;

  (2) what pre-school education provision is available in each Welsh county; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) if he will make a statement on the level of pre-school education provision in Powys;

  (4) if he will make a statement on pre-school education provision in Dyfed;

  (5) if he will make a statement on the level of pre-school education provision in Gwynedd.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to table 2.04 of "Statistics of Education in Wales: Schools"—No. 5, 1991—a copy of which is in the Library of the House. The provision of education in school for children under five years old is at the discretion of local education authorities.

  Postbus
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he has any plans to fund the expansion of postbus services in Wales; and if he will make a statement on further improvements in the postbus services.
  216
  Sir Wyn Roberts
  No. This is a matter for the Post Office.

  Afon Conwy
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he has any plans for the improvement of sewage outfall arrangements affecting the Afon Conwy following the construction of the Conwy tunnel; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  As part of its programme of improvements to sewage discharges affecting EC identified bathing waters, Dwr Cymru is undertaking a major scheme, due for completion in about two years and costing approximately £ 2 million, to intercept 11 discharges currently made into the Afon Conwy. The effluent will be pumped to a sewage treatment works and discharged via a 4.5 km long sea outfall. In addition, some other works further upstream on the Afon Conwy are being improved to meet standards set by the National Rivers Authority.

  Reservoirs
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many fresh water reservoirs in Wales have been tainted with toxic algae blooms since April; what are the comparable figures for April to June 1991; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The National Rivers Authority is engaged in developing action plans to deal with the problem of potentially toxic blue-green algal. The authority first undertook extensive monitoring to identify those lakes and reservoirs at risk of developing toxic blue-green algae blooms. It issued public information leaflets and, when blooms have occurred, gave advice to the owners, water users and local authorities affected. The NRA no longer considers that it needs to undertake routine monitoring and is now concentrating its efforts on a major research programme to develop ways of dealing with blue-green algae. Recent monitoring has focused on those waters not previously sampled or not previously found to have abundant populations of algae but where the presence of algae is now being reported. The data from such monitoring does not therefore provide a comprehensive assessment of the extent of blue-green algae blooms, nor information which is comparable with data collected in previous years.

  Cardiff Bay Barrage
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 18 June, Official Report, columns 612–13, what proposals he has for a further re-advertisement of the proposed Cardiff bay barrage in the supplement to the Official Journal of the European Communities utilising the amended figure of £106 million as the estimated cost; what consultations he has had with the European regional development fund concerning grant aid for the barrage proposal; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  As I explained in my answer of 16 June 1992, the figure in the pre-qualification notice is intended to be purely indicative. Cardiff Bay development corporation has no plans to publish a further notice. An
  217
  application for assistance from the European regional development fund could not be made before the Bill had received Royal Assent.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 18 June, Official Report, column 613, for what reason it was decided to increase the quantity of structural concrete from 125,000 m3 to 140,000 m3 and the amount of steel sheet piling from 17,000 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes between the original advertisement in the supplement to the Official Journal of the European Communities dated 14 November 1990 and the most recent re-advertisement dated 5 June 1992.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The estimated quantities of both steel sheet piling and concrete have increased in the course of the detailed design of the barrage. In addition, the amount of sheet piling was increased following agreement with the National Rivers Authority on the requirements of the fish pass.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with(a) Mr. Ray Stoner, (b) the chairman of Cardiff Bay development corporation, (c) Cardiff city council engineering department and (d) the National Rivers Authority concerning the estimated likely date of completion of the studies into dewatering wells and retrofitted land drains as a means of deflecting the side-effects of rising groundwater from the proposed Cardiff Bay barrage; and what proposals he has for consultation on and publication of such proposals.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Study of the feasibility of dewatering wells is continuing and I shall publish a report when the work is completed. I shall be seeking the views of Mr. Stoner, the CBDC, Cardiff city council and the NRA on the results. It would not be appropriate to pursue the option of retrofitting land drains in advance of the outcome of the dewatering studies.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what further information he has on the choice, evaluation, attraction and development of "people draw" activities under the aegis of Cardiff Bay development corporation used in pursuance of the £25 million total expenditure allocated for that purpose in annexes C and D of the financial memorandum of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The financial memorandum of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill does not mention £25 million to be allocated to "people draw" activities. I believe the hon. Gentleman to be referring to annexes C and D of the letter of 13 December 1990 sent by the previous Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands).

  Cardiff Bay development corporation intends the major "people draw" activity in this area to be a national science centre based on Techniquest. Proposals for the next stage of development are currently being considered.

  Waste Water Treatment
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairman of the National Rivers Authority Wales region and Welsh Water plc concerning the implementation in Wales of the EC municipal waste water treatment directive; when he expects to publish firm proposals on the definition of 218
  sensitive waters, treatment standards, dilution factors and other relevant criteria for compliance; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Considerable progress has been made within the United Kingdom towards implementing the urban waste water treatment directive—UWWTD. A working group, whose membership includes representatives from the National Rivers Authority, the water companies and the relevant Government Departments, including the Welsh Office, is drawing up a national implementation programme to be established by the end of 1993. The directive's provisions have, wherever possible, been incorporated into the on-going investment programmes being undertaken by the water companies, including Dwr Cymru, to improve those sewage discharges adversely affecting EC identified bathing waters. Interim advice on applying UWWTD standards in consents to discharge to coastal and territorial waters has been issued by Government to the National Rivers Authority. The UWWTD requires member states to identify sensitive and less sensitive areas also by the end of next year: the Welsh Office, jointly with Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, issued a consultation paper last March about the criteria and procedures to be used to identify those areas, and the responses received are now being considered.

PRIME MINISTER

  EC Presidency
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the cost of (i) each of the special presidency events and (ii) each of the other special events that will be incurred by the United Kingom as set out in the booklet "The United Kingdom Presidency of the European Community".

  The Prime Minister
  Of the 79 special events listed in the United Kingdom presidency programme booklet, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is providing funding support for 11 at a total cost of £315,426. These are:

  £

  Presidency Art Exhibition, Brussels

  100,500

  Britain and Europe Summer School, LSE

  5,000

  European Night at the Proms, Albert Hall

  22,776

  UK Presidency Conference, QEII Centre

  113,650

  EC R&D meeting of Chief Scientists and European Parliament Committee, Edinburgh

  5,000

  Women of Europe Awards, FCO

  2,000

  EC Organ Festival, Bolton

  15,000

  Association of European Journalists Conference

  7,000

  Advent for Europe Concert, Durham

  5,000

  New Year's Eve Festival and Concert, Barbican

  35,000

  Beacon Europe, throughout Europe

  5,000

  Other Government Departments and the EC Commission are helping to organise or finance a further 32 events. EC ministerial meetings in the UK, including the European Council, are being funded from the FCO presidency budget of £9.8 million.

  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Prime Minister how many events in the calendar of special events for the United Kingdom presidency of the European Community are taking place in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The presidency programme booklet includes two events in

  219
  Wales, the informal meeting of EC Employment and Social Affairs Ministers in Chepstow and the presidency concert at the Llangollen international eisteddfod. Further events in Wales are planned but not yet confirmed.

  In addition, the European arts festival includes 58 events in Wales and Beacon Europe will take place throughout the United Kingdom.

  Death Penalty
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will introduce legislation to abolish the death penalty for those offences for which it remains in force in England and Wales.

  The Prime Minister
  The abolition of the death penalty is a matter which only Parliament can decide, each Member of Parliament voting according to his or her conscience. The Government have to abide by the decision of the House of Commons, which voted against the abolition of the death penalty during the last debate on capital punishment in December 1990.

  Child Health
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Prime Minister what steps he has taken, or will be taking, to promote as a priority the plan of action for survival, protection and development of children, agreed by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their meeting in Harare in 1991, for improving child health in Commonwealth countries in the present decade; what information he has received from other Commonwealth countries in regard to implementing the plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  I presume that the right hon. Member is referring to the plan of action adopted by the World Summit for Children in 1990.

  In response to the summit's call for national plans of action, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in conjunction with other Departments, has compiled a report, which was presented to the UNICEF secretariat at the end of February, outlining our policies for children in this country and the work of the United Kingdom's aid programme of particular relevance to women and children in the third world. The report examines problem areas which persist in developed, industrialised societies and explains what measures the Government are taking to alleviate them in this country; and it reviews those areas of the United Kingdom's aid programme such as primary health care, water and sanitation, and education which are of greatest direct impact on women and children in the developing countries.

  We plan to publish the report as a Command Paper before the end of the month.

  We understand that Commonwealth states are at various stages of preparation in work on their national reports.

  Nuclear Testing
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what discussions he had with the United States Administration during his recent visit to Washington about the resumption of nuclear testing by the United Kingdom.

  The Prime Minister
  I had discussions on a range of matters with President Bush and other members of the US 220
  Administration. The Government's position on nuclear testing remains as I stated in my reply to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on 12 May at column 90.

  Libya
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his discussions with the French Government about United Nations sanctions against Libya.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: We have co-operated closely with France on this issue. Sanctions will remain in force until Libya has complied in full with UN Security Council resoluton 731, including handing over the Lockerbie suspects for trial in Scotland or the United States and meeting French demands over the UTA bombing.

  Treaty of Rome
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the privileges of British troops serving in other EC countries when the proposed article 8 of the treaty of Rome comes into force.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The privileges enjoyed by British troops serving in other EC countries are a matter for the Government and the Government of the member state concerned. Bilateral and multilateral arrangements apply. This provision will not be affected by the entry into force of the proposed new article 8 of the treaty of Rome.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement about the diplomatic and other privileges of the European Commission and its employees when the proposed revised article 8 of the treaty of Rome enters into force.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The privileges and immunities of members of the Commission staff are governed by the protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities 1965, a copy of which is available in the Library of the House. These privileges and immunities are not altered by the proposed new article 8 of the treaty of Rome.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will equalise the tax treatment of United Kingdom and other EC nationals when the proposed article 8b of the treaty of Rome on the right to vote in municipal elections takes effect.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The provisions concerning the right to vote in municipal elections have no implications for the basis of tax liability in this country, which will continue to be primarily determined by the residence status and domicile of each individual.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the diplomatic and other privileges of national representatives working in other member states when the proposed article 8 of the treaty of Rome enters into force.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: Such privileges are a matter for agreement between the

  221
  Governments of the member states concerned and relevant multilateral agreements. None of the existing arrangements will be affected by the entry into force of the proposed new article 8 of the treaty of Rome.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Government's reasons for agreeing to dual citizenship of nationals of the United Kingdom under the proposed article 8 of the treaty of Rome.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The proposed new article 8 of the treaty of Rome would confer upon EC nationals limited additional rights, as citizens of the union, defined in the articles which follows. The Government consider that all these rights would confer worthwhile benefit upon United Kingdom citizens. The addition of further rights would require unanimity and national ratification.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister how he proposes to define the purposes of the proposed articles 8a and 8b of the treaty of Rome; and what legislative or other proposals he has to enable electoral registration officers to know whether a national of another member state is a resident for the purpose of these articles.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The proposed article 8A of the treaty of Rome to be added by the treaty on European union in itself establishes no new rights. Unanimity is required in the Council for any measures to facilitate the exercise of these existing rights or to expand them. No such proposals have been suggested. Proposed article 8b of the treaty of Rome makes it clear that the rights to vote and stand in municipal elections described therein should be exercised under the same conditions as enjoyed by nationals of the member state in question. In the United Kingdom registration on the electoral roll is sufficient proof of resident status for the purpose of voting and standing in elections.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister what proposals he has to revise the oath of allegiance to give effect to the proposed article 8 of the treaty of Rome.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: None. The concept of citizenship of the union confers an additional status on British citizens, and does not replace British citizenship or affect allegiance to the Crown.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister to which Department he proposes to transfer responsibility for relationships with the European Community if the proposed article 8 of the treaty of Rome enters into force.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The Government have no such plans.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister what consideration he gave to proposing that the new article 3b of the treaty of Rome should be given retrospective effect.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The proposed article 3b of the treaty of Rome will have effect only when the treaty on European union enters into force. All Community institutions, including the European Court of Justice, will then be under a binding obligation to respect the principle of subsidiarity which it contains. There is, however, nothing to prevent the institutions
  222
  operating in this way voluntarily, in advance of article 3b coming into effect. As presidency of the Community, the United Kingdom will encourage them to do so. There is evidence that the Commission is already doing this.

  European Monetary System
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister what is the legal basis for the European monetary system; and whether its status will be changed if the Maastricht treaty takes effect.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The European monetary system is established by a resolution of the European Council. Its legal status will not be changed if the treaty on European union agreed at Maastricht takes effect.

  EC Citizenship
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the level of public support for the creation of Community citizenship by the Maastricht treaty.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The Maastricht treaty as a whole is a good agreement for Britain, and has been commended by Parliament. The establishment of the concept of citizenship of the union will be helpful in ensuring that the position of individual citizens within the Community is respected and enhanced, in the areas in question—limited voting rights and consular protection.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Scientific Research
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what scientific research is being sponsored into the origins of life and the beginnings of the universe.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The Science and Engineering Research Council supports a number of projects in these areas through its research grant programme and through access to major observational and experimental facilities.

  Research relating to the origins of life includes work in molecular biology and genetics which will allow scientists to search for the earliest evidence from fossil and geological records of simple proteins, metabolic pathways and early microbe forms.

  Research into the origins and history of the universe, in which United Kingdom scientists play a leading role, includes:
  High-energy particle physics at CERN and elsewhere where research into the structure of matter and the way it interacts provides information on the very early development of the universe.
  Observational astrophysics using both ground-based and space-launched telescopes. The former includes those on La Palma and in Hawaii; and plans are well advanced for two new large optical telescopes to be built in collaboration with the United States of America and Canada. Space-based observation is supported through the United Kingdom's membership of the European Space Agency and by collaboration with other agencies such as NASA.
  Research into the detection of "Dark Matter" (at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Imperial College) and into Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (at Cambridge and Jodrell Bank).

  223
  A number of theoretical reseach programmes including studies in quantum gravity and mathematical astrophysics.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Departmental Staff
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the responsibilities of each of the deputy secretaries in his Department and the numbers and ranks of staff reporting to each.

  Mr. Nelson
  The responsibilities of each of the deputy secretaries in the Treasury are as follows. The information on the numbers of staff reporting to each is contained in the table.

  Deputy Secretary (Overseas Finance):

  Responsible for:

  European Community Group

  Aid and Export Finance Group

  International Finance Group

  Deputy Secretary (Public Finance):

  Responsible for:

  Fiscal Policy Group

  Monetary Policy Group

  Grade

  DS

  DS

  DS

  DS

  DS

  Overseas finance

  Public finance

  Public services

  CS Management and pay

  Industry

  G3

  4

  2

  2

  3

  3

  G4

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  G5

  7

  4

  8

  11

  7

  G6

  1

  1

  2

  7

  2

  G7

  17

  9

  16

  42

  17

  SEO

  3

  1

  6

  37

  3

  HEO

  4

  1

  10

  30

  13

  HEO(D)

  2

  1

  2

  —

  1

  AT

  —

  1

  2

  1

  3

  EO

  9

  4

  8

  45

  10

  SAS

  —

  —

  —

  27

  —

  AS

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  SSO

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  HSO

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  SEA

  2

  4

  —

  —

  —

  EA

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  AO

  11

  6

  10

  43

  16

  AA

  4

  3

  7

  17

  6

  SPS

  1

  —

  2

  2

  2

  PS

  11

  8

  9

  16

  10

  Typist

  2

  3

  2

  4

  4

  SB2

  —

  —

  1

  1

  —

  Total

  81

  48

  87

  265

  97

  Notes:

  1. Staff in post figures as at I June 1992, except for financial services command which includes latest estimate of staff being transferred from DTI.

  2. Figures for part-time staff rounded down.

  3. In addition to the above staff there are 761 staff in the following commands: First Permanent Secretary, Second Permanent Secretary responsible for Public Expenditure (ie, the General Expenditure Policy Group and the Defence Policy and Material Group), Chief Economic Adviser, Chief Accountancy Adviser and the Establishments and Organisation Group.

  RPI Advisory Committee
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider transferring the functions of the Retail Prices Index Advisory Committee to the Central Statistical Office.

  Mr. Nelson
  The position is set out in the agency framework document of the Central Statistical Office, copies of which are available in the Library:"The scope and definition of the [Retail Prices] Index continue to be a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Director [of the CSO] will continue to take the lead in
  224

  Deputy Secretary (Public Services):

  Responsible for:

  Local Government Group

  Health, Social Services and Territorial Group

  Running Costs Division (part)

  Central Unit on Purchasing (also has responsibility for CCTA which is to be transferred to the Office for Public Services and Science in due course)

  Deputy Secretary (Civil Service Management and Pay):

  Responsible for:

  Pay Group

  Personnel Policy Group

  Management Policy and Running Costs Group

  CS Catering Organisation (Forward)

  Deputy Secretary (Industry):

  Responsible for:

  Public Enterprises Group

  Industry, Agriculture and Employment Group

  Home and Education Group

  Deputy Secretary (Financial Institutions and Markets):

  Responsible for:

  Banking Group

  Securities and Investment Services Group (formerly the Financial Service Division of the DTI, transferred to the Treasury in June 1992).

  advising on methodological questions concerning the RPI and to chair an RPI Advisory Committee to which the Chancellor will refer issues for consideration as appropriate.

  I am satisfied with this arrangement.

  Missile Technology
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how may prosecutions Her Majesty's Customs and Excise Department has initiated against United Kingdom companies since 1987 for breaching the provisions of the missile technology control regime.
  225
  Sir John Cope
  The United Kingdom's obligations under the missile technology control regime are included, with obligations under other non-proliferation regimes, in the restrictions imposed under the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1991. Exportation of some goods can contravene more than one of these regimes. Prosecutions are based on breaches of the Export of Goods Control Order and customs records do not therefore identify which underlying non-proliferation regime is concerned.

  Carbon Tax
  Mrs. Gorman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what use is scheduled for the revenue from a carbon tax under the current proposals.

  Sir John Cope
  The European Community Commission has recently prepared a draft directive for the Council's consideration. We have just received an official copy of the draft directive and will need to examine details of it carefully. The introduction of a tax along the lines the Commission proposes would require the unanimous agreement of all 12 member states. The Government have taken no decisions as to the use to be made of the revenues to the Exchequer which such a tax would produce.

  Trades Unions
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how often in the calendar years 1990 and 1991 he met trades unions officers(a) in the National Economic Development Office at its committees and (b) in other contexts.

  Mr. Portillo
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor and his predecessor attended two NEDC meetings in 1990 and two in 1991. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor also met officers of civil service unions twice in 1991.

  Plant and Machinery
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the total value of investment in new plant and machinery in the United Kingdom in each of the last 15 years for which figures are available.

  Mr. Portillo
  Latest estimates of fixed investment in plant and machinery in the United Kingdom are as follows:

  Current Prices £ million

  Constant (1985) Prices £ million

  1977

  9,707

  17,124

  1978

  11,446

  18,313

  1979

  13,539

  19,736

  1980

  14,958

  19,660

  1981

  15,067

  18,269

  1982

  16,296

  18,478

  1983

  17,935

  19,401

  1984

  20,266

  21,227

  1985

  23,870

  23,870

  1986

  24,690

  24,250

  1987

  27,073

  25,943

  1988

  31,428

  29,762

  1989

  36,258

  33,485

  1990

  36,987

  32,610

  1991

  34,064

  29,364

  Source: CSO database. Identifiers DFCX and DFCY.

  2. The figures are consistent with those in the CSO Press Notice "Gross Domestic Product, first quarter 1992" released on 24 June 1992.

  Manufactured Goods
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what has been the total value at current sterling levels of exports of manufactured goods in each of the last 15 years for which figures are available; and what percentage of total exports these figures represented in each of those years;

  (2) what has been the total value at current sterling levels of imports of manufactured goods in each of the last 15 years for which figures are available; and what percentage of total imports these figures represented in each of those years.

  Mr. Nelson
  The information is regularly published in table A9 of the "Monthly Review of External Trade Statistics" and table D5 of its annual supplement which are available in the Library of the House. The latest figures may be found on the Central Statistical Office database which can also be accessed through the Library.

  Commemorative Coins
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if Her Majesty's Government plan to issue any new commemorative coins.

  Mr. Lamont
  Her Majesty the Queen has been graciously pleased to approve my recommendation that a £2 coin be issued featuring a special design to commemorate the tercentenary of the Bank of England in 1994. It is not intended that the coin should go into general circulation, although standard versions will be available at most banks and post offices at face value, and special collectors' versions will be issued in precious metal and base metal.

  Financial Services Industry
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to review the self-regulatory systems of the financial services industry; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nelson
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: Responsibility for the regulation of financial services passed to me on 7 June 1992. No changes are planned as a result of the transfer, but I shall of course keep the effectiveness of the regulatory system under review.

  Investors Compensation Scheme
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment his Department has made of the current funding arrangements made by the self-regulatory bodies for the future of the investors compensation scheme.

  Mr. Nelson
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The funding of the investors compensation scheme is a matter for the Securities and Investments Board.

DEFENCE

  Personnel Numbers
  Dr. Liam Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many civil servants currently work for the Ministry of Defence; and what is his estimate of the number of active service personnel there will be by the end of the current year.
  227
  Mr. Aitken
  At 1 May 1992, the Ministry of Defence employed a total of 138,982 full-time equivalent civil servants, excluding casual staff and locally employed civilians overseas. The strength of the United Kingdom regular forces at the end of the next financial year is estimated to be 265,600.

  RAF Wyton
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what would be the cost of moving staff from the MOD establishment in Harrogate to RAF Wyton under the present proposals;

  (2) what is the estimate of the overall cost of co-locating staff from the logistic: support services at RAF Wyton.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The estimated cost of relocating the MOD Harrogate function and the logistics support services to Wyton/Brampton is £49 million gross.

  RAF Brampton
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the size and description of the accommodation at present occupied by logistics command at RAF Brampton.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The new logistics command has not yet been formed and as such does not yet occupy any accommodation at RAF Brampton. HQRAF support command does, however, occupy some 10,000 sq m of modern purpose-built accommodation. The site also possesses 384 married quarters and single quarters for 152 officers, 68 warrant officers/senior non-commissioned officers, 239 corporals and other ranks.

  Tornado
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the two Tornado squadrons in the maritime attack role will in future be nuclear-capable.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Tornado squadrons in question will be dual-capable but will not retain a nuclear strike role against maritime targets.

  Logistics
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will give a breakdown of the costings set out for the nine options in his consultative document on. RAF logistics command location, the support management group and logistic support services.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No. Provision of a detailed breakdown would disclose information which is, or could become, commercially sensitive.

  Married Quarters
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the total number of married RAF service men employed at the MOD in Harrogate and the number living in married quarters.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  There are 276 married RAF service men employed at MOD Harrogate, of whom 65 live in married quarters.

  Peacekeeping
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what training is given to NATO soldiers in optimum methods of peacekeeping.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  NATO has not so far been involved as a collective organisation in peacekeeping, although that may change in the future. The question of the requirement to train NATO soldiers in a peacekeeping role remains to be considered.

  British forces have, of course, contributed to United Nations peacekeeping operations. For this latter role, the essential skills are those a soldier and unit are expected normally to achieve, supplemented as necessary by training related to the specific tasks which might be required by the particular UN operation.

  Courts Martial
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the number and description of courts martial, convened for the trial of persons subject to military law in the Army in the United Kingdom in the year ended 28 February 1991.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  There were 442 district courts martial and 24 general courts martial.

  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the number and description of courts martial convened outside the United Kingdom for the trial of persons, including civilians, subject to military law in the year ended 28 February 1991.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  District courts martial, 385; general courts martial, 21.

  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many offences the death penalty is available to an Army court martial in respect of accused persons, including civilians,(a) in the United Kingdom in time of peace and (b) outside the United Kingdom in peacetime or wartime.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Army Act 1955 provides for the death penalty in the United Kingdom and overseas for the following offences: assisting the enemy; serious misconduct in action; obstructing operations; mutiny; and failure to suppress mutiny.

  This applies to any person, service man or civilian, subject to the Act. It is the policy, however, that such sentences should never be carried out in peacetime.

  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what directions are given to officers convening courts martial to inform the news media of the time and place at which a courts martial in the Army is to be held; and what is the practice followed.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  All Army headquarters convening courts martial are to compile weekly a list of forthcoming trials and this is to be posted at least 24 hours —48 hours in the case of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR)—before the time of the first trial mentioned. The lists are posted at, or in the vicinity of, the headquarters in a place which is accessible to the public. Also the news media can contact the Ministry of Defence press desk to ascertain the time and place of a specific courts martial.
  229
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the maximum powers of minor punishment which can be inflicted by commanding officers or company commanders in the Army on officers, warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and other ranks, without the defendant having any right to elect trial by court martial.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The maximum powers are:Commanding Officer

  Officers—Severe Reprimand

  Warrant Officers—Severe Reprimand

  Non-Commissioned Officers—Severe Reprimand

  Other Ranks—Admonition, Restriction of Privileges

  Company Commanders

  Junior Non-Commissioned Officers—Reprimand

  Other Ranks—Admonition, Restriction of Privileges

  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the maximum powers of summary punishment which can be inflicted by commanding officers in the Army on officers, warrant officers, non-commissioned officers, other ranks and civilians subject to military law subject to the right of the defendant to elect trial by court martial.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The information is as follows:

  Officers—forfeiture of seniority.

  Warrant officers—fine of up to 28 days pay.

  Non-commissioned officers—fine of up to 28 days pay.

  Other ranks—60 days detention.

  Civilian—fine of up to £100.

  Military Custody
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the number of persons in the year ended 28 February 1991 who have died in military custody, and from what cause,(a) in the United Kingdom and (b) outside the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  None.

  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what facilities are available to persons in military custody(a) in the United Kingdom and (b) outside the United Kingdom to get legal aid and advice.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  In the United Kingdom, when someone is interviewed by the service police, that person is entitled to advice from a civilian solicitor in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 and the relevant code of practice. If the matter is to be dealt with by court martial, the person may apply for legal aid by way of civilian professional assistance in accordance with a legal aid scheme that is administered by the Ministry of Defence. A person held in military custody but to be tried in a civil court can apply for civil legal aid through the civil courts.

  Outside the United Kingdom it is normal practice for officers of the legal services to perform the role of a civilian solicitor when a person is interviewed by service police under PACE. The military legal aid scheme is available overseas in the same way as it is within the United Kingdom, although it is extended to cover alleged offences, tried by criminal courts, committed on or off duty. The legal aid scheme is available to all ranks and to members of the civilian component and dependants.

  Commanding Officers (Hearings)
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what access the public and news media are giving to hearings before commanding officers; and what means they have of knowing when such hearings are to take place.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Unlike in the case of courts martial, the public and news media have no access to hearings before commanding officers. The services do not inform the public or news media when such hearings are to take place.

  Empty Ministry Property
  Mr. Austin-Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list all empty residential property in the London borough of Greenwich which is in the ownership or control of his Ministry and the type of accommodation available; how long each property has been vacant; and what is the intended future use.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As at 31 March 1992, the latest date for which figures are available, 99 MOD-owned service married quarters, out of a total of 659, were vacant in the London borough of Greenwich. Ninety-eight had been vacant for under one year and one for between one and two years. All the properties are required for use by serving or redundant service personnel.

  Many of the vacant properties were either undergoing or awaiting major maintenance work or modernisation and some were already allotted to service families who were due to move in shortly. In addition, nine married quarters were in the process of being sold and negotiations were taking place to lease 30 quarters to a housing association to accommodate redundant service personnel.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Members Office Costs
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what is the estimated cost of increasing the office costs allowance for hon. Members by 25 per cent.

  Mr. Newton
  The office costs allowance represents a maximum sum against which a Member may claim actual expenses incurred. The cost arising from an increase in the maximum of the OCA would depend, therefore, on the extent to which the allowable expenses of Members increased. The maximum additional cost of a 25 per cent. increase in the OCA would be around £4.7 million in a full year.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Horn of Africa
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what pledges Her Majesty's Government have made for food aid to the Horn of Africa; and what percentage of total pledges they represent in real terms.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  We have so far in 1992–93 pledged 57,000 tonnes of bilateral food aid for the Horn of Africa.
  231
  In addition, we have agreed to the use of 8,346 tonnes of our multilateral pledge to the World Food Programme for emergency operations in Eritrea. Taken together, these represent some 6.5 per cent. of total pledges, which, according to the WFP, amount to approximately 1 million tonnes for 1992.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if Her Majesty's Government will be increasing levels of food aid to the Horn of Africa in response to the recent statements from the UN World Food Programme.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  An additional 12,000 tonnes of food aid for the Horn of Africa was announced on 1 June in response to recent reports indicating the need for further pledges. A new special emergency programme for the Horn of Africa (SEPHA) appeal is expected shortly and we will be considering carefully our response to that as soon as it is issued.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what quantity of aid the Overseas Development Administration has provided for Ethiopia for the years 1989 to 1992; and what quantity of aid it plans to provide in the years 1993 to 1996, in cash and real terms.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Expenditure in 1989, 1990 and 1991 was respectively £12 million, £20 million and, provisionally, £22 million, mainly in the form of humanitarian assistance. In 1992, humanitarian aid provided under the bilateral programme has so far amounted to £11 million.

  Future humanitarian needs, and our response, will be considered at the time. Under the long-term bilateral development programme, we expect to be involved in the rehabilitation process through non-governmental organisations and in such key sectors as education, including training.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if Her Majesty's Government will provide additional resources to ensure that pledges of food aid to the Horn of Africa are not delayed.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  In addition to new pledges of food aid, we have already provided £4 million for infrastructure projects aimed at facilitating delivery of relief supplies. We shall be considering carefully what further response is required to the new special emergency programme for the Horn of Africa appeal, which is expected shortly.

EDUCATION

  Student Unions (Grants)
  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much was paid out by higher and further education institutions via block grant to student unions in the past nine years(a) as a national total, (b) per pupil and (c) by institution.

  Mr. Forman
  Grant payments from universities in Great Britain to their student unions in the years in question were:

  Academic years

  £ million

  1Per student (£)1

  1982–83

  15.1

  45.91

  1983–84

  16.4

  50.25

  1984–85

  15.9

  48.68

  232

  Academic years

  £ million

  1Per student (£)1

  1985–86

  17.0

  51.12

  1986–87

  17.2

  50.48

  1987–88

  17.5

  50.56

  1988–89

  17.1

  47.22

  1989–90

  18.0

  47.07

  1990–91

  219.7

  248.70

  1 The per student figures are based on total full and part-time student numbers.

  2Provisional.

  The "Universities Statistical Record", which collects these figures, does not publish information on student union grants disaggregated by institution. Information is not available centrally for institutions in the polytechnics and colleges funding council sector or the further education sector.

  Schools, Colne Valley
  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much money each of the following schools in the Colne Valley constituency received in 1991–92 and will receive in 1992–93 from Kirklees local education authority; and how many pupils each school had at the beginning of those two years; Colne Valley high school, Holmfirth high school, Honley high school, Moorend high school and Salendine Nook high school.

  Mr. Forth
  The information is taken from Kirklees local education authority's budget statements for the years 1991–92 and 1992–93, published under section 42 of the Education Reform Act 1988:

  1991–92

  1992–93

  High School

  Number of pupils

  Budget share £

  Number of pupils £

  Budget share

  Colne Valley

  1,399

  2,302,459

  1,446

  2,543,317

  Holmfirth

  1,005

  1,604,226

  1,031

  1,750,826

  Honley

  1,150

  1,936,100

  1,121

  2,036,093

  Moorend

  800

  1,388,723

  808

  1,476,858

  Salendine Nook

  1,105

  1,768,887

  1,132

  1,923,585

  Illiteracy
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to his answer of 20 May, Official Report, columns 158–59, whether the figure of 5.5 million functionally illiterate pupils includes those people who are literate in another language but functionally illiterate in English.

  Mr. Forman
  No. The adult literacy and basic skills unit estimates that an additional 500,000 adults in England and Wales whose first language is not English are "functionally illiterate" in English.

  Taiwanese Students
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many students from Taiwan and currently studying in universities and colleges of further education in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Forman
  Figures for the latest available academic year 1990–91 show that there were 591 students from
  233
  Taiwan on courses of higher education, with a further 152 taking courses of further education in the United Kingdom.

  Discretionary Awards
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what measures are taken by his Department to monitor the nature, range and value of discretionary awards made by local education authorities.

  Mr. Forman
  My Department collects information annually from each local education authority in England and Wales on the number and aggregate value of discretionary awards made by it under sections 1(6) and 2 of the Education Act 1962 to students for attendance on courses of further and higher education.

  Refurbishment
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much money has been spent on refurbishing his Department over the past three years.

  Mr. Forman
  The information is as follows:

  Year

  £ thousands

  1989–90

  277

  1990–91

  302

  1991–92

  697

  The London headquarters of the Department moved to new premises in January 1992.

  Local Management of Schools
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement concerning the effects of local management of schools over the past two years.

  Mr. Forth
  The effects of local management of schools can be loosely attributed to the two main planks of LMS policy—formula funding and delegation.

  The introduction of formula funding has meant that schools have been allocated funds according to a system that is open and equitable. Historical inequities have been revealed and are being addressed. The new openness has resulted in greater confidence and better-informed debate about relative funding needs. LMS has ensured that schools are funded mainly on the basis of their success in recruiting pupils—the more pupils they attract, the more money they get. In this way, LMS has given schools a strong incentive to be responsive to parents and rewards good schools.

  Local management of schools requires the bulk of the local education authority school budget to be delegated to schools themselves, for governors to manage as they see fit. When schools receive a delegated budget, governing bodies also acquire the power to appoint and dismiss staff. LMS has therefore resulted in a marked shift of power from LEAs to schools. It has meant less money being retained and spent in county hall and more being spent in and by schools. It has meant greater flexibility for schools to manage their budget according to their own priorities.

  We must remember that LMS is still in its infancy. Not all schools yet have full control of budgets allocated entirely by uncushioned formula. Transitional arrangements have however to be phased out by April 1994–1995
  234
  for inner London LEAs. Nevertheless, LMS has been widely welcomed by schools and there is general agreement that it has been a major positive development. That success has been due, in large part, to the dedication and hard work of governors and senior management in schools who have embraced their wider responsibilities with enthusiasm. Nor would LMS have been possible without the major contribution of LEA officers. I believe that the present popularity of LMS is well founded and I am confident that, as LMS policy matures, it will make an increasing contribution to improving standards in our schools.

  London University
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what percentage of students for the last available year at London university were from(a) the United Kingdom, (b) the United States of America and (c) Japan; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Forman
  This information is not held centrally.

  Seven-year-olds (Testing)
  Mr. Fatchett
  ; To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will set out the percentage of seven-year-olds in the 1991 standard assessment tasks who reached (a) level 3, (b) level 2, (c) level 1 in attainment target 2 of English—reading—and (d) the percentage of children who failed to reach level 1.

  Mr. Forth
  As indicated in "Testing 7 year olds in 1991: results of the National Curriculum assessments in England", copies of which are in the Library of the House, the percentages of seven-year-olds reaching the different levels in the reading component of English in the 1991 tests for seven-year-olds were as follows:

  Per cent.

  Level 3

  21

  Level 2

  50

  Level 1

  26

  Working towards level 1

  2

  Disapplied/not tested

  1

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will set out in summary form the main information that his Department made available on renewable energy sources for consideration at the United Nations conference on the environment and development.

  Mr. Eggar
  The United Kingdom national report for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development included the White Paper "This Common Inheritance" and the first-year report. These documents, copies of which are in the Library of the House, set out the United Kingdom's position on renewable sources of energy. In addition, my Department provided advice to the United Kingdom delegation to the conference on the renewable energy aspects of Agenda 21, particularly in relation to the chapter on the atmosphere.

  Auditing Firms
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will investigate the lowballing practices of major auditing firms.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  No.

  Nuffield Press
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, further to his correspondence with the hon. Member for Great Grimsby in respect of Nuffield Press Ltd., when he became aware of the errors in its accounts; what information he has sought from Coopers and Lybrand; and what steps have been taken by the auditors or the company to inform auditors of the errors in accounts.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  A typographical error in a note to the company's accounts was drawn to my Department's attention by the hon. Member in his letter of 23 March to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). As the hon. Member is aware from the subsequent letters from my predecessor and myself, the facts were checked with the company's auditors and the company is understood to be arranging to revise the accounts by a supplementary note.

  Sunshine Policies
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any proposals under which the Accounting Standards Board will be required to embrace sunshine policies.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  This is a matter for the Accounting Standards Board.

  Textile Industry
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he proposes to designate Lancashire as a region for assistance under the Retex initiative.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The European Commission has decided that grants under the Retex initiative, for regions heavily dependent on the textiles and clothing sector, should be available only within areas designated for objective 1, 2 or 5(b) of the structural funds. The travel-to-work areas of Accrington and Rossendale, Blackburn, Bolton and Bury, Burnley, Liverpool, Pendle, Rochdale and Wigan and St. Helens—which lie wholly or partly within Lancashire—are so designated.

  The Commission has asked the Government to decide by 4 December 1992 which parts of the designated areas should receive Retex grants. I shall take a decision in due course.

  BBC
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he has received the report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission into the promotion by the BBC of its publications on air; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is currently considering the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on the 236
  publicising, in the course of providing a television broadcasting service, of goods supplied by the broadcaster, which he received on 19 June. The report will be published as soon as is practicable. The contents of all MMC reports remain confidential until publication. If the MMC finds no adverse effects, my right hon. Friend has no power to act. If the MMC has reached any adverse findings, he will decide what steps, if any, should be taken to remedy the situation.

  Coal
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will give his most up-to-date estimate of the level of coal stockpiled on the ground at(a) pitheads and (b) power stations in the ownership of National Power, PowerGen or British Coal; what proposals he has, pursuant to the transitional coal-burn arrangement covering the period to April 1993, to encourage consumption of current coal stocks by the electricity generating companies; and what steps he will take to reduce coal stocks after April 1993.

  Mr. Eggar
  Information on coal stocks held at power stations and collieries in Great Britain is available in "Energy Trends", a statistical bulletin published monthly by my Department and available in the Library of the House. Coal consumption is a commercial matter for the companies concerned.

  Manufacturing Industries
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he will make a statement detailing his policies for the future of the United Kingdom manufacturing industries;

  (2) if he will make it his policy to ensure that manufacturing industries remain major, successful and competitive contributors to the economy.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The Government's policy is to provide the environment within which British industry can thrive. As the Confederation of British Industry noted in its report "Competing with the World's Best", recent years have seen a transformation in Britain's manufacturing base.

  Monopolies and Mergers Commission
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what studies are at present being undertaken by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission; and when it started these inquiries.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The MMC is presently undertaking these inquiries:

  Type of reference and subject matter

  Referral

  Due (in date order)

  Merger

  Bond/British International Helicopters

  9 June 1992

  9 September 1982

  Merger

  Bristow/British International Helicopters

  9 June 1992

  9 September 1992

  Merger

  BM Group/Thwaites

  11 June 1992

  11 September 1992

  237

  Type of reference and subject matter

  Referral

  Due (in date order)

  Monopoly

  Contact Lens Solutions

  30 April 1992

  29 February

  Cars
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he will be responding to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report into the price of new cars in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  On 6 May my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade announced that he had asked the Director General of Fair Trading to begin discussions with car suppliers with a view to implementing the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's recommendations on the supply of new cars and for advice on whether any further action should be taken by the competition authorities in the light of a statement which Sir Leon Brittan made on the EC study of car prices.

  Commonwealth Development Corporation
  Sir Fergus Montgomery
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he proposes to publish the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on the Commonwealth Development Corporation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The report is published today. The commission was asked to carry out an extensive inquiry into the efficiency and costs of, and the service provided by, the Commonwealth Development Corporation.

  The commission is impressed by the dedication with which CDC staff work towards the corporation's objectives. It finds that the CDC is a competent organisation and that it provides a particularly valuable form of assistance to the economies of developing countries. It believes that the CDC's project-based approach, organisation and long-term commitment to its investments are well suited to its objectives. It reports that cash management is effective and that costs are not excessive and are well controlled.

  The commission nevertheless concludes that the CDC could continue to make efficiency improvements. The commission recommends in particular that CDC should invest only in projects that, generally, meet specified rate of return thresholds and have an acceptable social and environmental impact; CDC should adopt a policy of charging market rates on its loans; CDC should improve its treatment of risk in projects appraisals; and CDC should set up a representative programme of evaluation and operational projects.

  The commission notes some disadvantages in the current policy framework regarding restrictions on CDC's borrowing and liquidity, and the structure of its balance sheet. It believes that these issues should be examined further in the context of the forthcoming five-yearly review of CDC carried out by interested Government Departments and CDC.

  The CDC will produce a preliminary response to the commission's findings within three to four months, in the light of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will make a statement.

  Manufacturing Investment
  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has recently received about manufacturing investment in the north-west.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: The Department receives considerable correspondence about the state of business in the north-west.

  Mr. David Vidler
  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the reasons why he issued a special certificate under the national security provisions of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978, in respect of Mr. David Vidler, of Rock lane, Hastings, East Sussex.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I have been asked to reply.

  Like other Ministers, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has responsibility to the public to ensure that the interests of national security are not put at risk by the details of a particular case being subjected to open examination. He was satisfied that the case of Mr. Vidler fell within this criterion.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Environmental Impact Assessments
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what measures he is taking to ensure that environmental impact assessments are applied to new agricultural plans and policies, including the whole of the common agricultural policy.

  Mr. Curry
  The Government do not believe that formal environmental impact assessment is appropriate or practicable for policies and plans. This would introduce onerous, over-elaborate and inflexible legal procedures which would seriously complicate and delay decision-making processes. The Government have, therefore, adopted a more effective and practicable approach.

  Guidelines for Government Departments to ensure that the environmental implications policies and plans are properly addressed as part of the decision-making process were published by the Department of the Environment in 1991. A copy of this publication, "Policy Appraisal and the Environment" is available in the Library of the House. All Departments, including this one, follow these guidelines in respect of their policies and plans.

  We are also determined to ensure that environmental protection is made an integral part of the common agricultural policy. In response to my right hon. Friend the Minister's insistence on this point, the Agriculture Council at its meeting in May made a specific declaration calling on the Commission to make early proposals to this effect. We will be seeking to ensure that progress is made during the United Kingdom presidency.

  Countryside Premium Scheme
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to introduce a nationwide countryside premium scheme top-up.

  Mr. Curry
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) on 22 June, Official Report, column 77.

  Habitat Protection
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will introduce a long-term habitat creation and management scheme along the lines of the US conservation reserve programme.

  Mr. Curry
  We plan to introduce an environmental set-aside scheme under the agri-environment measures agreed as part of the common agricultural policy reform measures. This will not necessarily resemble the US conservation reserve programme which focuses primarily on preventing soil erosion and improving water quality.

  Fallen Animals
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will provide figures for the number of fallen cattle, sheep and pigs removed by licensed knackers yard operators in 1988, 1990 and 1991.

  Mr. Soames
  Precise figures are not available but it is estimated that currently licensed knackers yards probably handle in excess of half a million fallen sheep, cattle and pigs annually.

  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the adequacy of current regulations to ensure that fallen sheep, cattle and pigs are handled only by licensed knackers yard operators.

  Mr. Soames
  There are a number of methods available to farmers for the disposal of fallen stock, including removal to a licensed knackers yard. Proper burial and incineration are also acceptable disposal methods, as is removal to hunt kennels.

  Exports of carcase meal 1985 to 1991

  Thousand tonnes

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  Lamb and mutton

  48.8

  60.1

  71.2

  76.0

  89.3

  79.8

  83.1

  Pork

  43.4

  50.5

  43.6

  52.7

  52.5

  50.0

  75.1

  Bacon and ham

  5.7

  5.8

  4.9

  5.1

  5.5

  5.0

  4.9

  Veal

  0.6

  1.9

  2.7

  1.3

  1.4

  0.4

  1.1

  Beef

  184.1

  184.1

  188.8

  131.7

  150.9

  121.9

  133.0

  Total

  282.6

  302.4

  311.2

  266.8

  299.6

  257.1

  297.3

  Imports of carcase meat 1985 to 1991

  Thousand tonnes

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  From the EC

  Lamb and mutton

  0.8

  0.3

  0.4

  1.5

  1.8

  2.0

  2.1

  Pork

  28.5

  29.3

  44.3

  56.4

  89.9

  79.8

  74.6

  Bacon and ham

  262.0

  256.1

  258.8

  255.0

  258.4

  258.7

  253.3

  Veal

  3.4

  4.7

  3.7

  2.2

  1.4

  1.1

  7.3

  Beef

  121.7

  173.8

  187.9

  211.4

  170.7

  138.6

  143.5

  Total

  416.4

  464.2

  495.1

  526.5

  522.2

  480.2

  480.8

  From non-EC

  Lamb and mutton

  172.5

  142.1

  153.8

  134.9

  135.3

  151.8

  121.6

  Pork

  7.3

  4.5

  4.8

  4.2

  4.0

  1.2

  0.6

  Bacon and ham

  2.4

  2.2

  1.4

  1.3

  1.6

  1.1

  0.6

  Veal

  0.0

  0.0

  0.0

  0.0

  0.0

  0.0

  0.0

  Beef

  53.5

  49.5

  49.7

  53.2

  46.6

  36.5

  38.8

  Total

  235.7

  198.3

  209.7

  193.6

  187.5

  190.6

  161.6

  240
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he proposes to take to prevent the illicit dumping of the carcases of fallen animals.

  Mr. Soames
  The State Veterinary Service acts in close concert with local authorities so that action can be taken against illegal dumping of carcases. Illegal dumping is an offence under the Dogs Act 1906 but the intention is to increase penalties for such activities when legislation to implement Community rules in relation to the disposal of animal waste is introduced.

  Meat Exports
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will show the tonnage of(a) lamb, (b) mutton, (c) pork, (d) veal and (e) beef exported from the United Kingdom in each year since 1985;

  (2) if he will show the tonnage of (a) lamb, (b) mutton, (c) pork, (d) veal and (e) beef imported into the United Kingdom from EC and non-EC countries in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Soames
  The tables show exports and imports of the various meats exported from, and imported into, the United Kingdom in each year since 1985. To assist comparability, boneless meat has been converted to bone-in weights, except in the case of bacon and ham which has also been included in the tables. The figures do not include trade in meat offals or in preserved or manufactured meat products—for example, canned meat.

  Animal Exports
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many live animals were exported from the United Kingdom for(a) breeding, (b) further fattening (c) immediate slaughter and (d) other purposes in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Soames
  The overseas trade statistics classify trade in live animals according to whether it is pure-bred breeding animals or other animals but they do not provide the exact classifications of trade, by intended purpose, which the hon. Member is seeking. The hon. Member is referred to the annual volumes of the "Overseas Trade Statistics for the United Kingdom", copies of which are in the House of Commons Library.

  Orange Juice
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will name the food companies being prosecuted by his Department in connection with the sale of adulterated orange juice.

  Mr. Soames
  Information variously alleging offences under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 and the Food Safety Act 1990 were laid on 6 February this year against the following defendants:

  Asda Stores Ltd.

  Cima Foods Ltd.

  Express Dairy Ltd.

  Gerber Foods Manufacturing Ltd.

  Gerber Foods International Ltd.

  Healds Juices Ltd. Princes Ltd.

  Safeway plc

  Sainsbury plc

  Superdrug Stores Ltd.

  Tesco Stores Ltd.

  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what provisions govern the amount of sugar which may be added to a litre of orange juice labelled as unsweetened.

  Mr. Soames
  The composition and labelling of orange juice are regulated by the Fruit Juices and Fruit Nectars Regulations 1977 which implement European Community rules. The regulations permit the addition of sugars to orange juice up to a level of 100 g per litre, but if added at levels above 15 g per litre the word "sweetened" must appear on the label, with a declaration of the quantity of sugars added. There is no specific definition for the description "unsweetened". It is, of course, subject to the general provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990—sections 14 and 15—and as such must not mislead the purchaser to a material degree as to the nature, substance or quality of the food.

  Cetaceans
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development took on the report of the International Whaling Commission's sub-committee on small cetaceans; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  None.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many claims for disability living allowance remained to be decided as of 1 June;

  (2) what is the average delay between the approval of a claim for a disability living allowance and the claimant being paid;

  (3) in what proportion of decisions on disability living allowance have appeals against the decision been made; and in how many of these cases the appeal has been determined in favour of the claimant;

  (4) how many claims for disability living allowance had been decided by 1 June.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The administration of disability living allowance is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member with such information as is available and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the average time from submission of a claim for disability living allowance to its resolution.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The administration of disability living allowance is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to my hon. Friend and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

  Attendance Allowance
  Ms. Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how long claims on the new-style self-assessment form for attendance allowance are taking to process and payments to commence; how long the old-style claims, where a doctor visits to make an assessment, are taking to clear and payments to commence; what are his Department's target times to deal with each kind of claim; and how many claim applications have been waiting for longer than the target times;

  (2) of the cases adjudicated under the new procedure in relation to self-assessment for attendance allowance, how many have been decided; how many were successful; how many were turned down; and how many were awarded (a) the higher rate and (b) the lower rate;

  (3) what measures are being taken to keep claimants informed of the progress of their claim for attendance allowance and of the time they should expect to wait.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The administration of attendance allowance 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.

  Disability Benefits
  Mr. Donald Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the current average waiting time for dealing with claims for(a) attendance allowance, (b) mobility allowance and (c) disability living allowance and, in the case of (a) and (b), how those waiting times have varied over each of the last three years.
  243
  Miss Widdecombe
  The administration of benefits 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.

  Youth Poverty
  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what figures he has for the level of poverty among 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland; and what action he intends to take.

  Mr. Burt
  We do not publish statistics on living standards disaggregated on a regional basis. However, the Social Services Select Committee has published an analysis carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies—"Households and Families Below Average Income: A Regional Analysis", copies of which are available in the Library.

  1987–88 £

  1988–89 £

  1989–90 £

  1990–91 £

  Total £

  England

  Roads

  859,260

  1,532,439

  5,901,519

  72,810

  8,366,028

  Local public transport

  351

  5

  0

  0

  356

  Railways

  2,286

  2,815,097

  460,245

  2,306

  3,279,934

  Airports

  3,934

  3,151

  7,685

  3,111

  17,881

  Ports

  9,473

  5,860

  2,425

  427

  18,185

  Total

  875,304

  4,356,552

  6,371,874

  78,654

  11,682,384

  Scotland

  Roads

  27,602

  9,427

  25,453

  29,016

  91,498

  Local public transport

  2,085

  377

  65

  2,834

  5,361

  Railways

  9,017

  142

  3,299

  6,422

  18,880

  Airports

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Ports

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Total

  38,704

  9,946

  28,817

  38,272

  115,739

  Wales

  Roads

  604,913

  16,078

  8,000

  2,821,163

  3,450,154

  Local public transport

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Railways

  207

  1,450

  1,900

  747

  4,304

  Airports

  0

  32

  0

  23

  55

  Ports

  2,002

  2

  635

  11

  2,650

  Total

  607,122

  17,562

  10,535

  2,821,944

  3,457,163

  Northern Ireland

  Roads

  2,917

  1,554

  1,476

  591

  6,538

  Local public transport

  220

  600

  900

  0

  1,720

  Railways

  0

  564

  712

  256

  1,532

  Airports

  949

  1,773

  200

  0

  2,922

  Ports

  6,320

  3,954

  1,722

  1,430

  13,426

  Total

  10,406

  8,445

  5,010

  2,277

  26,138

  A13
  Mrs. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer on 13 May to the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Powell), Official Report, column 107, if he will give a breakdown of the figure of £7 million for the Cotton street-Blackwall tunnel junction (A102).

  Mr. Norris
  Detailed design work is continuing but has already shown the need for additional work, including

  Social Fund
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the total of social fund payment made, by way of grants and loans, at the local offices of Greenock and Port Glasgow in(a) 1990–91 and (b) 1991–92; and what is the social fund allocation for these two offices in 1992–93 in terms of (i) grants and (ii) loans.

  Mr. Scott
  The information requested is in the Library.

TRANSPORT

  EC Funds
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will give details of the European Community funds received by the United Kingdom for transport infrastructure projects in each of the last five years broken down for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland and by mode of transport.

  Mr. Norris
  For the years for which information is available, United Kingdom transport projects received European Community funding as set out in the tables.

  statutory undertakers' diversions. The latest estimated total works cost of £7 million comprises £4 million for road works, £2 million for statutory undertakers' works and £1 million for value added tax.

  A21
  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proposals he has to improve the A21 between Flimwell and Hurst Green.
  245
  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The Department appointed East Sussex county council last year to undertake a route assessment and scheme identification study for the A21 trunk road in East Sussex, including the section between Flimwell and Hurst Green. On receipt of the county council's final report, we shall consider whether to include further schemes in the national road programme.

  South Circular Road
  Mr. Dowd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the further recommendations of his Department's consultants, Travers Morgan, arising from the south circular assessment study will be made public.

  Mr. Norris
  A decision was taken in March 1990 not to proceed with the major road building schemes recommended by the London assessment studies. The consultants were asked to examine more limited improvements to reduce accidents and to deal with local bottlenecks. Their findings have since been considered and developed further by the Department and no useful purpose would now be served by publishing them. Local authorities and others will be consulted when the Department is ready to bring forward proposals.

  International Agreements
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list all the bilateral and multilateral agreements directly or indirectly negotiated by his Department or a body acting on behalf of his Department with(a) Switzerland and (b) Liechtenstein.

  Mr. Norris
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is responsible for all international treaties and I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given today by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

  Benzene
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he will take to reduce the exposure of individuals to benzene resulting from petrol evaporation; and what discussions he has had with petrol companies and vehicle manufacturers concerning minimising exposure to benzene.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  A number of steps have been taken, and are planned, to reduce evaporate emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which include benzene, from the storage, distribution and use of petrol.

  The Government are in the process of adopting from the end of this year an EC directive setting stringent standards for the reduction of carbon monoxide, the combined total of hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen and evaporative emissions. Those measures will, in practice, require new cars to be fitted with catalytic converters in their exhaust systems that will reduce VOCs in car exhaust by about 75 per cent.

  The Government also have plans to adopt a new European standard for unleaded petrol next year. It will include lower "volatility" criteria, which will reduce evaporative emissions. The same volatility criteria will also be applied to leaded petrol.
  246
  The Government are co-operating with the European Commission in the drafting of directives which will reduce evaporative emissions from the storage and distribution of petrol and during car refuelling.

  The Government are in dialogue with both oil and motor industries on these matters.

  Channel Tunnel
  Mr. Adley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last updated his traffic forecasts for the channel tunnel; and what was the source for the provision of the information.

  Mr. Freeman
  The channel tunnel is a private sector venture. Traffic forecasts are a matter for Eurotunnel and the railway companies running trains through the tunnel.

  My Department has, however, recently commissioned a study to update the information on the effects of the channel tunnel on the main trunk road links in Kent and the consultant's report is expected to be received in the very near future.

  No-claim Bonuses
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will introduce legislation to the effect that innocent victims of vehicles damaged by hit-and-run drivers should not forfeit insurance no-claim bonuses; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The terms and conditions of a no-claim discount scheme form part of the contract between the motorist and insurer. Such schemes have no statutory basis and it would not be right to seek to regulate their operation by legislation.

  Jubilee Line
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what changes have been made in the pattern of payment of the £400 million sought from the private sector for the Jubilee line extension.

  Mr. Norris
  No changes have been made. My right hon. Friend has repeatedly made it clear that we expect a contribution of the same value as that originally promised, including £100 million in the construction period.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will change his policy of seeking a £400 million contribution from the private sector for construction of the Jubilee line extension.

  Mr. Norris
  No.

  Transport Council
  Mr. Wells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the outcome of discussions held at the Transport Council on 22 and 23 June.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The Transport Council held in Luxembourg on 22 and 23 June took three decisions of major and lasting importance for European transport.

  It agreed to liberalise the licensing of aviation operators, their access to markets in the European Community and the fares they charge from 1 January 1993. The liberalisation and competition that that will stimulate will be of fundamental and enduring importance to all those who use and work in aviation in Europe.
  247
  Restrictions on fares have been removed and airlines are free to introduce new lower fares without going through complex approval processes. The mechanisms by which other Governments can keep fares artificially high have been removed.

  British airlines will be able to fly any international route in the Community without restriction. Airlines will be able to fly not only London-Paris hut also London-Paris-Rome and, most importantly, Paris-Rome without any link with London. This removal of restrictions applies to the charter travel market as well as to scheduled services.

  The Council also agreed to liberalise maritime cabotage. The anachronism of the United Kingdom and some other member states having their coastal trades open while the rest did not will be ended. Here, too, the opening-up of markets is going to be of great importance and value to all users of shipping and to ship owners.

  The Council also agreed on cabotage for road passenger transport. This is of major importance to passengers and operators, most immediately for those using coach tours to other states. The details of the new agreements are as follows.

  Aviation Liberalisation

  The unanimous agreement of the Council on the third and final stage of aviation liberalisation for the completion of the single market was on three regulations covering licensing, market access, and fares and rates. Under the licensing regulation, any airline that meets uniform financial and safety requirements will from 1 January 1993 be entitled to an operating licence in any member state; member states will no longer be able to licence only "flag carriers". Under the market access regulation, Community airlines will operate on an equal basis throughout the EC, with access to all international routes within the Community from 1 January 1993. Community airlines will also be able to fly internal routes within member states —cabotage—from the same date where their flights are linked to an international flight, and from 1 April 1997 where they are free standing. The fares and rates regulation removes Government restrictions on pricing. New fares can be brought in immediately and existing restrictions on scheduled fares and charter rates will be swept away. There will be safeguards to protect the consumer against excessively high or predatory fares, but only exceptional circumstances. Regulation of fares is over.

  Road Passenger Liberalisation

  The Council's decision on liberalisation of road passenger cabotage provides for liberalisation of closed door tours—that is, where the same vehicle is used to carry the same group of passengers throughout a journey—from 1 January 1993 and the liberalisation of other non-regular services from 1 January 1996. There will also be a Council decision on regular service cabotage as soon as possible after a Commission proposal, to be submitted by the end of 1995.

  Maritime Liberalisation

  Under the agreement on the liberalisation of maritime cabotage, Community ship owners will from 1 January 1993 have the general right to carry goods between
  248
  mainland ports in the Community and also from any EC mainland port to off-shore installations. Liberalisation of some of these mainland port services will be phased in in the Mediterranean and along the coasts of Spain, Portugal and France—for example, cruises from 1 January 1995, transport of strategic goods from 1 January 1997; services by ships smaller than 650 gross tonnes from 1 January 1998 and regular passenger and ferry services from 1 January 1999. Mainland-to-island and island-to-island services will be liberalised in the Mediterranean from 1 January 1999, subject to a special exemption for certain Greek trades from 1 January 2004. In general, there will not be crew nationality restrictions for mainland cabotage over and above those imposed by the state of registry, but for a transitional period in respect of most types of island cabotage, host member states may impose their own crew nationality requirements.

  The Council also discussed but did not reach agreement on: the liberalisation of road haulage cabotage; fiscal harmonisation in the road sector; and a mandate for negotiations with third countries on inland waterways.

  Forthcoming United Kingdom Presidency

  There are important tasks remaining for the United Kingdom presidency in the transport sector. Full liberalisation of road haulage cabotage has yet to be agreed; and there will need to be Community agreement on airport slot allocation to complement the third aviation package. I also hope that during the United Kingdom presidency the Community will take forward the increasingly rigorous application of the state aid rules in the transport sector so as to provide for full and proper competition in the single market.

EMPLOYMENT

  Regional Offices
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will provide a table of expenditure showing the cost of running each regional office of her Department and the cost of running sub-regional offices aggregated by region and with Greater London shown separately and excluding the funding programmes operated by the offices for each year from 1987–88(a) at current prices and (b) at 1987–88 prices.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The table of expenditure shows the cost of running each regional office of the Department for Employment's training, enterprise and education directorate (TEED) for each year from 1987–88 to 1991–92. The figures are shown(a) at current prices and (b) at 1987–88 prices.

  The figures exclude the funding for programmes operated by the offices. It is not possible to identify separately the costs of running sub-regional offices. Any sub-regional office costs are subsumed within the totals for each regional office.

  The Employment Department group as a whole has other regionally based organisations, but is unable to supply information for those, except at disproportionate cost.

  249

  Employment Department TEED Regional running costs 1987–88 to 1991–92

  Region

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  At 1987–88 prices £000s

  At 1992–93 prices £000s

  At 1987–88 prices £000s

  At 1992–93 prices £000s

  At 1987–88 prices £000s

  At 1992–93 prices £000s

  At 1987–88 prices £000s

  At 1992–93 prices £000s

  At 1987–88 prices £000s

  At 1992–93 prices £000s

  South East

  11,531.8

  15,943.1

  11,352.1

  15,777.2

  10,836.2

  15,125.6

  7,147.8

  10,044.7

  2,462.9

  3,478.2

  London

  13,553.3

  18,738.1

  13,051.1

  18,138.5

  12,228.7

  17,069.3

  13,828.7

  19,433.2

  3,812.9

  5,384.7

  South West

  7,576.9

  10,475.4

  6,778.6

  9,421.0

  6,692.2

  9,341.3

  4,761.5

  6,691.2

  1,542.7

  2,178.6

  West Midlands

  10,944.9

  15,131.7

  10,058.4

  13,979.2

  9,661.4

  13,485.9

  8,867.6

  12,461.5

  2,407.7

  3,400.2

  East Midlands

  8,995.0

  12,435.9

  8,465.3

  11,765.1

  8,576.6

  11,971.7

  8,415.4

  11,825.9

  2,422.1

  3,420.8

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  8,855.3

  12,242.7

  7,937.9

  11,032.2

  8,377.8

  11,694.2

  7,176.9

  10,085.5

  1,911.2

  2,699.9

  Northern

  7,443.9

  10,291.5

  6,908.8

  9,601.9

  6,871.0

  9,590.9

  3,494.9

  4,911.4

  1,818.9

  2,568.7

  North West

  13,823.1

  19,110.9

  12,902.0

  17,931.4

  12,555.6

  17,525.8

  10,048.2

  14,120.6

  2,898.0

  4,092.5

  Wales

  6,302.8

  8,713.8

  6,252.6

  8,689.9

  6,251.5

  8,726.3

  5,215.2

  7,328.9

  1,832.6

  2,587.9

  Scotland

  11,812.0

  16,330.5

  11,244.6

  15,627.9

  10,696.7

  14,930.9

  11,978.3

  16,832.7

  —

  —

  Total

  100.839.0

  139,413.6

  94,951.4

  131,964.3

  92,747.7

  129,461.9

  80,934.5

  113,735.6

  21,109.0

  29,811.5

  Note:

  It is not possible to make a direct comparison of the figures from 1990–91 onwards. From 1990–91, training and enterprise councils have replaced the Department's sub-regional offices—area offices—on a phased time scale which ended in 1991–92.

  Employment Prospects
  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what information she has on the employment prospects for people who are unemployed and do not enter employment training.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Department does not produce forecasts of the employment prospects of people who are unemployed. Information based on claimant data for April 1991—April 1992 shows that 41 per cent. of individuals unemployed for six months will leave the register before they have been unemployed for 12 months. It is not possible to determine how many of these individuals will leave to go into ET, leave the labour market or find employment.

  Training and Enterprise Councils
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what means are used to monitor TECs' performance against the business plan in meeting their contractual obligation for people with disabilities and learning difficulties; what is done with the monitoring reports undertaken by her Department; and what publicity she gives to the outcomes of these monitoring visits.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Training and enterprise councils' business plans are examined before approval to ensure that they have included objectives and targets for helping people with disabilities. TECs arc required by their contract to provide regular performance statistics relating to the training and placing of people with disabilities. The Department's regional contract managers review TEC's achievements against objectives at regular intervals.

  Performance reports produced as part of this monitoring process are used to ensure that appropriate action is being taken and that TECs are delivering the agreed plan within the terms of their contract.

  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what means of support TECs provide for young people leaving special schools who wish to enter youth training and gain vocational qualifications; and what steps are taken to ensure that funding is available to meet the higher cost of training people with disabilities.
  250
  Mr. McLoughlin
  Support for young people with disabilities is provided as an integral part of the Department's training and enterprise programmes.

  All young people under 18 wishing to enter youth training and who are not in full-time education or employment are guaranteed a YT place. All young people with disabilities remain eligible for a place on YT beyond 18 under the extended guarantee, if their availability for YT has been delayed by the effects of their disability or health problems.

  TECs contract that every eligible person who is resident in a TEC's operational area and who is a member of the YT guarantee group or the YT extended guarantee group shall be assessed and offered a training opportunity with at least one approved qualification at or above level 2 national vocational qualification. For those young people with special needs for whom this would not be a realistic target, and provided that the individual is endorsed by the Careers Service as category A or B special training needs and continues to be a member of the YT guarantee or extended guarantee groups, the TEC has to ensure that training is individually designed to give them the support and help they need to make progress towards attainable general and vocational competences.

  TECs' training budgets are negotiated annually with the regional directors of the Employment Department. These negotiations take into account the anticipated additional costs of providing youth training for trainees who have special training needs.

  All young people including those leaving special schools come within these arrangements.

  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will make the system of payment for TECs for training those with disabilities or learning difficulties independent of the length of time to achieve qualifications.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The system of payment for TECs already allows the duration of training to be tailored to the needs of the individual, including those with disabilities or learning difficulties.

  Training Credits
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what action has been taken on the report of the Training Standards Advisory Service on the lessons learnt from the first round of training credit pilots; and if she will publish the report.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  On 17 June 1992, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment published a progress report on the first 12 months' operation of the pilots. The report summarised the findings from the main evaluation studies, including the inspections by the Training Standards Advisory Service (TSAS). Following normal practice, we do not intend to publish the TSAS report separately.

  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what evaluation has been undertaken on the first round of training credits to determine whether the special needs of people with disabilities and learning difficulties are being met.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  As part of the evaluation, case studies were carried out last year in each of the pilot areas. The studies focused on the impact of credits on various groups including young people with special needs. An overview of the studies has been prepared for the Department by Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte. This report is freely available and I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Library. Further studies in this area are planned.

SCOTLAND

  Steel Sites
  Dr. Reid
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with Motherwell district council regarding the restoration of steel sites in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  The work on this is being done on the Government's behalf principally by Scottish Enterprise and the Lanarkshire development agency, involving the local authorities and others as appropriate. As the hon. Member is aware, I will be meeting him along with the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) and representatives of Motherwell district council later today to discuss this issue.

  Youth Unemployment
  Mr. Ernie Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many 16 and 17-year-olds in the Dundee travel-to-work area are currently unemployed or on youth training programmes.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  In the Dundee travel-to-work area in April 1992 the number of unemployed claimants aged under 17 was 26; and the number aged 17 was 51. Information about how many 16 and 17-year-olds in the Dundee travel-to-work area are on youth training programmes is not available in the form requested. However, the number of young people aged 18 and under on youth training in the Dundee City district council area was 1,262 as at 14 May 1992, the latest date for which figures are available.

  Kingston Bridge, Glasgow
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to assist Strathclyde regional council to keep Kingston bridge, Glasgow, open to traffic; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Plans for the future of Kingston bridge are matters for Strathclyde regional council in the first instance. We will, however, give careful consideration to any requirements included in the council's financial plans in respect of Kingston bridge when determining capital allocations for 1993–94 and subsequent years.

  Offensive Weapons
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has any proposals to change the law on the carrying of offensive weapons.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  There are already heavy penalties available in law for carrying and using offensive weapons. We are committed to changing the law to make it even more difficult to carry knives and will be bringing forward proposals in due course.

  Drug-related Crime
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what resources he is allocating to Strathclyde regional council police department to combat drug-related crimes; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Strathclyde regional council determines the resources allocated to Strathclyde police and it is for the chief constable to decide how the resources available to him should be deployed. The council receives police grant at 51 per cent. of its net expenditure on the police.

  A75
  Mr. Trimble
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether any further improvements are planned for the A75 Stranraer/Carlisle road.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  In recognition of its important role in serving ferry traffic to Ireland, the A75 Gretna to Stranraer route has now been substantially improved and all the major bypass schemes are complete. Current plans are aimed particularly at targeting residual overtaking and safety problems. The next major project, the Glen improvement just west of Dumfries, is currently at an advanced stage of preparation. In addition, a number of schemes are in preparation aimed specifically at road safety. As elsewhere in Scotland, there are projects on the A75 whose feasibility has not yet been established or developed which will be brought forward in the longer term.

  Diabetics
  Mr. Connarty
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he intends to take steps to alter the treatment available to diabetics through the national health service.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  Other than evaluating the possibility that pen injection systems might become
  253
  available on GP prescription, there are no present plans to alter the treatment available to diabetics through the NHS in Scotland.

  Governance
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the Government's commitment to take stock of the Scottish constitutional question.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Government are continuing to review ways of making the government of Scotland fully responsive to Scotland's needs within the framework of an integrated United Kingdom.

  Mrs. Adams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet representatives of the Scottish Trades Union Congress to discuss constitutional change in Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Ministers meet representatives of the Scottish Trades Union Congress from time to time for discussions on a broad range of matters, but have no plans for a meeting specifically to discuss constitutional change in Scotland.

  Alcohol-related Crime
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what actions he is taking to reduce the incidence of alcohol-related crime in Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  To tackle alcohol-related crime we have tightened the licensing laws; provided tougher penalties for drink-driving offences; and introduced experimental bye-laws to prohibit drinking in public places. The Scottish Council on Alcohol, which receives substantial Government funding, has produced an education package "Ending Offending" which is widely used in penal establishments with offenders aged 16 to 30. There are many other local initiatives aimed at tackling alcohol and crime.

  Committee of the Regions
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received about Scottish representation on the committee of the regions proposed in the draft treaty signed at Maastricht; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  My right hon. Friend has received four representations about Scottish involvement in the proposed committee of the regions. The Government have not yet reached conclusions on how the United Kingdom's seats should be filled.

  Local Government Review
  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when Her Majesty's Government expect to announce proposals arising from the current review of Scottish local government.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  We plan to issue in the autumn a second consultation paper setting out illustrative options for the new structure.

  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress he has made with his plans to reform local government in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
  254
  Mr. Allan Stewart
  We are making good progress with our plans to reform local government. My right hon. Friend announced in May that he had commissioned consultants to examine the transitional and long-term costs of restructuring. This work will inform a second consultation paper setting out illustrative options for the new structure which we will issue in the autumn.

  Scottish History
  Mr. Bowis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to further knowledge and understanding of Scottish history throughout the United Kingdom.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Scottish history is well represented in the curriculum and examination syllabuses followed in Scottish schools. Bodies such as Historic Scotland, the national museums and galleries of Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish tourist board are active in developing wider awareness of Scotland's historical heritage.

  Lockerbie
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland on what date the Scottish Office was first informed of the find of a case of drugs from Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie by Mr. Jim Wilson, farmer of Tundergarth Nains farm.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Scottish Office has never been informed of any case of drugs from Pan Am flight 103 being found.

  Strathclyde Police
  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many chief superintendents have served in D division of Strathclyde police from June 1989 to June 1992.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I understand that four chief superintendents served in D division during the period in question. Two left the division on appointment as assistant chief constable, and one of the others was relief divisional commander during the serving officer's attendance at the Police Training College, Bramshill.

  EC Council Meeting, Edinburgh
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what extra costs will be incurred by his Department and by Lothian regional council as a consequence of the European Community Council in Edinburgh; and if Lothian region will be fully paid for extra police costs.

  Mr. Ian Lang
  The main costs of holding the European Council meeting in Edinburgh, including works at the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the provision of press facilities at Meadowbank, will be met by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In addition, the Scottish Office will provide police specific grant to meet 51 per cent. of the expenditure incurred by Lothian and Borders police board in policing the meeting; I understand policing costs are estimated at around £2.5 million.

  Insects
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what studies the Forestry Commission has undertaken of the insect life supported by different species of trees.

  Sir Hector Monro
  The Forestry Commission has an active research programme into the ecology and conservation of forest insects. This includes a number of studies of the insect life supported by different species of tree. Several other institutes in Britain also conduct research on tree insects.

  Registered blind and partially sighted people who are also deaf Figures as at 31 March 1991 (provisional)

  Table 1

  Those aged under 65

  Blind

  Partially sighted

  Region

  Male

  Female

  Total

  Male

  Female

  Total

  Borders

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Central

  8

  6

  14

  2

  1

  3

  Dumfries and Galloway

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Fife

  1

  1

  2

  2

  1

  3

  Grampian

  3

  4

  7

  3

  4

  7

  Highland

  4

  1

  5

  3

  1

  4

  Lothian

  2

  3

  5

  3

  0

  3

  Strathclyde

  13

  11

  24

  3

  7

  10

  Tayside

  1

  6

  7

  1

  1

  2

  Orkney

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Shetland

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Western Isles

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Scotland

  32

  33

  65

  17

  15

  32

  Table 2

  Those aged 65 and over

  Blind

  Partially sighted

  Region

  Male

  Female

  Total

  Male

  Female

  Total

  Borders

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Central

  19

  31

  50

  9

  5

  14

  Dumfries and Galloway

  0

  3

  3

  0

  0

  0

  Fife

  7

  11

  18

  5

  9

  14

  Grampian

  40

  57

  97

  13

  31

  44

  Highland

  17

  22

  39

  5

  6

  11

  Lothian

  4

  21

  25

  0

  5

  5

  Strathclyde

  79

  152

  231

  16

  41

  57

  Tayside

  19

  33

  52

  6

  15

  21

  Orkney

  1

  1

  2

  1

  0

  1

  Shetland

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Western Isles

  2

  2

  4

  1

  3

  4

  Scotland

  188

  334

  522

  56

  115

  171

  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what facilities are available for deaf-blind people; if he will make additional funds available to develop services for them; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Government policy is that deaf-blind people should be encouraged to reach their full potential in the community, and where care is required it should be provided in their own homes wherever possible.

  The provision of facilities for deaf-blind people at local level is a matter for the local authorities and, in relation to health care, for the health boards. Decisions on the nature and extent of assistance to be provided are for the authorities themselves, having regard to the resources available to them. Since coming to office in 1979 the Government have increased expenditure provision for social work in real terms by 88 per cent.

  Deaf-Blind People
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what information he has on the number of deaf-blind people in each regional and island authority.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Provisional figures as at 31 March 1991 for people who are registered blind or partially sighted and who are also deaf are set out in the tables.

  The Scottish Office has provided SENSE in Scotland, the voluntary body which works on behalf of deaf-blind children and young people, with grants under sections 9 and 10(1) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 totalling £60,000 in the current year. A capital grant of £36,000 was given to SENSE and Quarriers Homes in 1988 to help with building costs at the Overbridge centre, a national residential centre for deaf-blind people in Pollockshields.

  In addition, revenue grants totalling £22,000 and a capital grant of £10,000 have since been made to Visualise, an organisation which offers training in social skills to blind post-school young people who are multipally handicapped, at a residential centre in Edinburgh.

  Wick Airport
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what reasons were supplied to his Department for the improvement scheme for Wick airport announced in May by Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The responsibility for determining priorities for expenditure on airport improvements, including those at Wick, lies with Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd. I understand, however, that the works are required in order to update and improve facilities at the airport in the interests of providing a better service to users.

  Teachers (Stress)
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans the Government have to improve the availability of and access to counselling and support services for members of the teaching profession.

  Year of registration or discharge

  Lymphoma

  Multiple Myeloma

  Single Myeloma/ Plasmacytoma

  Aplastic-Anaemia

  1981

  38

  25

  0

  7

  1982

  45

  23

  0

  18

  1983

  41

  21

  0

  7

  1984

  55

  13

  0

  13

  1985

  53

  17

  0

  16

  1986

  35

  16

  0

  6

  1987

  43

  20

  0

  8

  1988

  61

  10

  0

  7

  1989

  50

  17

  2

  14

  1990

  64

  20

  0

  13

  Sources: Information on lymphoma and myeloma, including plasmacytoma is taken from the Scottish National Cancer Registration Scheme. Information on the aplastic anaemia disease is taken from an analyses of discharges recorded in the Scottish Hospital Inpatient Statistics.

  NHS Reforms
  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the expansion of trust hospitals and general practitioner fund-holding practices in Scotland.

  Mr. Lang
  Since the general election there has been a substantial increase in Scotland in declarations of interest, both in NHS trust status and in GP fund holding. It is evident that the benefits for patients are being recognised by those involved and I expect to see significant growth in both areas in the coming months.

  Homelessness
  Mr. McLeish
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give the number of homeless people in Scotland in April 1989 and for the most recent date for which information is available.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  A total of 14,900 households, containing an estimated 31,600 people, were assessed as homeless and 8,100, containing an estimated 18,200 people, as potentially homeless in the year ending 31 March 1991. A total of 11,400 households were so assessed as homeless and 6,750 as potentially homeless in the year to March 1989; information is not available on the number of persons.
  258
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Education authorities have the principal responsibility for assessing the need and making appropriate provision for services relating to the employment of teaching staff. As part of our guidance on implementation of the staff development and appraisal initiative, we recommended that teachers seeking to improve their professional performance should be able to obtain the advice and support needed from their employing authorities.

  Diseases, Ayrshire and Arran
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the number of cases of lymphoma, myeloma and aplastic-anaemia per annum over the last 10 years in the Ayrshire and Arran health board area.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  The information is as follows:

  Seabirds, Sutherland
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what information he has received about the cause of death of the seabirds washed up on the beach to the north of Embo, east Sutherland in the week ending 5 June.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: Scottish Natural Heritage—SNH—has advised that the cause of death is unknown. The condition of the corpses of 177 birds of different species found at the location showed that they had died at various times and some were affected to varying degrees by oil.

  Mortality of sea birds during the summer is not an uncommon occurrence. The SNH has reported that other east-facing beaches, subject similarly to the recent prolonged succession of easterly winds, have also accumulated dead birds in above average numbers.

  A small quantity of oil identified as originating from the Beatrice Field was also found on the beach. An operation to clean the beach of oil was initiated promptly and was completed by 7 June.

  Access to Records
  Miss Emma Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what conclusions he has reached on the implications of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Graham Gaskin for people seeking access to personal records for which he has responsibility; and what action he intends to take.
  259
  Mr. Allan Stewart
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: A consultation exercise is currently under way to obtain the views of interested bodies about ways in which the existing legislation and practice on the subject of access to social work records might need to be modified in the light of the European Court's judgment in the Gaskin case.

  Rents-to-Mortgages
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the number of local authority tenants who have(a) applied and (b) purchased their home under the

  Authority

  Total applications

  Applications withdrawn

  Sales

  Applications in process

  Berwickshire

  7

  3

  —

  4

  Ettrick and Lauderdale

  9

  5

  1

  3

  Roxburgh

  2

  1

  —

  1

  Tweeddale

  2

  1

  1

  —

  Clackmannan

  7

  1

  1

  5

  Falkirk

  28

  14

  —

  14

  Stirling

  11

  3

  4

  4

  Annandale and Eskdale

  9

  4

  —

  5

  Nithsdale

  13

  5

  1

  7

  Stewartry

  7

  4

  —

  3

  Wigtown

  8

  3

  —

  5

  Dunfermline

  28

  13

  —

  15

  Kirkcaldy

  34

  12

  4

  18

  North East Fife

  24

  11

  —

  13

  Aberdeen

  102

  29

  —

  73

  Banff and Buchan

  7

  3

  —

  4

  Gordon

  25

  6

  —

  19

  Kincardine and Deeside

  25

  4

  —

  21

  Moray

  28

  10

  —

  18

  Badenoch and Strathspey

  5

  1

  —

  4

  Caithness

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Inverness

  5

  1

  —

  4

  Lochaber

  10

  1

  —

  9

  Nairn

  3

  1

  —

  2

  Ross and Cromarty

  5

  4

  —

  1

  Skye and Lochalsh

  1

  —

  —

  1

  Sutherland

  1

  —

  —

  1

  East Lothian

  36

  16

  9

  11

  Edinburgh

  21

  11

  —

  10

  Midlothian

  23

  12

  6

  5

  West Lothian

  21

  11

  —

  10

  Argyll and Bute

  18

  7

  —

  11

  Bearsden and Milngavie

  12

  2

  —

  10

  Clydebank

  6

  1

  —

  5

  Clydesdale

  4

  1

  —

  3

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth

  5

  4

  —

  1

  Cumnock and Doon Valley

  6

  2

  —

  4

  Cunninghame

  14

  8

  —

  6

  Dumbarton

  4

  2

  —

  2

  East Kilbride

  2

  1

  —

  1

  Eastwood

  7

  2

  2

  3

  Glasgow

  23

  15

  —

  8

  Hamilton

  21

  5

  —

  16

  Inverclyde

  13

  6

  —

  7

  Kilmarnock and Loudoun

  17

  9

  —

  8

  Kyle and Carrick

  33

  17

  3

  13

  Monklands

  10

  2

  1

  7

  Motherwell

  15

  6

  —

  9

  Renfrew

  46

  22

  7

  17

  Strathkelvin

  24

  10

  —

  14

  Angus

  13

  3

  4

  6

  Dundee

  7

  5

  1

  1

  Perth and Kinross

  30

  14

  —

  16

  Orkney

  4

  1

  1

  2

  Shetland

  2

  1

  —

  1

  Western Isles

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Dumfries and Galloway RC

  1

  —

  —

  1

  Strathclyde regional council

  2

  —

  —

  2

  Total

  846

  336

  46

  464

  260
  rents-to-mortgages scheme since its extension to local authority tenants; and if he will provide a breakdown by local authority.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 17 June 1992]: Based on returns to 31 May 1992, a total of 846 local authority tenants have applied to purchase their home under the rents-to-mortgages scheme. Of these, 46 have already purchased, 336 have withdrawn their application and the remaining 464 applications are currently being processed. Many of those who have withdrawn their application have opted instead to purchase under the right to buy. The breakdown by local authority is shown in the table.

  Lobster Fisheries
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will seek to amend the Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) Act 1967 in respect of the creation of enhanced lobster fisheries in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: My Department has recently been considering the results of research on the creation of enhanced lobster fisheries and whether any legislative changes should be introduced to facilitate such developments in Scotland. This raises complex issues which I am considering. I would consult Scottish fishery interests before bringing forward any proposals.

  Ozone-depleting Chemicals
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is his Department's policy on purchasing ozone-depleting chemicals and goods manufactured with these substances; and in which year his Department expects to cease using, purchasing or releasing ozone-depleting substances, controlled by the Montreal protocol, and hydrochlor ofluorocarbons.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: Government policy on purchasing ozone-depleting chemicals and goods manufactured with these substances is set out in the 1990 environment White Paper, the first-year report following the White Paper and the environmental action guide for building and purchasing managers issued by the Department of the Environment in 1991. The Scottish Office follows this guidance. As yet there is no time scale for ceasing use or purchase of ozone-depleting substances, controlled by the Montreal protocol, and HCFCs, but the Scottish Office intends to do so as soon as possible.

  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the amount in tonnes of ozone-depleting chemicals used or purchased by his Department for the years 1989, 1990 and 1991, and estimates of usage for the next year; what is the estimated bank of ozone-depleting chemicals contained within his Department; and how many months' supply of ozone-depleting chemicals have been ordered by his Department.
  262
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: The information required could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Dounreay
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what provisions of the Paris convention apply to the discharges for the proposed extra storage capacity at Dounreay.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: The proposed extension to the existing facility will not be subject separately to the provisions of the Paris convention. Radioactivity in the drainage water will be disposed of through the liquid effluent discharge pipe and will be included in the regular returns to the Paris commission of radioactive discharges to sea.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans Her Majesty's Government have to make available to Governments of nations bordering the North sea and north Atlantic copies of the environmental statement prepared in support of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority technology proposals to extend its storage capacity for low-level radioactive waste at its Dounreay plant.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 22 June 1992]: The Government have no plans to make available copies of the environmental statement.

  Water Supply
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the number of water supply disconnections in each of the past five years for each regional and island council area.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 23 June 1992]: Water supplies to domestic consumers in Scotland may be disconnected only for short-term operational reasons, for example, to undertake repairs, make connections or plumbing alterations. Supplies to non-domestic consumers may also be disconnected for other reasons, including those arising from non-payment of water charges. Information on the number of disconnections is not held centrally.

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

Charities: VAT Rating
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
What progress they are making in protecting the interests of charities in the current discussions within the European Community on the future of value added tax.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, substantial progress has been made. Agreement has been reached that the United Kingdom's existing social zero rates, including those specifically designed to benefit charities and charity shops, can be maintained until at least 1997 without prejudice to their future thereafter.
Lord Judd: My Lords, is the Minister aware that grave anxiety exists among many voluntary charity workers as to what will happen after 1997? For example, is he aware that it is the work of countless thousands of volunteers in charity shops which adds value to donated goods and that there is a danger of voluntary service being taxed? Can the Government give a categorical assurance that they will never allow that to happen?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I join the noble Lord in congratulating all voluntary workers for their work in charity shops throughout the country. As I said, I can give a categoric assurance up to the end of 1996. Thereafter, it is a matter for unanimous agreement by the member states. We have no intention of giving up the existing zero rates, particularly those applying to charities. We look to the best possible regime for charities existing both before and after 1997.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, did my noble friend suggest that unanimity would be needed to withdraw the concession? If so, why cannot the Government give an undertaking here and now that they will never agree to withdrawal?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend is correct: unanimity is required. Obviously, I cannot speak for my right honourable friend or his successors and give an absolute categorical assurance that the provision will continue after 1997.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that that is a most unsatisfactory position for him to take? And as he represents the Government, it is an unsatisfactory position for them to take. Is the Minister aware that most, if not all, in this House have been brought up to believe that the
436
only taxing authority in this country is the House of Commons? How is it that he can now equivocate about a tax which may be introduced in 1997 even though the other place may not want it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I made myself perfectly clear. I did not equivocate at all. I said that obviously I can give no categorical assurance, for exactly the same reason as the noble Lord has given—that is to say, it is a matter for my right honourable friend and the other place as to whether the zero rates should he given up. It is a matter for unanimous agreement by all the parties. We will not give it up, but at the moment I cannot give a categorical assurance.
Lord Renton: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is essentially a matter in which Brussels should not be involved? Perhaps I may now ask a separate question. Can my noble friend confirm that our VAT rate is very much higher than that of other European countries?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the second part of my noble friend's question is another matter. I can give the assurance which I have already tried to give; namely, that until the end of 1996 our position is perfectly safe. We intend to preserve it thereafter, but obviously I cannot give a categorical assurance about what my right honourable friend or his successor might do post-1996.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be better if he were to concede that the reason why he cannot give a categorical assurance is precisely that his right honourable friends are likely to compromise on all areas of VAT?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cannot give a categorical assurance. Save for constitutional questions, I cannot speak for my right honourable friend and his successors in 1997. I do not want to equivocate. We are quite sure that we shall maintain the present position until 1997, and we wish to maintain it thereafter.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in another place categorical assurances have already been given, which are not limited to 1997, as regards all the other categories covered by the sixth VAT directive?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Paymaster General has said in another place that there is no question of the United Kingdom being forced to accept unwelcome proposals to end zero rating after 1996. However, it obviously remains a question for my right honourable friend or his successor in 1997.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House whether the other countries in the EC have a similar system of charities and voluntary bodies? Secondly, does he think that they understand how the charity and voluntary body system in this country works?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously charities exist in all countries of the European Community. What is

437
different is that charity shops are a peculiarly United Kingdom institution—or at least they exist to a far greater extent in the United Kingdom. It might therefore be that some of our colleagues in the Community do not understand adequately our problems.
Earl Russell: My Lords, am I right in understanding that my noble kinsman's reply is based on the constitutionally impeccable principle that no Parliament can bind its successors?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I think that my noble kinsman is right.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, is the Minister aware that charities' VAT bills will treble if the zero-rating concession is abolished? Will he tell his Secretary of State that it is apparently the unanimous view of this House that it is unacceptable that this burden be placed upon charities? Will he come back and give us a categorical assurance that while this Government are in power they will not make such damaging compromises or concessions?
Lord Henley: My Lords, this Government will be in power for a considerable time to come. But, as I said, one Parliament cannot bind its successors. I have made our position perfectly clear. We wish to continue with zero-rating, particularly as it protects charity shops. We do not intend to see ourselves forced to accept any unwelcome proposals to end zero-rating after the date I mentioned. As I said, any decisions relating to that matter require the unanimous agreement of all member states.
Lord Judd: My Lords, does the Minister recognise that what is galling for volunteers up and down the country is that any concession on this issue will turn them into voluntary tax collectors? They give their service for those in need—not in order to become honorary tax collectors.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not accept the premise behind the noble Lord's question. As I said, we intend to continue with zero-rating. We intend to continue the help that is offered in a variety of different ways to charities—and that, I think, is as far as I can take it.

CAP Reform: Publicity
2.45 p.m.
Lord Forester Lord Forester asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to ensure that United Kingdom farmers are fully informed of the details and implications of the CAP reform settlement to enable them to plan their businesses for the coming year.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe): My Lords, the Government appreciate that arable farmers, in particular, need to take decisions in the very near future, and some guidance has already been given. Details of the CAP reform agreement are,
438
however, still being finalised. The Government will provide full information to farmers as soon as it becomes available.
Lord Forester: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. I understand that the details that we require are only going to be debated on 30th June—let alone agreed—and that they come into force on 1st July. Is my noble friend aware that, although the European Parliament can stop the clock whenever it so wishes, British farmers cannot? The seasons roll on and nothing will stop them. In particular, will my noble friend ensure that British feed wheat is acceptable for intervention, because that is vital if we are not to have really unfair discrimination?
Earl Howe: My Lords, my noble friend has highlighted a very important issue. It is now for the Commission to bring forward proposals setting quality standards for cereals under the new system. We have urged the Commission to produce this as soon as possible. We recognise that producers and traders need to know what quality of grain the prices will apply to and what quality of grain will be eligible for intervention before sowing begins in the autumn. We have made it very clear that feed wheat must continue to be eligible for intervention.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, while making quite sure that the agricultural community knows the details of the new scheme, will the Minister give the House an undertaking that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food himself is aware and that the Directorate-General VI of the Commission is aware of the opinion of the Court of Auditors on 15th May last, which also sets out the possibilities and the probabilities of massive fraud when the new schemes come into operation?
Earl Howe: My Lords. I cannot speak for my right honourable friend as to whether or not he is aware of that, but I am sure that he is. We shall have an opportunity to debate the question of fraud in a few days' time.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, unless an immediate announcement is made to tell farmers what areas the regions will cover and to alter the stabiliser arrangements for cereals, more cereals will be grown next year than this year?
Earl Howe: My Lords, we shall determine the regions once the implementing regulations for set-aside have been adopted. I think that I understand the point that my noble friend is making. In terms of the rules for set-aside, penalty set-aside and reductions in area payments will be triggered if the claims for area payments cover a larger acreage than the regional base area, whatever that is deemed to be. It is open to farmers to move out of oilseeds and protein crops and into continuous wheats, but I doubt whether that will recommend itself to many farmers, especially as cereal prices will decline.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is not only arable farmers who need to

439
know, but also stock farmers? They are having great problems in knowing how many beef stock and how many sheep to carry because the base date from which the subsidies will be paid is not yet known.
Earl Howe: My Lords, at present the intention is to write to farming organisations giving details of the revised schemes for the beef regime. Quota allocations under the suckler cow premium scheme will be sent to individual producers. I am afraid that the timing on that is not yet certain. On sheep, detailed rules on quota allocations are still to be agreed in Brussels. However, we would hope to be in a position to advise producers of their provisional quota allocations, on the basis of their eligible ewe numbers in 1991, if possible by the autumn.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, can the Minister tell us how the principle of "subsidiarisation", if that is the right word, applies to agriculture? Are we to be allowed to make our own regulations? Is he aware that I am informed that farm cheese made in Orkney cannot now be kept on wooden shelves? Shelves must be made of stainless steel. This, apparently, is a direction from Brussels. Surely this is the kind of matter which could be dealt with further down the democratic line, if it needs to be dealt with at all, rather than in Brussels.
Earl Howe: My Lords, in general, as I am sure the noble Lord knows, agreement has to be reached between member states and the rules implemented accordingly. There is some latitude in various areas. I am thinking particularly of the environmental provisions under set-aside where the rules will have to be tailored to meet each member state's particular circumstances.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, what proposals do the Government have for supervising the new regimes for cereals and the transferability of livestock quotas when the new regimes are in place for these commodities? Is it envisaged that the Home Grown Cereals Authority and the Meat and Livestock Commission will be used as supervisors?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I do not think that we have reached a conclusion on that. If I can, I shall write to the noble Lord with an answer.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, may I press my noble friend to reply to a very important point of principle which was raised in the original Question? Is it not wholly unsatisfactory that the Council of Ministers, at the behest of the Commission, should approve important changes to any regime, whether it applies to agriculture or anything else, on the day before it comes into force? Is that not totally unreasonable for those who have to abide by it? Might not Her Majesty's Government use the period of the United Kingdom presidency to introduce a rule that at least two or four weeks should elapse between the agreement of any new proposals and their coming into force?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that we lose no opportunity to tell the Commission of our most urgent concerns. We fully recognise that
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farmers need to be able to plan ahead and we have been making available as much information as possible on the basis of our latest understanding. But in many respects we have to go at the pace the Commission dictates.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, one of the points of principle that farmers require to know is whether the Government are convinced that this will be a permanent system. In other words, will a deficiency payment making prices up to the level of this year continue forever?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I cannot speak about for ever. What we are talking about is a regime that should last for a number of years.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, would the noble Earl like to reconsider his use of the word "dictates"?
Earl Howe: Perhaps, my Lords.
Earl Peel: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that reform of the CAP will be influenced by the outcome of the GATT talks, which have yet to be concluded?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the discussions on the reform of the CAP will have a bearing on the negotiations in the GATT. Only a part of what we are currently discussing relates to the GATT as a whole. Added impetus will be lent to the GATT negotiations as a result of the agreement we reached.

Student Grants
2.54 p.m.
Lord St. John of Fawsley Lord St. John of Fawsley asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have any plans for raising student grants.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, under the arrangements which we introduced in 1990, the main rates of maintenance grant payable as part of mandatory awards have been frozen since 1st September 1991. Increases in students' resources have been made through the student loan facility and will continue to be made in the same way until the loan facility is equal to the value of the grant.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is he aware that, while general statistical evidence of student hardship is of necessity hard to come by, I have knowledge from my own college of Emmanuel of undergraduate and graduate students who are in severe difficulties at the present time? Will the Government have a look at the situation of student grants again, bearing in mind the drying up of vacation employment opportunities, the failure of a number of parents to make their contributions and the withdrawal of social security benefits?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, we have increased students' resources substantially. Full year support from grant and loan this summer will be nearly 40 per cent. higher than the grant alone in 1989–90. Access funds are also available for students in particular financial need. Many students do find summer jobs. A recent survey by the National Union of Students suggested that 65 per cent. of students found employment in the summer of 1991. They earned around £800 on average.
Earl Russell: My Lords, can the Minister tell me whether it is still the case, as his right honourable friend Mr. Scott told me on 20th April 1990, that, taking into account housing costs, student incomes are below social security benefit levels?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, support for educational purposes is now rightly directed through the education programme, but housing benefit and income support are still available for certain students in vulnerable groups. These include disabled students and those with dependent children.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, the Minister said that some students may have special needs. How will that be certified; how will the students be informed; and what action will they have to take to have their special needs considered by the department?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, supplementary allowances are available as part of the mandatory grant to help older students, disabled students and those with dependants. These allowances continue to he uprated. For example, the Government have made full provision for disabled students. There are three allowances available as part of the mandatory award for disabled students. In the current academic year, 1991–92, they are: £4,240 for the year for a non-medical personal helper; £3,180 for the whole course for specialist equipment; and £1,060 for the year for other expenses relating to the course.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that a considerable weight of carefully researched evidence of nationwide student hardship in 1991 was presented to the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts in the other place by the universities and polytechnics at the committee's request earlier this year? While the published proceedings show a most careful consideration being given by the committee to the representations made, we still await the committee's own report on this increasingly urgent issue. Is my noble friend further aware that the access funds, which are the only source of help available to students in serious difficulties, were increased by less than 0.5 per cent. in 1991–92; that is, not even by the rate of inflation?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts of another place published before the election the evidence submitted to it on its inquiry into student support. I understand that the committee has not been reconstituted since the election. Whether it will in due course publish a report of its predecessor's findings is entirely a matter
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for another place. The access funds are part of a generous package of student support, including grants and loans. The sums made available are what we judge to be sufficient having regard to factors such as the take-up of loans.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, are the Government aware of the incredible administrative costs of running the student loans scheme, now amounting to 25 per cent. of the total expenditure on the loans scheme? Does the noble Viscount agree that something ought to be done about these administrative costs? If they could be brought down, more money might be available to help those students who will undoubtedly suffer hardship in the summer vacation.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, we believe that the loans system is simple, straightforward and cost-effective. It works.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, perhaps I may express my gratitude to my noble friend for the careful answers that he has given to the detailed and difficult questions that have been raised. I should like to ask him a general question. Does he agree that, while students are in a privileged position in society, their contribution and vocation are essential to society's future well-being?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend.
Baroness David: My Lords, despite what the Minister said about the access funds, the student loan scheme and so on, is he aware that a great many students are ending their three or four-year period at a university or a polytechnic very badly in debt? For example, debts of £1,500 or more are very common. Further, does he believe that the banks are behaving responsibly in allowing students to run up such large overdrafts?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the answer to that question is that we have instituted the loan scheme which will provide a better source of finance for students than through commercially available bank overdrafts.

Skomer Marine Nature Reserve
3 p.m.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps are being taken to investigate the source of the recent increase in siltation around the Skomer Marine Nature Reserve, and whether monitoring is being carried out on the dispersal of spoil from the designated dump site at the entrance to Milford Haven to ascertain whether this is causing the siltation.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, the Countryside Council for Wales, which is responsible for the management of the Skomer Marine Nature Reserve, has been monitoring the recent increase in siltation in the area. The council's investigations have established that the deposits are a combination of fine sand and

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dead organic matter derived from seaweeds. No final conclusions have yet been reached about the cause of the damage. But there is no evidence to suggest that there is a link between the siltation around the reserve and the licensed dumping site at Milford Haven. However, the council is continuing to monitor the situation and is working closely with the National Rivers Authority to identify the cause. I understand that the water around the reserve has now cleared and that the damage will not have a lasting effect on the area.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that very encouraging Answer. However, does he agree that the problems at Skomer could have been avoided if we had had a system of integrated coastal-zone management which we have been pursuing for some time? Can the noble Viscount say whether any progress has been made in the Government's plans for such a scheme of integrated management?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I can tell the noble Baroness that the Select Committee's report on environmental coastal-zone protection and planning is due in July.
Earl Peel: My Lords, notwithstanding the complexities of negotiating marine nature reserves, does my noble friend agree that there has been an attitude of "out of sight, out of mind" with regard to the conservation of nature reserves? Does he further agree that one of the major problems has been a lack of skilled divers with the necessary knowledge to implement the surveying and monitoring of such sites? If my noble friend accepts that view, will he please tell the House whether there are any plans to try to overcome the problem?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, my noble friend can only be speaking about the United Kingdom as a whole. I say that because I understand that the Countryside Council for Wales usually has in the region 40 applicants each time it advertises for a scientific officer with diving qualifications. The council is able to ensure that those it employs on such work are highly trained in terms of diving skills and in the scientific observations they are required to undertake.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, is it not a fact that the Wildlife and Countryside Act identified seven sites as suitable marine nature reserves in 1981? Is the noble Viscount aware that, so far, only Lundy and Skomer have been established and that both have had considerable difficulties? Can he tell the House what has gone wrong? What has blighted this excellent scheme? Further, when can we expect the next site on Anglesey to be set up? Will it be before or after the millennium?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I must refer the noble Lord to the answers given to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, in January by my noble friend Lord Howe. However, I understand that the Countryside Council for Wales intends to issue a revised consultation document which, when formulated, will take account of some of the
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representations made during the first consultation period. In setting up marine nature reserves, we have to take account of many vested interests. We are trying to square the proverbial circle. I hope that we shall receive some guidance on the matter when the Select Committee reports in July.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware—or can he recall—that on two previous occasions when the subject has been raised, Ministers said that if progress was not more rapid the procedures for designating MNRs would be streamlined so as to speed up the process? That was said in so many terms by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, on 16th January 1986 and 18 months later, on 17th July 1987, by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. Can the noble Viscount say whether procedures have been streamlined and, if not, why not?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, as I said, the procedures are by their nature consultative and must take in a wide range of divergent views. It has not been possible to streamline the procedures. I hope that the Select Committee's report will enable us to change the methodology.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, will the noble Viscount be good enough to answer the question put by my noble friend Lord Morris; namely, when will action be taken in Anglesey? Is he aware that people there, including myself and the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, are becoming increasingly impatient in view of the pledge made some years ago that action would be taken? The central question being put to the noble Viscount is: why the long delay? His explanation that the procedures take time is inadequate in view of the many years that have passed since the matter was first mooted.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I can only say to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition that we must await publication of the revised consultation document.

Parents' Responsibilities
3.8 p.m.
Lord Joseph Lord Joseph rose to call attention to the importance of the way parents bring up their children and to the case for voluntary bodies to provide help and friendship where the parents so wish; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my topic today is the quality of parenting. We rely upon parents to transmit the values and the self-discipline on which civilised society depends. I am not a Utopian and I know that there will always be some had parenting. But I want to consider the scope for increasing through voluntary services parenting that is, in a well-known phrase, "good enough." What is good enough parenting? It seems to be agreed that for children to mature into self-disciplined adults capable of loving and being loved and of showing consideration for others, they need from their parents

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a consistent combination of love and discipline: unqualified love, but firm guidance on values and behaviour.
It has always been hard to be a good parent. It is harder now. Most people experience good enough parenting and, when they become parents, pass it on. However, a significant minority, for many reasons, do not enjoy that experience. Sometimes such people are unable to pass on good parenting themselves because of pressures, including the pressure of poverty. Income is not in itself decisive: resourcefulness is also crucial. There are certainly big problems in managing over a long period on a low income. Nevertheless, there are good parents with low incomes and bad parents with average and high incomes.
What can be done to increase parenting that is good enough? Government can do nothing directly, but Ministers should realise that their policies affect people as parents. Indeed, those policies indicate whether or not children are valued. But that is not the subject of today's Motion. What then can be done? Respect for parenting would help. Ministers can at least recognise the importance to society of good enough parenting. There are links at every level between parenting that is not good enough and family break-up, children demoralised or in care, crime, violence, addictions, low motivation and irresponsibility. What else can be done? We could stop disparaging marriage. Although no doubt some married couples provide bad parenting and some single parents provide excellent parenting, in general married households are preferable for the bringing up of children.
What further might be done? We could stop deceiving ourselves on some issues. For instance, it is not true that day care solves every problem. High quality day care may do good but it is very costly. Much day care is poor in quality and may harm the child's capacity to mature well. Whether mothers should earn outside the home is of course for parents to decide. But an increased earned income allowance transferable between husband and wife, as suggested by Nigel Lawson in 1988, would remove a penalty on families where the mother stays at home.
Is there anything else that might be done? We could stop thinking that we can have a civilised society without some stigma. What the neighbours say should matter and careless procreation is not something that should be accepted. It is irresponsible. Admittedly better understanding of the implications would help, and I shall turn to that later. But attitudes are not quickly reversed, even if in this House we were all to agree.
So what more within our own control might be done? Already families, friends, neighbours, churches and voluntary societies provide an immense range of services to help parents. The book entitled The Needs of Parents, published in 1984 and written by Gillian Pugh and Erica De'Ath, is, I am glad to say, being updated, with the help perhaps of the Gulbenkian Foundation. The great national children's charities—the National Children's Home, Barnardo's, the Children's Society, the NSPCC—focus by large
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numbers of family centres and related activities on trying to rescue children from abuse and neglect and so far as they can to improve family functioning. These centres do immense good. It is unthinkable that their work should stop. There are, alas, more cases of need than they can meet.
But I want to review the scope for voluntary services to increase good enough parenting by a more general preparation for parenthood than is now available. Large categories are involved. There are parents who did not realise the implications of bringing a child into the world: girls who see childbirth as their only fulfilment, without realising the narrowed way of life, the exhaustion and the responsibilities involved; and young men who breed irresponsibly—some may be discouraged by the recent maintenance Act. Could not adolescents be made more generally aware, preferably by parents, but, if not, by their agreement with others, of the implications of pregnancy and the responsibilities of parenthood? Sex education tends to ignore relationships and responsibilities. It concentrates on the mechanics of avoiding pregnancy and disease. I know of the very recent National Children's Bureau project endorsed by Church and social bodies to deepen sex education by including relationships. I must confess that I flinched when Minister, from trying to introduce the subjects of relationships and responsibilities into state schools because of doubts about what would he taught, by whom and how effectively.
Perhaps voluntary bodies could seek to train and offer to school governors mature, understanding volunteers to discuss responsibilities with adolescents. There is interest among voluntary services; the YWCA, for instance, offers lone parent speakers to schools to urge teenagers not to embark upon parenthood as they did.
There are already many voluntary groups teaching or supporting teaching about relationships and about the emotional, moral and physical needs of children. I have a list. I hesitate to use it but I think that I had better, although I may leave out some contributing names. There is Save the Children, the National Family Trust, the Family Education Trust, the Catholic Children's Society, the National Childbirth Trust, Parent Network, Exploring Parenthood, Stepfamily, the Maternity Alliance, Schools Outreach and of course the work in and from family centres of the National Children's Home, the NSPCC, Barnardo's and the Children's Society. The Community Education Development Centre also has a range of training studies.
Those who are already parents can often find it hard to cope. Perhaps they never realised what an exhausting job it can be to look after even one child, even with a supportive husband, regular income and adequate housing. Without such a framework a household can be overwhelmed and enter with the baby or children into a spiral of demoralisation.
I suggest that the voluntary services should encourage yet further growth of efforts to spread good enough parenting by catching parenting that is not good enough very early on when it is just manifesting itself. Such efforts could help parents who need and

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want help at home by offering one volunteer to one family befriending. That is precisely what Home-Start, founded by Margaret Harrison in Leicester in 1973, aims to do. There are now 114 branches of Home-Start in the United Kingdom providing help and friendship through nearly 4,000 volunteers to over 8,000 households containing about 20,000 children and their parents in the latest year. The volunteers are themselves parents, carefully selected and given a short training. These volunteers spend an average of about four hours a week in the family home. Each volunteer aims to become the resourceful friend of any family who so wishes, with at least one small child, often self-referred. The volunteers—I emphasise this—have no power and no authority. They can be thrown out by the parents at any time—but they seldom if ever are. They almost always leave the family better able to cope and to enjoy parenting. Some of the parents befriended themselves become Home-Start befrienders. There is a huge unsatisfied demand for Home-Start branches.
Branch costs—the organiser, training and expenses of volunteers—are paid by the local authority. Clearly no local authority is going to pay unless its own professionals find the branch effective. There is perhaps a special effectiveness in one volunteer to one family in the family's own home.
Then there is the Child Development Programme started by Dr. Walter Barker of Bristol University in 1979. That offers support even more widely, though much less intensively, than Home-Start, reaching some 20,000 families a year. Health visitors and experienced mothers, all specially trained, visit an allotted family at home for an hour a month. They encourage the parents to set themselves targets, praising them for the degree to which they take control of their own situation. Again the visitor can be kicked out by the family—but seldom is. Evaluation shows low abuse and better health in the families concerned. It is a double breakthrough that health visitors are involved. Their powers and those of social workers to take children into care mean that they are not normally always welcome. Moreover there are conflicting pressures within the health visiting profession, some urging, as I respectfully do, that health visitors should and others urging that they should not befriend parents in addition to their normal duties.
Smaller in scale but much more intensive is the work of the admirable family service units, attaching trained workers to families overwhelmed by problems. But there are few voluntary services offering the one-to-one continued befriending in the family's own home that Home-Start, the Child Development Programme and family service units provide. They need to expand as much as the maintenance of their standards allows, and perhaps others should study their methods. The splendid Pre-school Playgroups Association encourages parents to co-operate in providing play facilities all over the country, and that improves their parenting skills.
Allow me now to praise the donors: individuals, foundations, charities, companies and Ministers. They naturally want to know which family support services
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tend to be effective. I am pleased to say that the Rowntree Foundation is keenly interested and is commissioning a study of family support options, with an agenda for research. It is self-apparent that preventive work, particularly befriending, must be some help to many families, whether or not research can isolate the befriending factor in order to prove it.
Assuming that not all help is effective, the saving in misery, mischief and public money, even from partial success, must be large, especially where volunteers are used. Voluntary services, however, need money—much money —from individuals, charities, foundations and companies; but it is in the taxpayer's interests that effective voluntary services should maintain and expand their activities. That is where the Government come in: to encourage cost-effective voluntary services, especially in the preventive field.
There is a deeper problem that may, as things are, bedevil the co-operation in family support between local authorities and voluntary services. Social service departments, as your Lordships are well aware, are overwhelmed with crises: resources are tight and new Children Act duties, plus public anxiety about child abuse, mean that social service departments, with the best will in the world, are likely to do little on the preventive side. Since the mechanics of funding voluntary work in the field, over and above charitable donations, lie in grants from social service departments, the preventive side of the voluntary sector seems doomed to underfunding. Few directors of social services will cut spending on their own staff to increase spending on voluntary services however cost-effective such preventive voluntary services might be.
What can be done? I wonder whether the precedent of the Housing Corporation might suggest a parallel in the family support field. Some public money could then be directed at crucial and effective preventive efforts.
The Motion expresses the hope that churches and voluntary services will seek even more ways to help the parents of today and tomorrow who need and want family support. Above all, the Motion recognises the blessing of good enough parenting and aims to encourage its further spread. I beg to move for Papers.
3.23 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, perhaps I may begin by saying how much I look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, for introducing the debate. It provides a welcome opportunity to consider the ways in which not just voluntary organisations but public policy can and should support parents in the difficult task of bringing up children today. As I am sure the noble Lord will agree, all the voluntary organisations that he has listed are clear that without adequate social policies to support families their task is an impossible one.
To argue that we need properly thought out family policies is not to say that parents do not have the prime responsibility for bringing up their children. Of course they do. But it is the task of governments to

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provide the conditions in which they can achieve that successfully. Unfortunately, for many parents they do not exist. They are struggling against a tide of poverty and deprivation which wears them down and induces a sense of hopelessness, sometimes amounting to despair. A few parents are neglectful and irresponsible. They are to be found in all social groups. But the vast majority want to do the best that they can for their children—to see them succeed and to see them turn out as well-adjusted and happy people who will in turn become good parents themselves. When they fail, it is often because all the cards are stacked against them. Their own lives are just too stressful and difficult to make them effective parents. No amount of guidance, advice or parental education will improve their children's chances in those circumstances.
Parents whose own self-image has been undermined by unemployment, poor housing and poverty will often be too preoccupied by their own difficulties to provide the best environment for their children. However, it is not just parents who are poor who require financial help in bringing up their children. The costs of rearing a child are much higher than many of us realise. The National Foster Care Association has calculated that the average direct cost of bringing up a child from birth to the age of 16 is £42,000. At the same time as coping with all the extra costs of being parents, the average couple's income goes down. The hours that they can work are reduced because of the lost opportunity for overtime and bonuses. Above all, they lose income because so many mothers either stop working altogether or reduce their hours of work. A further 1.8 million women would be in employment were it not for their child-care responsibilities. The opportunity costs, therefore, of having children are considerable.
In the light of those figures on the cost of having children and the effects on family income, is it not an absolute disgrace that child benefit—the one benefit that is specifically for children—has fallen by 18 per cent. in real terms since 1979 as a result of freezing it on a number of occasions? In the light of the figures, is it not right that there should be some horizontal redistribution from those of us without children, or whose children have grown up, to those with children? There is a great deal of talk about abolishing universal benefits, but that is one universal benefit which should not be abandoned if we want to help parents. One of the great advantages of child benefit is that it is universal and so is taken up by almost everyone who is eligible. That means that poor parents with large families will be helped automatically; but while the rates are so low, the help that they receive is inadequate. I shall say a few more words about child benefit when I refer to single parents.
Although I accept, as the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, said, that income is not the only factor affecting parenting, it must be a matter of great anxiety that there are approximately 3 million children in families living on or below income support levels. That is 25 per cent. of all children. Is it not a national scandal that a quarter of our children are living on the poverty line or below? In those circumstances, is it surprising
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that parents have difficulties in caring adequately for their children? Should we not be ashamed that, according to the European figures, only Portugal has more people living in poverty than the UK? Should we not also be ashamed of the fact that within the European Community the rise in poverty in the first half of the 1980s was steepest in the UK? Nor has the situation improved since then. We must improve levels and take-up of family credit by poor working families if we are to reverse that trend.
The poorest group of people in our community is that of single parents with children. Those parents needing the most support are undoubtedly the ones coping alone with parenthood. While it is of course preferable for children to be brought up in families where both parents are present, many single parents make valiant efforts to succeed. In 1971, 8 per cent. of families with dependent children had lone parents; by 1987 the proportion had risen to 14 per cent., and in nine out of 10 of those families the mother was the lone parent. Widowhood accounts now for only a small proportion; marital breakdown is the main cause.
There are three main areas of policy where changes are needed to support single parents: child care, flexible working arrangements, child benefit and income support. Changes in policy in these areas are not just needed to ensure that mothers and children do not suffer from serious long-term deprivation following divorce; they are also needed to support all parents. Indeed, by reducing stress in families they may make eventual divorce less likely. In that sense they are an investment in family stability. Where divorce occurs, policy improvements in each of these areas will help to ensure that women in particular can cope better because they will be more independent and therefore more dependable with respect to their children.
First, we must do something about our lamentable record in the provision of child care. Of course, I agree with the noble Lord that child care must be of high quality. Only 2 per cent. of children under the age of three obtain publicly funded child care. In Denmark, 44 per cent. of children receive care; in France and Belgium it is between 20 and 25 per cent. Can the Minister say what kind of timetable the Government have for rectifying this?
For three and four year-olds the picture is somewhat better, with around 50 per cent. of children in the UK provided with publicly funded education or child care. However, again we lag behind our European partners. Lack of adequate care is the main reason for a relatively low level of employment among all mothers in Britain. Among lone mothers of children under five, only 7 per cent. are in full-time work, compared with 27 per cent. in Germany, between 44 and 49 per cent. in France, Belgium and Italy and 50 per cent. in Denmark. Unlike what is happening in the rest of Europe, the labour participation rate of single mothers in Britain actually fell in the 1980s.
Better child care facilities are needed for parents, but they will be especially helpful for lone parents. First, it will be easier for the mothers to work or to

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obtain qualifications through education and training which will improve their job opportunities later. Secondly, it will allow them some time off from the relentless demands of small children 24 hours a day, which puts great pressure on parents who cannot share with their partners the daily task of meeting these demands. Thirdly, it improves the quality of mothers' lives by allowing them more contact with the adult world. As a result, they will be likely to be better parents. Lastly, by making it possible to work, it reduces their dependence on the state and/or their dependence on inadequate maintenance payments from the fathers of their children.
Having a full-time job and looking after children alone is not easy. Although it may suit some women, for many others it is nearly as stressful as the loneliness and isolation of caring for children alone. So we ought to allow all mothers to work shorter hours if they wish. But shorter working hours should not be accompanied by the existing disadvantages of part-time work—lower paid work, poor employment conditions and fringe benefits. We need new employment practices to integrate shorter hours and flexible working into employment patterns generally. We need to change employment law and the social security system.
The European Commission is taking a step forward in this respect through approving draft directives to give part-time workers the same access to vocational training, occupational services and benefits in cash and kind. Sadly, in the recent past the UK Government have not supported them. Indeed, the previous Secretary of State for Employment is on record as saying that he would fight them vigorously. Now that we have a woman in the post, perhaps we shall see a change of heart. All parents should also be entitled to leave for family reasons, for example, to care for a sick child. It should be available on the same basis as paid holidays.
Turning to cash payments, child benefit is particularly valuable for single parents. First, there is a premium for lone parents, although that could be higher. Secondly, child benefit continues to be paid when the parent takes a job, whereas means-tested income support is not. Therefore, it does not act as a disincentive to taking a job. The replacement of child benefit by means-tested benefits would increase the poverty trap, making it even more difficult for single parents to become self-supporting, which ought to be a policy goal. This is another reason why it is deeply regrettable that the Government have allowed the value of child benefit to decline.
Over two-thirds of single parents claim income support. Surviving on it means regrettably that they are living in poverty. One solution is to increase the benefits. That would help, but it is not a totally satisfactory solution. Moreover, it is unlikely that the benefits will ever be high enough for these families to live in comfort. The fundamental problem is that the lack of child care, labour market conditions and social security arrangements all combine to make it difficult for single parents to support themselves and their
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children. Ways must be found to stop the social security system undermining work incentives and trapping lone parents in poverty.
If we attach importance to the way parents bring up their children, we must invest more in supporting all parents but especially lone parents in the way I have outlined. As I mentioned earlier, most of these parents are bringing up their children by themselves as a result of divorce and separation. Between one-third and two-fifths of marriages are now likely to end in divorce and 20 per cent. of children under 16 will witness the break up of their parents' marriage. During the 1970s, the divorce rate doubled so that during the 1980s approximately 150,000 couples were divorcing each year. Parents who are divorcing need help and advice on how to minimise the damaging effects it can have on their children. All couples contemplating divorce should have access to counselling and conciliation services so that they can, if they choose, get help to separate with a minimum of conflict.
The interests of children involved in separation and divorce, as well as the public expenditure incurred through family breakdown, fully justify public support for counselling and conciliation services. I hope that in replying the Minister will be able to say something about whether the Government will give more support to the organisations providing these services.
Support is also needed for those agencies advising on the difficult role of being step-parents. While remarriage can greatly improve the material circumstances of divorced parents, it can lead to conflict and stress as step-children and step-parents struggle to relate successfully to each other. Being a successful step-parent is as important as being a successful parent.
Let me now turn to the provision of education for parenthood and advice and guidance for parents about how to cope with the problems of child rearing.
Lord Joseph: My Lords, I have not refrained from interrupting because the noble Baroness is going right outside the terms of the motion which concerned the voluntary services. We are hearing in effect a recapitulation of many pledges of the party opposite. I had hoped that we might discuss what could be done by the voluntary services to help parents who need it. I am not quarrelling with the noble Baroness on some of the substance of what she said, although I could easily controvert some of her remarks, but I think it was outside the Motion.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I completely disagree with the noble Lord. I began by saying that all the voluntary organisations which he had listed have said on countless occasions that they cannot operate unless public social services are adequate to support families with children. I am now laying out why those services need to be improved. I wish to go on to say a little about the voluntary organisations. I believe that what the noble Lord said is totally uncalled for and unjustified.
Both the statutory services and voluntary organisations have an important part to play as regards guidance and education. I have always been somewhat

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sceptical about trying to provide much practical education for parenthood of a detailed kind for pupils at school. Young people seem likely to be more receptive when actually faced with parenthood themselves. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, said earlier, what adolescents can benefit from is well-led discussions with other adults—whether teachers or youth leaders—about the huge demands of parenthood and the difficulties parents face. For example, getting them to understand both sides in conflicts with their own parents can be productive.
Preparation for parenthood should be provided for all parents expecting their first child. Antenatal care focusing on the health of mothers and babies is fine, but it is not enough. Fathers too must be prepared for being parents. Again this is an area where partnerships between professionals, voluntary support workers and parents themselves might be developed. However, volunteers need training in this area too if they are to be effective. Education and advice should not be cut off once the health visitor has made her last visit. All of us who have been parents have at one time or another got close to breaking point with a screaming baby in the middle of the night, a toddler who will not eat or a four year-old who will not sit down. As the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, said, the work of voluntary organisations such as Home-Start and the family service unit is immensely valuable and perhaps could be extended with more funding.
One of the most interesting experiments in day-to-day support and advice to help parents is that provided by the Children's Society family and neighbourhood centres. The society rightly allows those who take part to decide on the facilities they need rather than imposing them from above.
All voluntary organisations are short of money and many of them have to spend disproportionate time and effort on fund raising. I hope the Minister will say whether the Government would consider giving more support to initiatives of the kind the Children's Society has started. The society can only run about 50 family and neighbourhood centres and there ought to be more.
Finally, the educational system has a role to play in helping parents. In training teachers we have perhaps focused a little too much on the children and not enough on their parents. Teachers must work in partnership with parents and support them where their children are facing learning difficulties or discipline problems. Teachers who specialise in pastoral work must be particularly sensitive to the vital part that parents play in the all-round performance of pupils. Sometimes teachers will need to refer parents to other agencies, but much useful support can be given through good pastoral work by teachers themselves. Again, however, in-service training is needed to enable teachers to develop the right skills.
The subject we are debating is wide. I have tried to focus, justifiably I think, on the importance of improving government policies that relate to the family. If those policies are taken seriously by the Government, more progress will be made in the way
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parents bring up their children than can be achieved by any other change. It will also make it far easier for voluntary bodies to provide the help and friendship to which the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, referred, as any of those organisations will be the first to say.
3.42 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, first I owe an apology to the House. Until arriving in the Chamber, and indeed for a few moments after that, I was under what turns out to have been the mistaken impression that this was a two-and-a-half-hour timed debate to be followed by another. I have another longstanding engagement. Believing this to be a two-and-a-half-hour debate I had supposed that it did not matter that I have to leave at half past five. I considered that it would perhaps be unduly scrupulous to scratch my name from the list of speakers. As I have not done so, I beg the forgiveness of the House.
I look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, for introducing this topic. It is both far-reaching and important. I agree entirely with what he said about the importance of voluntary bodies. I agree with his comments because, among many other reasons, it can be absolutely vital for parents to have a certain amount of time off. I recall attending a function last year organised by Gateway to raise a scholarship in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Renton—I believe the noble Lord is no longer in the Chamber—which was designed for precisely that purpose. That is the kind of thing we must all welcome.
I believe more generally that the noble Lord is on to something here. In 17th century political thought the family was regularly referred to as a little commonwealth. One may think that unduly literal, but it makes a point of some importance. A great many of our ideas about authority and about society are formed inside families. I learnt, for example, that it was possible to persuade authority by reason if one tried hard enough. I am not always certain that it was a good lesson. There is definitely something going wrong here. I am not sure what it is or why that should be.
I remember reading a passage in a work by Konrad Lorenz which stated that if one came from the country it was difficult to learn to walk down a crowded street without saying good morning. As it happened the day after reading that passage I was walking down Oxford Street. I observed a three year-old who believed that good manners demanded that he say good morning to every person he passed. His mother was becoming quite distracted. I am sure that the three year-old went home believing all grown-ups are hypocrites.
If there is one thing the noble Lord said with which I agree more profoundly than anything else, it is that it is difficult to be a good parent. It is also an area where, even when one has recognised a problem, one must accept that only a small part of that problem lies within the authority of the state. There is nothing more difficult than for the state to set out to change a culture. It does not have the authority to do so and it

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does not have the means of penetration. There is a problem of changing arrangements of which the state may know nothing.
When I was in the States I recall reading a report in the New York Times which described one of those innumerable family behaviour surveys. The survey concerned dinner times. One teenage girl asked of the reporter, "Are you telling me that there are some families that sit down and eat together?". Clearly, that might cause concern; equally clearly, it is not the kind of thing we can easily set out to change by legislation. As my noble friend Lord Tordoff said to me, this matter seems to come under the principle of subsidiarity.
Expectations of the state have changed drastically in this area over the centuries. I recall reading a petition addressed to Archbishop Laud in 1640 from a man who asked the archbishop to mend his marriage. However eager the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry may be to help with such a problem, I am sure he would be forced to say in the end that therein the patient must minister to himself. We do not have the authority to do more than help in this area.
When dealing with children over 16 one has to say, like a group of 17th century deputy lieutenants, "We have a persuasive but no compulsive power." Just as it is easy to over-rate the power of the state, it is also easy to over-rate the power of parents. Reading reports from Malmö in recent times it is tempting to say that that marks a failure of discipline by parents. However, I recall reading a report after disturbances at the Chelsea ground a few years ago. The disturbances were televised. The mother of one of the hooligans observed what her son was doing. When he came home he found his bed outside in the street and the door of his home barred against him. One cannot say that that mother was unconcerned about disciplining her son but whether she did right or wrong is a much more difficult question. I shall not go into the matter now. Parental authority at that kind of age is in danger of becoming a nuclear deterrent which is effective only so long as it is not used. It is a great deal more difficult for parents than we sometimes make out, or so at least as a parent I like to think for I must declare an interest in that view.
I have read the Motion a good many times, and since the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, I have read it again. It seems to me that the disjunctive "and" in the middle of the Motion allows us to talk both about the way parents bring up their children and about the importance of voluntary bodies. I hope that that is a correct reading of the Motion. When we consider what the state can do a great deal of that comes back to money because, although the people and the emotions may be the stones, in any family the money is to some extent the cement. I do not wish to make out that the cement is the most important aspect, but it is the part to which the state can most usefully contribute and therefore the part most usefully discussed in this House.
We have heard something of child benefit. On that subject we owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and, although he has hidden
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his light under a bushel, also to the noble Lord, Lord Joseph himself. I listened with great pleasure recently to Mr. Peter Lilley on "The World at One" reiterating the Government's commitment to child benefit. I listened with great amusement to his pleasure at being outflanked from the right by the honourable Member for Monklands East. I do not know whether the honourable Member for Monklands East will listen to what the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, but if he does not, I might look forward with equal amusement to a Labour government being outflanked from the left by the House of Lords. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, will find opposite numbers on the Labour Benches.
School meals are clearly something to which the state can contribute. They are a vital part of adequate diet, and adequate diet is an essential part of adequate social relations. There are a number of other very specific areas where the state can contribute. I agree on the whole, and in normal circumstances, with the argument that 16 and 17 year-olds are usually better off at home. However, there are cases of parents who are themselves on benefit throwing out 16 and 17 year-olds because, since they do not receive benefits, the parents cannot afford to keep them. There may be something useful which the state could do here. It could allow income support child premium to continue up to the age of 18 when the child acquires an entitlement in his or her own right. Those suggestions may be peripheral to the main problem but they are measures which we could take and therefore might be worth thinking about.
I am also glad that the noble Baroness raised the question of hours of work. Other things being equal, it is better for children to be brought up by two parents than by one, though speaking myself as one from a broken home, occasionally listening to what is said on the subject I understand why people with disabilities become sensitive to the way they are talked about. I am reminded of a remark made by Mr. Austin Mitchell, who I think I may quote verbatim since he was talking to the press and not in another place. He was asked at the beginning of the last summer Recess what he was going to do. He said that he looked forward to rediscovering the whereabouts of his constituency and the names of his children. With some allowance for effect, we all know what he was talking about.
There are here two contradictory trends. Especially in the public services, there is a trend towards lengthening hours of work, what the business section of one of the daily newspapers recently described as "macho" hours of work. At the same time there is a trend towards more and more employment of women. I welcome that trend warmly. I agree with Lord Palmerston's argument for Catholic emancipation: it is not expedient to exclude so many able persons from the public service. However, I wonder whether there are two contradictory trends and we need to consider which will give way.
In the past, in order for men to work the hours they have worked we have depended on the wife as an auxiliary worker, looking after her husband and getting him to work at the right time. When both work

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there is a limit to the extent to which she can do that. To put it at its lowest dimension, there has to be someone there to let in the plumber. Therefore, if both parents are to know the children I wonder whether the Government might look with slightly more sympathy than hitherto on the 48 hour directive and whether they might consider slightly more carefully how far efficiency in the public services can go in the direction of longer hours.
I also wonder whether, in considering voluntary bodies, as in the noble Lord's argument, some account might be taken of the virtues of the tutorial system in universities. That system is, among a thousand other things, a form of use of voluntary bodies for picking up social problems. It saves public services a vast amount of time and work by acting as an early warning system. If we move to a mass production series of universities where there are no tutorials, I believe that there will be a loss in that area.
In preparing for the debate I have been reading a book by Jane Mattinson for the Tavistock Institute of Marital Studies, on the effect of unemployment on marriage. It seems that unemployment has a merciless knack of playing on the weak spots in a marriage. And every marriage, even the very strongest, has weak spots somewhere. I believe that the divorce rate for the unemployed is twice the national average. It was not the specific purpose of the study to deal with the bringing up of children, but in passing one picks up a number of cases which I suspect are typical of a great many more: an unemployed father, depressed and unable to face the task of caring for the children; a family referred for counselling because the child was caught stealing at school; a child in hospital because of feeding difficulties due to tension in the home; and a family referred for counselling because of the repeated booting out of a 19 year-old son. Those cases are probably the tip of the iceberg. There are other complications which show the existence of stress; for example, a rise of 20 per cent. in referrals to GPs. I shall not give more figures, but those are matters which must affect the atmosphere for children.
I have been arguing for some time that we should think more about the cost of unemployment. In the past I have put the argument in pure PSBR terms. However, I believe that the noble Lord's Motion has uncovered the fact that there is a wider dimension. There is the wider cost in terms of child upbringing.
We need to think about work, about part-time work, about pay for part-time work and about legal protection for part-time work. In all those fields the state could do something to make the very difficult job of bringing up children a little easier than it is.
3.58 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Coventry: My Lords, we must all be greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, for bringing to the fore a significant, indeed crucial, theme for our society, helping us to look at parenting and family life.
Tolstoy introduces one of the greatest of novels with the remark that:
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"All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way".
Great is the variety of forms of family life in this country at present. While we in the Church may want to enable as many children as possible to grow up in a setting provided by a loving, stable marriage, we must do all we can to affirm and support parents in a whole variety of situations. We must strive to help those facing many kinds of difficulty, especially those who suffer the burdens of poverty and unemployment and those trapped in the cycle of disadvantage. They may feel particularly inadequate. They may have little secure love in their own background, brave as I have found many of them to be.
Increasingly we realise that at every level people need nothing less than a new kind of more supportive society. There cannot be just a narrow focus even on the nuclear family left on its own. How many of us as parents on our family holidays have found help and relief in having another family alongside or, if single people, having friends or relatives with us? I believe that we have here a hint of what a renewed Church could offer as a framework.
The Churches must welcome the discussion today because, alongside the many great voluntary agencies and networks to which reference has been made, the Churches have a special part to play and resources to bring to bear. The Board of Social Responsibility of the General Synod even now is embarking on what I hope will be a major study of the family. Churches have a vantage point: plant and people in every part of the country. The Church is well placed to help provide the network of support—a kind of extended family—that so many parents need. Its contribution must go beyond the traditional preparation of baptism, which for a small minority is still today forging relations between parents, clergy and lay visitors.
Church members and Christian agencies in growing numbers of places where the Church is coming alive are working to affirm parents, to help them know that they are performing a profoundly important task, to protect them from family breakdown before it threatens, to give them confidence in face of the pressures and temptations to which they and their children are increasingly exposed and to help those with poor experience of parenting in their own childhood to find new role models.
There are new initiatives in the Church. The Mothers' Union with its long tradition of promoting family life is breaking new ground. In all denominations there are many new Christian networks, as we have heard. In almost every diocese of our Church, FLAME (Family Life and Marriage Education) has been set up. Its work is spreading far beyond the confines of the Church, promoting community education in parenting, in marriage and in family life. FLAME is building confidence in parents, helping them to change and develop their skills. Its philosophy is to encourage "good enough" parenting so that parents can overcome that persecuting ideal which haunts us all.
Recently a conference in my own diocese was attended by a whole variety of parents. Gifted

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speakers presented a basic parenting programme with an attractive handbook. There was an enthusiastic response. New local initiatives are now spreading across the whole area. Parishes, churches and schools will run courses. Parents were changed by the experience. They began to learn how to avoid being either dictatorial or permissive. They felt to some extent free from the guilt which haunts them. On their return they found themselves attracting friends and neighbours into a growing movement of parent meetings. All kinds of families are involved: single, separated, broken or mixed. They are discovering new ways of disciplining and responding responsibly to children in family meetings and other ways.
Today in the most disadvantaged areas, where the greatest poverty and pressure lie, local churches are trying to join in setting up the family centres of which we have heard, together with some of the great agencies, such as The Children's Society and Save the Children Fund as well as the Church Urban Fund and the local authority. I have visited family centres in Coventry which are working in partnership with parents, training local parents to be helpers, giving them new confidence in a place where it is quite a miracle that it happens, and offering space where hard pressed mothers and single parents can bring their children. In fact they are beginning to promote a new sense of what the community can do to support parents in the neighbourhood.
The work of Christian child care agencies, such as Barnardos, The Children's Society and the National Children's Home, is focusing increasingly not on institutions or taking children out of the community but on work with families in such neighbourhood centres. It is vital work and the need is vast. We are still only at the edge of it. It is so vital that it should expand.
In so many areas family life has broken down under the pressure of poverty. Churches are struggling to find an alternative family and alternative parenting for children who will be future parents. There have been some superb schemes of that kind in Coventry. I recall one called PACE where I saw young offenders being changed. It had a 70 per cent. success rate among the children who came to it. It was the local authority and The Children's Society who undertook that marvellous project together. It folded for lack of funds. To me that was a great tragedy.
There is now a new scheme, the Coventry Youth Challenge. It is rather like Home Start in some ways. It is based on a 15-day training programme for young people at risk. It helps them take responsibility for their own lives, make positive changes and take steps toward their own parenthood when it comes. The follow-up will be for one year, with regular meetings with a "committed partner", an adult volunteer. It is a venture of enormous potential but it will need more than voluntary or local funding.
The Churches and the voluntary agencies are at work in all those areas, working very creatively, as we heard. For them it is a period of hope and new activity. But they need government support. I believe that it is important that we should call upon Her Majesty's Government to work together with the
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Churches and voluntary agencies to support those vital efforts with consistent, long-term funding. So much is at stake.
For our part, we in the Church must be more and more widely involved. This work has an obvious spiritual dimension. What could be closer to our essential message than helping parents and children to know that they are loved and accepted and so to become loving and accepting? What could be nearer to us than helping parents relate to children in a way that will make them more responsible, as I have seen so many schemes effectively doing at the present time? Those children in turn will become caring, responsible adults, playing a part in improving society, making the world a more just and peaceful place where more families—single people too, for that matter—can find not a variety of misery but the same essential happiness.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, it gives me the greatest possible pleasure to speak at this stage of the debate because I shall be the first to congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his most helpful and fortunate first speech in your Lordships' House. In fact he has darted in and out of my life rather like an orbiting comet. He first swam into my ken briefly at school as an absolutely normal person—of whom there are not too many at that age, as noble Lords have already remarked. He then disappeared on a kind of academic orbit, lecturing in Berlin, Cambridge and Nigeria, coming back to Cambridge as a Fellow and then as a head of college at Birmingham. He sprang into light again in my life as general secretary of the Church Missionary Society, for which I was briefly partly responsible. He disappeared again on an ecclesiastical orbit, first to Derby then to Coventry and now delightfully he is in this House. But even here he is a temporary illumination because under the rules of your Lordships' House when he retires he will only be elevated, as it were, just above the horizon in your Lordships' Dining Room and on the steps of the Throne. It is a great pleasure to congratulate him on a constructive, enlightened and welcome speech.
The Motion of my noble friend Lord Joseph—my noble and sensitive friend—suggests first that something may be wrong with the way in which parents bring up their children and secondly that there may be something that can be done about it. The fact that he tabled the Motion at all rightly emphasises that both those circumstances are of real relevance to the welfare of the nation. Had I had any doubts of it, they would have been firmly laid to rest when in 1988 I was asked by the then Secretary of State for Education to chair a committee of inquiry into discipline in schools. I apologise to my noble friend the Minister for returning so soon to that document. She had to deal with it only last week in another context and I had not expected her to be at the Box today. But it is relevant in this context too and, I regret to warn her, in many others, should she think of picking up other portfolios.
In our inquiry we found that the different ways in which parents brought up their children had a marked

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effect on the behaviour of those children when they got to school. That was no surprise to us. But it was not an assumption we made; it was a fact which we adduced and found to be borne out by research. The most consistent correlation between pupil behaviour and family circumstance seemed clearly to be not with its material resources but with the style of parenthood. Where a family was suffering from poverty or other deprivation and there was an effect on the child's behaviour it frequently appeared to be not direct but as a result of the effect which it had on the parents, which was reflected in their treatment of the child.
It was also clear to us, as it was to my noble friend Lord Joseph, that families in similar difficult circumstances sometimes brought up children whose behaviour was perfectly satisfactory. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that that is not to dismiss claims that poverty bears hard on the family. It does, but it is far from the only factor. The questions of both upbringing and of school/parent relationships therefore became relevant to our inquiry. Since behaviour in school is in some ways not only a precursor but also a predictor of adult behaviour, I believe that it is relevant to this debate.
Research bears out the impression that children who present serious behaviour problems in school are likely to have experienced one of two extremes of treatment: either neglect or rejection, or a combination of both. It also shows that children's capacity to feel and show concern for others is influenced by the degree of concern shown by their parents to them. Research undertaken in the 1970s but still valid today indicates that the most violent boys were likely to be those whose parents' response to their behaviour was one of two extremes: it was either permissive or punitive. Permissiveness can be an expression of neglect, and severe or frequent physical punishment can be a token of rejection. I do not refer to the measured and considered chastisement that was more common in our own youth than that of our successors. I refer to children whose bad behaviour teachers told us they would not report because they knew it would result in a severe beating by parents to which the response would be further bad behaviour.
A large number of people wrote to us suggesting the reasons for bad parenting. Those people fell into roughly two groups—as I believe does the whole world. They are the tough and the tender. The tough believe that the parents of pupils who behave badly tend to be irresponsible, immoral and hostile to the values represented by the schools. The tender believe that parents tend to be so distressed by factors such as marital breakdown and poverty that they bring up emotionally disturbed children who behave badly in school as a result.
Both views contain some truth but neither contains the whole truth. The tough view rightly emphasises parental responsibility for bringing children up properly. However, it overestimates in most cases, but I now believe not in all cases, the conflict between the values respected by parents and upheld by schools and society at large. The tender view, in highlighting the
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real problems of family stress, comes dangerously close to absolving parents from any responsibility for their children's behaviour by suggesting that some have become incapable of positive action.
Whatever the situation, the result is bad behaviour, often seriously bad, at school. That is a problem that one cannot just shut away in school and forget. Just as all children have to go to school, so all children have to grow up. When they grow up they carry what they have learned, and the behaviour that they have established as their norm, into society at large. The child is truly father to the man. If we can improve the behaviour of children we shall be a long way towards solving the problems of the adult society to which they will eventually belong.
Only a few of the skills of parenting are instinctive. The remainder have to be learned. Teaching children to relate co-operatively to adults and other children may in some part be instinctive. But self-respect, respect for others, concern for others, self-discipline, honesty and truthfulness have to be learned. Ideally those qualities should have been learned by their parents when they were themselves children. They should have been taught the same unchanging lessons by their parents. In the last analysis, it is that transmission of standards and values that determines the character of the nation. Its changes are marked as clearly in our history as our changing climate is marked in the growth rings of a forest tree.
Perhaps I may change the analogy. The transmission of standards is the golden chain on which not all but a very great deal of both our wealth and our worth depends. However, the child of a deprived teenage single mother is unlikely to have received those essential ingredients of her personality at her mother's inexperienced and wayward knee and will therefore be unable to pass them on if in particular, as is likely, she in her turn also becomes a teenage single mother. The golden chain has then snapped and unless someone steps in to mend it all her descendants will be deprived also.
I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Joseph that there is a role for voluntary agencies outside the schools. But surely it must be wrong in such an emergency—and it is an emergency for the child concerned—not to make use in every way available of the years in which young people are not only at their most formative stage but are perhaps for the only time in their lives part of a pastoral and tutorial system which is designed to give instruction and is capable of making good some of the instruction that their parents failed to give them.
Before I revert to voluntary agencies specifically, I hope that my noble friend will forgive me a momentary reference to what goes on in schools because it is all part of the matrix of behaviour and relationships which we now address. In writing our report, we tackled the issue at two levels. Our first recommendation was so obvious as to be banal, but to have left it out would have been an inexcusable omission. We urged parents simply to provide firm but affectionate guidance in the home and to ensure that they set a good and consistent example to their children. The key words are "firm but affectionate

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guidance" and the key word omitted is "love". That is the basis of all emotional security in the family. Unlike affectionate guidance, it cannot be introduced at will when it is absent. Fortunately those who learn to give firm, affectionate guidance often find themselves providing love too as a result.
We also recommended that the Secretary of State should ensure that education for parenthood is fully covered as a cross-curricular theme in the national curriculum; and that governors and teachers should ensure that it is fully covered in the school personal and social educational programme outside the national curriculum. I sought to discover for myself what progress has been made on that front. The answers to my soundings have not been reassuring. The Professional Association of Teachers states that,
"the problem with schools at the moment is that there is pressure on curricular time created by the mandatory subjects in Key stage 3 and 4; this pressure is such that all the cross curricular themes are tending to be squeezed out because they are not protected by statutory orders in the same way as the mandatory subjects are".
The association acknowledges that the National Curriculum Council has issued guidance on the delivery of each of those themes but adds that,
"it is, after all, only guidance".
It also points out that it is not easy to decide exactly where preparing for parenthood fits among the five cross-curricular themes. Is it covered by health education or education for citizenship? Or, as the terminology seems to suggest, does it form part of the cross-curriculum dimension called personal and social development? Surely it must be wrong, as my noble friend said with some force, to hold, as some schools and some governing bodies apparently hold, that it is part of sex education and therefore outside the national curriculum altogether. For reasons that the noble Lord has already given, that seems to me wholly to misunderstand the subject and why there are some children to whom it must be taught.
My impression is of a wide divergence of practice, with some children in need very well served but many left out in the cold. I should be glad to have the Minister's view of the weight given to the subject, in cases of need, both as a cross-curricular theme and as part of non-curricular personal and social development work. If, as I suspect, the Minister has as yet only a subjective view, will she please ask the National Curriculum Council to ensure that at least one of its pilot projects monitoring the delivery of cross-curricular themes covers education for parenthood—and covers it thoroughly?
Schools can and do contribute a good deal to help parents in bringing up their children by taking parents into their confidence and making it possible for the authority of each to support the other. Schools can undertake that by effective induction arrangements for new parents and new pupils and by ensuring that parents are always fully informed of the school's behaviour policy and any changes to it. They can follow the course recommended by the National Association of Head Teachers and draw up home-school voluntary agreements. I received one such example from it last week.
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Section 36 of the Children Act 1989 provides through education supervision orders an instrument whereby a member of the education welfare service can be brought into a special relationship with the child and his family who are in need of help. The national secretary of the Association of Chief Education Social Workers reminds us that, while most of your Lordships used to consider your home as a refuge from your school if one were needed—and for some it was—for some children today school is a real refuge from home. In those circumstances the present base of education social workers or education welfare workers outside school with the LEA makes them usefully distinct from school staff and therefore sometimes better able to mediate between home and school, thus offering the support for parents that my noble friend so eloquently asked for from voluntary organisations. I hope that as the delegation of budgets to schools under the Education Reform Act proceeds the department will monitor that status and protect it so that those important workers can continue to act as friends and advocates to the family and not be seen just as enforcement or attendance officers in disguise. The association is training people for that purpose.
My noble friend drew attention in particular to the need for voluntary associations to help parents in bringing up their children. I have tried to show that those difficulties show themselves in school and can, in some part, be tackled either by the school itself or by the local education authority in association with it. But, like my noble friend, I am convinced that the voluntary sector has a great deal to offer and is actually stronger than any statutory provision because it is separate from the official hierarchy of authority. That is often seen as the enemy of the family, however benevolent its approach may be. How useful it would be if there were a voluntary organisation which had both that distinction and the full use of a school's resources.
One of the bodies mentioned by my noble friend falls exactly into that role. It is the organisation known as Schools Outreach. I am well fitted to commend it because I confess that when Gordon Bailey first sought to involve me I was doubtful whether he could deliver. I am now entirely convinced that he can.
Schools Outreach operates by training workers to go into schools not as teachers but as friends to the pupils. They are adults. They are enormously helpful to the staff and enormously supportive to the children. They involve themselves with the children's families and parents when that is called for. A preliminary step is often to give a difficult child its first, recent confidence-building experience of a good relationship with an adult. That can be the first and most difficult step towards re-establishing the good relationship at home for which we are working. In the words of one of the organisation's supporters, when at home children are not being given the moral standards, ethics and social behaviour that they need. But Schools Outreach workers take those standards into the schools and show the children how to care and to be compassionate. They repair the link with the home and the parents.

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My growing experience of young people in trouble bears out my noble friend's analysis. It has taught me a most important lesson; that behind many of the sorry stories that lead young people into crime and into custody there has been the starvation of love from the beginning. Love goes by different names as we grow older. In our teens, unless it is focused on a girl friend, we prefer to call it "caring". The intervention of caring adults is a vital ingredient in rescuing young people from all the waste and sorrow that delinquency and criminality bring in their wake. That can be done in schools and parents can be assisted by the three means which I have suggested. Alternatively, it can be provided outside the school in the form of intermediate treatment. That subject, however, is for the next debate in which I look forward to participating and hearing in reply another noble friend at the Dispatch Box. It is appropriate that this debate should be dealing with a subject which, if it fails, will be picked up in the next. The children who lose from the failure of parenting fall into delinquency, criminality and custody and eventually their lives are ruined. That is the extent of the importance of the subject which my noble friend has raised.
I conclude with a commonplace but important observation. If my generation had been as diligent in teaching the Gospel and Christian precepts as was my father's in teaching ours, and if it had been as supportive of our churches and chapels —and, I dare say, our synagogues—I believe that many of the ills that we have discussed would not have befallen us and that many of the children whom we have discussed would now be in a better state than they are. I hope that that lesson will not be lost on our successors and that those of your Lordships who share that view will share also in the work of putting it across.
4.24 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Elton in thanking the right reverend Prelate for his maiden speech. Later I shall tell a short story to illustrate what he said. I also thank my noble friend Lord Joseph for introducing the debate. I well remember that when he was Secretary of State for Social Services he made a notable speech on the cycle of deprivation. Its contents were true then and they are true today.
Your Lordships may ask what right I have to speak in the debate because I am not a parent. I have not had children. About 10 years ago the Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, as it was then called, wrote to me asking whether I, as "one of them", would attend its conference at Butlin's camp. I was appalled and wondered what the tabloid press would make of the suggestion. I wrote to say that I was not "one of them" but that I would attend the conference. The council wrote back: "You are one of us because you are a children's officer and you have 300 children". I thought that I must be a biological wonder and that I had gone up in the world.
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I wish to begin by dealing with the structure of the voluntary sector. Without a good structure the voluntary sector cannot operate. My noble friend's Motion asks us to consider,
"the case for voluntary bodies to provide help and friendship where the parents so wish".
My noble friend recognised in his speech that the voluntary sector must work in co-operation and in partnership with the statutory sector—that is, education, social services and health—and with the ministries and the government. Therefore, the combination must be tripartite.
I turn to the most distasteful subject of coinage, finance and money. As the right reverend Prelate said, the people of this country are extremely generous to voluntary organisations. In our debates on the Charities Bill we heard that an increasing amount of money is given to charities in this country. We also heard that many more charities are being formed to meet the needs which now exist. We face a dilemma because charities cannot operate only on gifts from the public, generous though the public are. Therefore, if the work of the voluntary organisations is to be sustained and is to continue the government and the local authorities must support them financially.
A number of local authorities and government departments make grants to voluntary organisations. However, the way in which they do so makes the running of those organisations extremely difficult. Local authorities must prepare their estimates between September and April. That applies also to the voluntary organisations but they are not told until April what grants will be made to them by government departments or by local authorities. Therefore, the voluntary organisations are uncertain about whether the staff will be able to carry on. I suggest that the Government and local authorities should provide core funding for the voluntary organisations which they support. The organisations would then know that they could keep their staff and could continue in operation. Of course, extra financial help from the government would be most welcome.
We cannot talk about voluntary organisations unless we talk about how they are run, the money that they have, the way in which it is given and the method by which it is administered. I am sorry that that is a rather uninteresting introduction to my speech.
I deal now with people working in voluntary organisations. A little while ago I spent some time with the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association. That association has a large number of volunteers, many of whom are the wives of servicemen. When I spoke to the volunteers they said that the volunteers must know what they are doing and must be trained. That struck a chord with me. I do not suggest that volunteers should go to university or should undertake a two or three year course, but I believe that it is dangerous if volunteers working in voluntary organisations do not know exactly what they are doing. To some extent, they must be helped.
Also, many more local authorities could use volunteers. I know that that is not using a voluntary organisation. However, when I was the director of social services in Oxford I asked for more social work

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staff and was told, perhaps quite rightly although I was sad about it at the time, that the authority did not have the money and I could not have more staff. I had to accept that situation, but the work had to be done. There was not at that time, as there is now, a voluntary organisation to do the work. Therefore, I appealed for volunteers. We provided a course for volunteers at the local college of further education and we used volunteers under the supervision of trained staff to help to do the work within the department. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said as regards Schools Outreach, it is possible, within the orbit of statutory organisations, to use volunteers. That is slightly off the point of this debate but I felt that it should be mentioned.
Volunteers have a duty to learn about their subject and to know what they are doing. For example, the honourable Mrs. Sieff has started a course for volunteers in both voluntary organisations and the statutory services. Of course, there is the Volunteer Centre which gives training and help to volunteers in both sectors. I am convinced that if volunteers are to give help, they must know about their subject.
On that point, I should say to the right reverend Prelate how important it is that we should know what we are teaching. I remember well that two small boys ran away from a home and the police were out looking for them. I had given those boys a very careful talk about how God was within them and was within all of us. Alas, that did not work. Obviously I did not know my subject properly because when ultimately they were found I stood outside their bedroom door and heard one little boy saying, "Oh dear, she said that God was within us". The other little boy said, "Well, that's all right. God ran away tonight and not us". Therefore, I failed. It is important—and I am sure that the right reverend Prelate will agree—that if, as my noble friend Lord Elton said, we are to try to hand on our Christian principles we should hand them on in the right way and not, as I did, in the wrong way.
I agree with my friend, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, as regards the wording of the Motion, part of which states:
"bring up their children and to the case for voluntary bodies to provide help and friendship".
If we are to do that we must have not only the structure, the money, the will and the skill but we must also know what it is we are providing for and where the greatest need lies.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Joseph that there are many women today who need and want help; indeed, many of them are seeking help. Like my noble friend Lord Joseph, I wish to mention various organisations. I have been particularly impressed by an organisation called New Pin. That seeks to improve the mental health of parents, preventing emotional and physical hurt to children. That organisation has six centres and is hoping to have many more; but there is a problem as regards finance.
All the voluntary organisations that I had intended to mention have already been referred to and therefore I shall not now do so. However, I believe also that we should be very careful about what we are doing. There
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needs to be a certain amount of research carried out in this whole area as to where the needs lie, where the gaps are and how the problems are to he dealt with.
These days increasing demands are made on parents. How are those to be met? We need to know the relationship between parents and within their families. Everybody has the right to choose. Some parents choose to go to the statutory organisations for help but some parents do not wish to do that; neither do they wish to seek help from the voluntary organisations. There is an organisation called Parents Anonymous. A number of parents got together and set up an organisation. I congratulate those parents. They run jumble sales to raise money to pay the telephone bills. They arrange for parents to ring each other if they feel that they cannot stand life any more. That has nothing to do with anybody other than the parents themselves. Such organisations should be supported.
There are many various and outstanding organisations today, to which my noble friend Lord Joseph referred. Those organisations should be supported. There should be training and a proper structure by which they are supported. Parents should look after themselves if they so wish but they should know where they can go if they need help.
4.38 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, has brought forward this subject today. He does our children a service by proposing this debate on the importance of how parents bring up their children and ways in which the voluntary sector can help them.
The way the law defines parents' relationships with their children is fundamental. Under the Children Act, in England and Wales we have moved some way in the right direction; that is, away from old concepts of parental ownership of children and towards the concept of parental responsibilities. That is surely central to this debate.
Regrettably, in my view, the Children Act does nothing to define the responsibilities of parents; but a month ago the Scottish Law Commission published proposals of reform of the relevant law in Scotland in its Report on Family Law. I believe that the commission's proposals are worthy of proper consideration south of the Border, too.
The commission suggests that parents' responsibilities should be defined and should include:
"safeguarding and promoting the child's health, development and welfare"
and providing
"in a manner appropriate to the child's stage of development, direction and guidance to the child".
More radically, the commission proposes that those with parental responsibility should have a legal duty to consult their children about major decisions and take seriously their views. It is right and proper that children should be heard and taken seriously. Incidentally, the proposal does no more than implement the principle in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which

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the Government ratified last December. While our Children Act extends the principle of consulting children, it does not extend to parents.
But the Law Commission also confronts bravely an issue which is absolutely central to improving the status of children and at the same time reducing the level of violence in society—aims which are surely common to all of us. It is the issue of parents' current rights to hit their children —that is, physical punishment. Here the commission proposes new limits for the criminal law: hitting children with implements or in a way which causes or could cause injury, or pain or discomfort lasting more than a very short time, would, if the proposals are implemented, become a criminal offence. Incidentally, in its report the commission reveals the results of an opinion poll which show that an overwhelming majority of the public—over 90 per cent.—favour banning these forms of punishment. It is high time that the Government took a lead on this issue and gave parents a clear message which they have already given foster carers and child minders; namely, that physical punishment is counter-productive and a dangerous way of child-rearing.
Three years ago the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, and I helped to launch a campaign—at that time a lone voice—called EPOCH, which stands for End Physical Punishment of Children. We are no longer a lone voice. EPOCH's campaign for education and legal reform to end all physical punishment of children is now supported by most major child welfare and protection organisations including the NSPCC, the National Children's Home, the National Children's Bureau, Save The Children, the Health Visitors' Association, the Association of Directors of Social Services, the community paediatricians and about 30 others.
Early last year the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and I met, on behalf of EPOCH, Ministers from the Department of Health (Mrs. Bottomley) and the Home Office (Mr. John Patten). It is quite unusual to get Ministers from these two departments into one room to talk about children. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithful], will agree because I know that she has tried to do that quite often. While the Department of Health has lead responsibility for children, the Home Office has responsibility for the criminal law on cruelty and assault.
After this meeting, EPOCH received a letter from Mrs. Bottomley, now the Secretary of State for Health. It confirmed that her department had, through the Children Act regulations and guidance, implemented its policy that, outside the home, physical punishment has no place in the child care environment. But more significantly, I am glad to say, the Minister added that she was sympathetic,
"to the case for doing more to change the culture".
Mrs. Bottomley meant our current culture which, like the law, does nothing to deter parents from using physical punishment.
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But now we have the Scottish Law Commission's proposals. In its report the commission emphasises that it,
"accepts and regards as important, the arguments to the effect that physical punishments tend to escalate in severity, that parents using physical force may inadvertently cause damage, and that much abuse starts as ordinary punishment".
The arguments are overwhelming and based in long-term research findings, well-documented by EPOCH and acknowledged by the commission. If we want to produce self-disciplined children and reduce the level of violence in society we must give parents a clear limit.
I wish to draw the attention of noble Lords to a pamphlet published in 1989 called The Extent of Physical Punishment in the UK. It describes the research of John and Elizabeth Newson. They conducted a long-term survey (starting in 1952) of child-rearing practices. They studied 700 families and interviewed mothers in their own homes as children reached their first, fourth, seventh, 11th and 16th birthdays. Two hundred families were followed up when the children were 19 years of age. In 1958 they found that 62 per cent. of mothers used physical punishment to discipline their one year-old babies. In the light of recent media attention which has raised public awareness about the physical abuse of children, changes might be expected, but in 1985 they found that 63 per cent. of mothers smacked their one year-olds. This is a random sample of 344 families.
The Newsons found a strong link between children's early experience and how they turned out. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has observed the link between physical punishment and later violence. The children who suffer physical punishment are much more likely to become troublesome at school; to truant; to become delinquent; and quite a high proportion achieve a criminal record.
In his pamphlet The Importance of Parenting, the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, says:
"Parenting that is not good enough can lead to misery for the children, and, as they grow up, failure at school, crime, violence, disregard for others and unhappiness for themselves".
I suggest that physical punishment by parents undoubtedly contributes to that.
The Scottish Law Commission's proposals for the criminal law are probably right, providing a real deterrent for those who still beat children with implements or cause injury. But we in EPOCH, backed by a very powerful coalition of child welfare and professional organisations, believe that in addition family law is the right place for a clear statement that no physical punishment is acceptable.
The time has come to replace the outdated and potentially dangerous parental right of reasonable chastisement with parents' responsibility to guide and control their children. Since 1979 five European countries—Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Austria—have passed laws banning all physical punishment of children. In Germany a draft Bill is under consideration. Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child insists that states must take all appropriate legislative, administrative, educational and social action to protect children from,

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"all forms of mental and physical violence"
when in the care of parents and others.
The first step towards changing the current culture of British parenting, which all too often relies on smacking or beating, is for the Government to give a lead and to use appropriate channels quite explicitly to discourage all physical punishment. In just two-and-a-half years EPOCH has circulated more than 600,000 leaflets giving advice to parents and other carers on avoiding smacking. I am glad to say that there is a huge demand. Surely that is the sort of voluntary initiative which should now receive government support.
The influence of parents on their children is, as the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, so rightly emphasised, central and crucial. We believe that the time has come to emphasise parental responsibility, including the responsibility to use positive and non-violent ways of encouraging the sort of behaviour we all want from our children.
4.47 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady David, spoke about the findings of the Scottish Law Commission. In preparing for this debate I had it in mind to speak about that, but I am glad that I did not plan to do so because the noble Baroness has done it very much better than I could have done. I agree with every word that she said.
In Parliament there is frequent discussion of many matters concerning children and young people. Much time is spent considering that which is governed by legislation; namely, schooling, the health service, social services, children and parental rights and responsibilities and how children are dealt with when they break the law. As noble Lords will remember well, the Children Act was a major item in the parliamentary timetable. Yet, very curiously, we seldom turn our minds to the subject under discussion this afternoon, which is the part of children's lives that is at the very heart of all their needs. I refer to the kind of upbringing which their parents provide; the atmosphere, behaviour and relationships that children experience at home and the help which parents can enlist, apart from the statutory services, in this most demanding of all tasks.
It is all too easy to assume that, because the way in which parents bring up their children is to a great extent a private matter for them, it need not be taken into account in the formulation of public policy. That is clearly a mistaken point of view. Home is by far the strongest influence on every child. If parents do not succeed in their role it is doubly difficult for any statutory service to help. It is clearly in the public interest, as well as in the interests of children, that parents should have available to them as much information and advice as possible and in a form that they can accept and use.
One does not have to look far to see how important home influence is. A number of noble Lords have already given examples. My noble friend Lord Elton referred to the findings of a report on school discipline. International research suggests that the
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home is by far the most significant factor on a child's general performance at school. A report in the early 1980s from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development looked at schools in 24 countries. It concluded that no matter where in the world a child lived—in Africa, Europe, Australia, the Far East or the United States of America—no matter what size or type of school the child attended—comprehensive, selective, state-funded or privately funded—and no matter what the income or social status of the child's parents, the main determining factor on that child's performance at school was the parents' attitude and commitment to the child's education, their interest in the school, their backing for the school in the eyes of the child, their insistence that homework mattered and their interest in all the child's school activities. It seems that all over the world the biggest influence of all on a child's performance is the home. One often wonders whether parents appreciate enough how much their backing of their child's schooling matters. Do schools make the point sufficiently clearly to parents? Do schools give them genuine opportunities to play their proper part?
Likewise, anyone who is involved with young people who come before the courts knows how close the link is between what is happening at home and a young person's behaviour away from home. So often, the beginning of a young person's trouble with the law turns out to have coincided almost to the day with the son or daughter realising that his or her mother was very ill with cancer, or when the father went to prison, or when a parent died, or when the parents' marriage split up. Do parents appreciate the effect that their misfortune and their behaviour may have on their child? Do they realise that there is much that they can do to lessen a child's anxiety and pain?
How much children's health is affected by their home upbringing is obvious. It is not just a question of the quality of the food that they eat or of the amount of sleep that they get, but of the general atmosphere of family life. There is a big increase, for example, in childhood asthma and in related chest and skin problems at present. Asthma is often linked to anxiety and nervous tension. Do parents realise that? Do they know what they can do about it?
This Government aim to work towards a framework within which there is more opportunity for everybody from every walk of life. That must, above all, mean opportunities for every child. Surely part of the strategy must be to provide an opportunity for parents, and for young people who will in future be parents, to learn about and understand their role, particularly during the first four years of a child's life when so much of a person's personality and potential is determined.
Perhaps I may suggest one or two ways in which the Government could move forward with this. It seems to me that there needs to be more concise and clear information for parents about the help that they can seek. A variety of publications is available to them—although it is only a limited variety. A good example is a leaflet that has been produced by the National Consumer Council, together with the Scottish Child and Family Alliance (SCAFA) and the

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Voluntary Organisations Liaison Council for Under Fives, entitled Choosing Childcare. It sets out very simply the various options that parents have in seeking help with their under-fives and the various pros and cons. Perhaps the Government will consider holding a meeting with the voluntary organisations which work with young people to put the problem to them and to discover whether they could in some way combine to produce literature for parents, and for young people who will become parents, to inform them about the help that is available.
The Government could seek an extension of the approach to parents that is taken by the Pre-School Playgroups Association. Its trained playgroup leaders give very strong encouragement to the parents of under-fives. Some insist that parents who are able to do so become involved in running the groups. The playgroup associations are as much an education for parents as for children, and it works extremely well. The Government have endorsed this work recently by nearly doubling the association's grant for training leaders and for tutors.
I wonder whether we should try to persuade nursery schools to take a leaf out of the playgroup book. Nursery schools involve some parents, but should not far more be involved—and be involved more deeply—with the deliberate aim of helping the parents to learn, as well as the children? Just inviting parents to special events or seeing them as escorts or, in some cases, as chauffeurs for their children fails the parents and thus fails the children. Should not all nursery schools widen their aims by deliberately offering hands-on learning opportunities for parents?
For some time the Open University has been designing and producing packages on which local community educators can base courses for parents on the subject of how to bring up small children. These courses have been taken up by a number of local authorities and, I believe, by some churches. They are a great success. It is an eye-opening experience to present certificates—as I have done in Glasgow—to parents who have completed such a course and to discover how thrilled several hundred parents can be—a number of them Moslem women—with the knowledge that they have gained, and to discover how many hope to continue with further courses. This kind of work could well be extended. The Government could give encouragement in some form to universities, colleges and local authorities on this matter.
My last point, which has been touched on by other noble Lords, is that I wonder whether colleges and the upper end of schools should not be doing far more about teaching young people and existing parents about the skills of parenthood. Young people need to know just what they are taking on when they decide to have children. They need to know the implications of the relevant up-to-date statistics. They need to know that, according to the 1989 household survey, if they live together before marriage—as is so often the habit nowadays—they are increasing by some 60 per cent. the chance that their marriage will break up within 15 years compared with couples who have not lived
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together before marriage. Young people need to know that. They make their own choices, but they need to know such things when making their choice.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, couples need to know something of the difference that the break-up of a marriage makes for children and how the children's problems can be alleviated. Are the Government confident, I wonder, that schools and colleges are dealing with this problem adequately?
In this country, and particularly in Parliament, we must not let ourselves off the hook by telling ourselves that the upbringing of children is the parents' private affair and that therefore it is not for us. Home upbringing is a large part of children's future. We owe it to them to do everything we can to help parents and future parents understand and develop the skills they need. I hope that we are doing enough. I am not quite sure.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, we live in an age when 25 per cent. of youth are from one-parent families and crime, lack of respect for others and sadistic violence are endemic. Something has gone very wrong not just in this country but all over the world. It must go back to conditions of upbringing when young.
Many families grow up in great deprivation and poverty, and no more so than the unemployed single parent families. These mothers are in a trap, for, even if they have a skill to sell, they have to stay with their young, and certainly cannot afford the cost of putting their young into a creche each day. Action could he taken—and is urgently needed —to help them by the provision of free crèches and nursery care so that a young mother can get training, a job, earn a wage and get herself off benefit.
Control of diet and budget is often very poor with single young mothers. These leads to health and financial problems, in an ever descending spiral of despair. They reach for the fast foods and tinned vegetables, paying high prices out of a small income for non-fresh foods. One youngster was amazed to see peas coming out of a pod. Smoking is an obvious example of money being ill spent. One young girl recently admitted in court that she spent half her benefit on cigarettes.
I have no doubt that voluntary bodies give a lot of help in these areas. But many children grow up in families which are relatively affluent and which feel that their children should not have to suffer the lack of things that the fond parents wanted in vain in their young days. So the children are given lots of pocket money—in fact too much pocket money. They are even given small motorcycles and all that money can buy. How nice for them. But they surely must grow up with expectations far above their attainment, and are most likely to price themselves out of the job market when they are older. Further, with money to spend and bored from over indulgence, they are sitting ducks for the drug pusher.
I cannot see that any youngster has a hope of growing up with any semblance of manners, ethics or gentle behaviour, after seeing what they see on television. It is an enormous tribute to the parents and

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schools that so many in fact manage to do so. During the early evening children are subjected to bad language and uncouth behaviour by their heroes, while the really nasty programmes are kept for later at night. But in reality, many children stay up far into the night and watch all those programmes that are utterly unsuitable for teenagers and grown-ups, let alone children.
At a mature age these programmes may do no harm, but I dread to think what some of them must do to weak and impressionable young minds. I say "weak" because many minds are not weak and can cope without being seriously damaged. But it is the weak minds that are persuaded to drift off into anti-social behaviour. There are plenty of examples where copycat crimes have been committed after seeing them on television.
Swearing is now commonplace on television. Young children now swear at an early age, with "fs" and "bs", and sexual swearing is creeping in as a result of what they have heard on television. Television companies claim that advertising "Snibbo" makes people buy "Snibbo". Then they claim that advertising sex and sadism does not promote sex and sadism. If we excite young and not so young people's minds with sex, what do we think they will want to go and do? Will they want to go and play dominoes? Surely the hyping up sexually of people must contribute to a lowering of standards and increase under-age pregnancy. Girls are now having sex at a very early age—down to 13 or less in some awful cases. They are probably daughters of very young mothers themselves. There is pressure by boys that goes back to Adam to invite girls to drop their resistance. But it seems now that far more girls fall for those old lines. This contributes to the 25 per cent. illegitimacy rate and the consequent continuation of deprived families. This is because the moral values of old have been devalued by incessant undermining in the media.
School has an important role in the upbringing of children but it cannot do anything without the full support of the parents. It must be a joint effort by parents, teachers and, later in their lives, by apprenticeship and the foreman. Many schools respond to supposedly modern demands and have inadequate discipline, rules and standards. When the child is disciplined, the parents are liable to charge in and attack the teacher. But in many schools now there is a set of rules and good discipline and the parents are told that if they do not wish their children to be subject to those rules they should take them elsewhere. These schools tend to have far better results and their entry lists are over-subscribed. These schools cover all catchment areas and are not confined to the better areas.
Schools play a great part in upbringing. They can and do pick up those children with problems in their parental homes which can be traumatic. They also prepare, influence and point the children towards their futures. I remember visiting a school in Malawi some years ago. I saw written on the wall in large letters a famous quotation:
"Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country".
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I think it would be no bad thing if that were writ large in every school in this country.
5.7 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I join other noble Lords is thanking the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, for raising this subject for debate. We are all deeply concerned about what is happening to children and adolescents in our society, especially those of us who are, like myself, very deeply involved in work on the incidence of poverty. I am involved in Church Action on Poverty and the important work that it is doing. I especially welcome the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. I welcome his return to my life after a long absence. We were at theological college together.
We have heard from a number of able speakers. I suspect that we have missed one or two because noble Lords have not been able to be present. My noble friend Lord Thurso very much hoped to stay but, faced with competing claims between speaking in the House on this important subject and raising money for the Boy's Brigade, has opted for action rather than words. He asked me to say how much he appreciated the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, about core funding. He asked me to raise, which I can only do en passant, a question which has hardly been touched on. I refer to the care and back-up that we need to give to the carers—those who bear the emotional stress of looking after those who themselves need care.
It is particularly welcome that the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, introduced the topic of the help given by voluntary bodies. I intend to devote my short contribution to the work of one of those bodies; namely, the Family Service Units. This organisation has been about for a long time and has, in a rather old-fashioned and quiet way, helped families at their own level. It has worked with individual families to help them to deal with problems on their own terms. It has carried out some valuable research work and has just published a series of reports on life on income support. Some of the individual case histories are most informative. One which I picked out from among those that I have was the case of a client who had very bad experiences dealing with bureaucracy.
I pay warm tribute to the work of the statutory social services. But there is undoubtedly an edge which voluntary bodies can have over them when dealing with individual families. There is enough misery in poverty without being bullied. That, I am afraid, sometimes tends to happen. The particular client to whom I refer recalled that those at the FSU listened and encouraged the client to start thinking about what she could do to make her own life more endurable. They encouraged her to take the occasional evening out, and even enabled her to do so, knowing that relief of the pressures on the client can improve the life of the whole family. There is enough misery in poverty without adding voluntary martyrdom or working oneself into a state of self-condemnation for any pleasure one may take.
The client also said that the Family Service Unit listened. She said that they did not put you down or

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say, "OK, I'm here and I'm in charge. If you didn't need help you wouldn't come to us. So this is the help we are going to give you. Take it or leave it". In other words, those concerned at the FSU worked with individuals as individuals with their own particular problems and weaknesses.
If we want to have a healthy society in this country in 50 years' time, we must find ways of breaking the cycle of deprivation to which the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, so rightly drew our attention as long ago as 1972. This is not something that the Government can do on their own; it needs the help of that section of society which is inspired by humanitarian and Christian care for individuals and families. It is in individual families that the chain can be broken and the tide turned. It cannot be broken in any other way.
But money is needed. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, was quite right to underline that point. Money is needed from society as a whole to help the bodies that are carrying out such work and to provide the infrastructure which will help them. An adequate basic income for all citizens is, quite frankly, the first sine qua non for rearing healthy families and securing responsible society. It is as important that a parent has some freedom as that he or she has a sense of responsibility. They need both freedom and a sense of responsibility. If he or she is going to be able to pay for a child to go on school outings rather than the child not being able to go because the family cannot afford it, or is to be able to provide, say, a cake for a small party—which is the kind of thing that many families cannot now do —there must be a higher level of support than there is at the moment.
Other needs are playschemes, drop-in centres for isolated parents and family centres offering help with parenting schemes. Only this morning my daughter told me that in her area of Surrey there is a bus which travels around the area carrying people who can help with parenting schemes and who are available to be consulted and to offer the kind of information and support that are needed. That all costs money from local or central government. There is much that the Government can do; indeed, there is a lot that they must do if bodies such as the FSU, which is doing the job that the Government and all of us want done, are to operate even more effectively than they do now.
5.15 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I too should like to extend my warmest congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on his very constructive and helpful maiden speech. I hope that he will be able to spare time from his episcopal duties to join us and participate in debates on many occasions in the future. I should also like to thank my noble friend Lord Joseph for introducing this very worthwhile and helpful debate. I must apologise to him as I fear I may not be able to wait to hear his speech at the end of the debate due to prior commitments.
Parental responsibility is very much a guiding principle of the Children Act, and that is the line that
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I should like to take today. I do not have the specialist experience of, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, of specific voluntary organisations, although I shall make some general comments about the work of the voluntary sector. I only wish that the pearls of wisdom that your Lordships are dropping on the subject could he read by all parents in this country. That would be very beneficial.
It is certainly true that the problems of children growing up may be affected by poverty in families, but, as several noble Lords have said, they are not necessarily caused by poverty. However, I should like to make the point that in my experience there is as great a danger from wealthy parents spending their time enjoying themselves or increasing their wealth and thereby neglecting their children as for poor families which suffer from the pressures that undoubtedly afflict those near the poverty line.
To recapitulate a number of points that have been made, and following the line of the first half of the Motion, I should like from my experience to emphasise some aspects that I believe are vital for parents in bringing up their children. The first aspect that I should like to emphasise is security. I believe that a child finds his or her security primarily in the parents' love and acceptance of the child as an individual. Love and acceptance from the parents are much more important than the size of the house or the status of the school. Parents need continually to affirm the value of the individual child and to give that child love and praise. In that way I believe that a child can feel secure. Parents who continually tell their children that whatever they do is not good enough do not help to create a stable and secure framework.
The next point is the need for parents to spend time with their children. That is much more important than money and lavish presents, which often seem to be a substitute for spending time with children. Parents need to spend time doing various things and practising hobbies with their children. But such efforts may be thwarted. For example, I intended to spend the greater part of this Monday with my son at the test match, but those wretched cricketers decided to finish after four days. I was thus deprived of spending a day with my son watching cricket, but I brought him to lunch in your Lordships' House as a very weak second string.
I was having dinner in your Lordships' House with a couple last night. The man was going off on a cricket tour just to spend time with his son who is playing cricket on that tour. Those are the things we need to be doing with our children in order to create responsible and stable citizens of the future. We need to listen to them, encourage them, attend school functions and spend time with them.
A third point I should like to raise, which I have not yet heard mentioned, is the need for parents to discuss with them the pressures that the children face. I am conscious of the problems our children face with regard to the clothes that they wear, as well as the activities that they indulge in with their peer group —with the "in" crowd. Parents need to be in there discussing this with our children. We need to do this to foresee future difficulties and show our children that we are their friends and they can talk to us about

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anything. I should perhaps mention that I have only four children, unlike my noble friend Lady Faithfull, with her 300. Therefore it is very much easier for me than it is for some other parents.
My final point is an obvious one—the need for parents to set the behaviour guidelines, or, if you like, to strengthen the discipline for children. From my experience, I see our children needing to know exactly where they stand on what they are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. While our children are very different, they have all tried to push against the boundaries to find out how far my wife and I will let them go in the discipline field. They need to know what they can and cannot do and also what sanctions will be administered if they break the boundaries. I shall not go into the question of physical discipline, but sanctions need to be realised and the boundaries set and kept to by parents. Bad disciplining needs help for the parents. But it should not mean that disciplining is to be abolished. I believe that this will all help to strengthen committed and compassionate relationships in the family.
I come next to the help for parents which I believe is often needed, particularly in one-parent families. If I did not have a wife and had to bring up children, I know how much help I would need, whether from the voluntary or the statutory sector. The community as a whole should have an active concern for the welfare of each family in its area and should help parents to exercise their responsibility, but that the statutory or voluntary sector should not undermine the responsibility of parents but should help them.
I should like to see the societies that we have been talking about this afternoon getting in there to help the parents on a one-to-one level when they become aware of needs. Ideally they should be able to help prevent problems before they arrive but when problems have already arrived they should be ready to help the parents and support them in solving those problems.
As I see the voluntary sector today, I am pleased that it is becoming more and more professional in the way that it acts. That does not mean that it is becoming less personal, but more professional in the way that it operates. Where there are still many charities that are not professional, I hope that they will strengthen the professionalism with which they are doing this work.
I also believe that parents should carry the responsibility for children's offences within the judicial process. I am pleased at the thought of parents having compulsorily to attend court when 10 to 15 year-olds are themselves in court.
Finally, a word on the problems that arise in the event of divorce or separation of parents—a problem that is undoubtedly increasingly common. I am very glad that it is the principle that both parents should continue to have access and have as much relationship time with the children as possible. There are obviously enormous problems. I was told only yesterday of a divorce in progress where the husband lives in this country and the wife is going off with another man
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who is a South African and wants to take the children to South Africa. That creates an impossible dilemma that needs to be sorted out in each individual case.
I also believe that there should be much wider access for other members of the family in the event of divorce. I know that nowadays we tend to be split up in nuclear families, but there should always be an exploration of the possibility of other members of either the husband's or the wife's family being able to have substantial access and responsibility for the children. This can provide stability of relationships which are being badly undermined by the failure of the child's parents' marriage and can itself offer some measure of security in a situation which has totally dissolved. Where parents fail, the voluntary sector should be encouraged to offer all the help that it can to the parents and, through them, to the child so as to provide the security, the time, the discussion and the discipline that are needed to help build up stable and responsible citizens for the future.
5.26 p.m.
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, I should like to add my warm congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on his splendid speech and his encouraging references to the part that the Church is playing in meeting the problems we are talking about today. I am also very grateful to my noble friend Lord Joseph for introducing this debate, for there can be no more important subject than bringing up children. Ideally, as other speakers have said, it is based on love and care in a stable, secure family, plus skilled and dedicated teachers at school. In both home and school too it needs a way of life which engenders trust and sets high standards, by example, for children to follow.
But, alas, too many children do not enjoy such benefits. They grow up with serious problems—lacking confidence and purpose and with little hope of a full and satisfying life. In such cases voluntary work can make an immensely valuable contribution, whether by individuals or by charitable organisations, not least because such organisations are more flexible and quicker to act in meeting the needs of individuals.
Fifty or more years ago there was much voluntary work done in caring for poor and disadvantaged people; indeed, at that time it was almost the only source of support and many families and children benefited greatly. Although there is more to life than money and possessions, as others have said, grinding poverty and hunger make a bad basis for good parenthood. Welfare state payments and support have an essential part to play, but in no way should voluntary work be derided as patronising and degrading as it used to be—and still is on occasion, I am afraid—by the party of noble Lords opposite with that cry of "Welfare by right and not by charity". Perhaps in the past there was a bit of that about in regard to charitable work and perhaps the motivation for it was sometimes somewhat suspect; perhaps there was a bit too much of "My Lady Bountiful". But much dedicated, valuable and caring work was done which was not always fully valued.

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I remember so well my mother working in a voluntary capacity in the Westminster Hospital. When the day came for the National Health Service to be introduced she was told that her services were no longer required because there was no place for voluntary work. Indeed, when the welfare state came in, as it did with so much value and so much good to be done—which was done—bureaucracy multiplied and much voluntary effort was derided. In schools self-expression became the cry and discipline went out of the window. But now, thank Heavens, the wheel is turning full circle: teachers want to restore discipline, but, sadly, they often receive little help from misguided parents.
The organisation Schools Outreach was mentioned by my noble friends Lord Joseph and Lord Elton, and so I shall say no more about it except that it is a tragedy that that organisation, which has existed now for 15 years or more and which has shown its worth by helping children to live a full life and overcome their problems and by helping teachers by going into the schools at their invitation, has been unable to obtain any appreciable support from Her Majesty's Government. I hope that that policy will change. It is a fine organisation.
The Government seek to improve schools through the participation and support of parents. Many are willing to help, but they are unsure as to how they can best do so. In education and many other fields affecting young people the Government are looking to voluntary organisations and the private sector to take over much of the work done by the rather more bureaucratic and slow-acting public sector, because they believe, rightly, that the voluntary organisations provide better value for money.
Although much excellent voluntary effort is provided free by individuals, money, as my noble friend Lady Faithfull has already made clear, is still needed to provide the essential infrastructure for charities: buildings, communications, travel and research. That raises two problems. More care and thought are needed before the Government transfer responsibility for such work to voluntary charitable organisations, otherwise damaging vacuums will be opened up, as we have seen in other spheres.
Secondly, although in general charities are more cost-effective and more flexible than the public sector, their greater responsibilities can be discharged only if they have more money than they have usually had in the past to do less work.
Great progress has been made under Conservative Governments over the past 10 or 15 years in encouraging and facilitating charitable giving; but it is still inadequate to meet the needs of the great many voluntary organisations. I was rather surprised to hear my noble friend Lady Faithfull say that charitable giving was increasing because I understand that there has been an overall decline in the average percentage of personal incomes devoted to charity. It has decreased from about 0.75 per cent. to 0.6 per cent. over the past 10 years or so. That compares badly with the United States, where the figure is nearer 2 per cent. That is on the individual side. Similar considerations
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apply to large public companies in the United Kingdom. The figure is about 0.5 per cent. of the companies' gross profits. In the USA the figure is over 2 per cent.
As a chairman of one or two public companies I never received complaints at annual general meetings about money given to charities. There were complaints that we give money to this, that or no political party, but never any complaint or criticism about the money given to charities. Equally, when trying to raise money for charities, I have received hundreds of letters from company chairmen declining to contribute to appeals on the ground that they did not think it right to give away shareholders' money. It costs a great deal less to collect £10,000 from 10 companies than to collect £10 from 1,000 people. There is real value to be obtained from corporate giving for charitable purposes.
It would be good if we were to introduce a code of practice for companies which would require that at annual general meetings a positive resolution should be put to shareholders by the directors detailing the amount of money that they propose to spend on charitable donations in the ensuing year. That would prevent any shareholders saying that money was being given away for purposes of which they did not approve.
The Government too could help further at a moderate cost. As my noble friend Lady Faithfull made clear, the provision of core funding is important. It would be of immense value to charities if that could be done on a three-year rolling basis. That would give a sound base for future planning so that the charities would know that the careers of their staff were safeguarded for a reasonable period ahead. They could then concentrate much more effort and time on doing the real job of the charity and on raising money for operational purposes.
Secondly, I should like to see the Government offer, far more often, contributions to selected, well-run charities on a pound-for-pound basis to stimulate private donations. There are good precedents for that. I used to be a trustee of the Prince's Youth Business Trust which was set up to provide small sums of money to help unemployed and disadvantaged people start their own businesses. There the Government undertook to provide, pound for pound, up to a sum of some £40 million. That made a tremendous difference. The same amount of money was raised through private donations, which would never have been achieved if that assurance had not been given.
Thirdly, I should like to see the Government encourage local authorities to co-operate much more closely with charities, especially in the planning of their future work programmes so that the charities can see from where support is coming and where they can best concentrate their efforts and use their always limited resources. There is also great scope for government support of voluntary organisations providing the sporting and other outside activities which are so essential for the development and health of older children.
I agree strongly with my noble friend Lord Elton on the debt we owe to our parents and their generation

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for the way they passed on to us the Christian faith and how much the present younger generation would benefit if we could do the same as effectively. The speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry gives us hope that the darkest hour may be passed and that we may be on the up gradient in restoring the Christian faith to its true position in this country. That would be of enormous benefit to the younger generation and help solve the problems we have been discussing.
To help parents to bring up children healthy in mind and body is fundamental to the future happiness and stability of the community. We can obtain better value for money through the effective contributions of voluntary organisations, but let the emphasis be on greater value and not on saving money, for that is by far the best investment we can make to ensure the future happiness of this country.
5.38 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Joseph for bringing up this important subject and for telling us of the many voluntary bodies which can help parents in what is an increasingly difficult world; but I am sorry that he omitted that most important voluntary body of all, the grandparents. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, emphasised the importance of child benefit. I was interested in her figures of the average cost of bringing up a child. If we had had no children, we might have been £250,000 better off, and my noble friend Lady Faithful' would have been a multimillionaire.
Perhaps I may also congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on his most constructive and sensible maiden speech. I hope that we shall hear him often. I should also like to welcome back the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, who was in her place a moment ago, and to say how glad we all were to see her.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Strange: My Lords, it is interesting that the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys should have discovered that couples who have cohabited before marriage are 60 per cent. more likely to separate or divorce than those who have not. It is interesting, but not surprising, for marriage is a total commitment. It can be the best possible relationship; it can also be the worst. It is like two horses pulling a carriage—they must both work together; if one stops then the carriage does not move.
Other societies where men are in short supply have favoured polygamy or, when women are, polyandry. But since the days of Adam and Eve the best proved and tried way of bringing up a family has been with a father and mother committed to each other. It does not always work, but then human nature is like that. Even Adam and Eve had less success with Cain than with Abel and Seth.
A child is a gift from God, something special. A child is also part of the future of the world. All parents feel this and want their children to have what is best in the world. Material things are important—all
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children need to be warm and well fed so that they can grow physically into strong, healthy adults. They need the best possible education so that their brains can keep pace with their bodies and they can earn the best possible living for themselves. But when all is said and done, what children need most to take them into the future is a secure background of love and knowledge of their country's past and of their own family history: who Uncle Bertie was and what Grandpa did in the war. When my husband and I visited my brother's grave at Uden in Holland last March, we found a touching message in the visitors' book:
"Remembering with love a great uncle whom I never knew".
That young man was born 30 years after his great uncle had been killed, but the loving family memories were part of his background.
Commitment to children and to parents does not cease when the children have grown up any more than does love after death. For our ruby wedding, some of our grown-up children flew back from Australia and America. One travelled across France with a car-load of babies. Last night my son went to congratulate two friends who had just become espoused and to take an after-dinner cup of coffee with their hostess. He arrived on his motor bike, dressed appropriately, at 11 p.m. at the house of his hostess's noble father, unaware that she had moved into a flat of her own. Her noble father took one look at my son in his motor-bike kit and telephoned his daughter to see whether she would really be pleased to see him before disclosing the address. He was still a caring parent.
When our children were small someone once asked me what was important in bringing them up. I said, "Love is the most important thing". One of the children overheard and remarked crossly, "What Mum means by 'love' is not letting you do things and saying no and going on". I said, "So it is. If I did not love you, I wouldn't bother. I would let you grow up to be a horrid pig".
Chapter 13 of I Corinthians, which your Lordships will know by heart, says it all. Perhaps the Christmas carol about what to give the infant Jesus tells us also much about what to give our children:
"What can I give Him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would give a lamb; If I were a wise man I would do my part; Yet what I can I give Him— Give my heart".
5.44 p.m.
Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach: My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate and grateful to my noble friend Lord Joseph for making it possible. I also wish to join others who have taken part in congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on his excellent maiden speech. As someone who has known him for over 20 years and has been involved with him in a charity over that period, I can only say that the concern which he expressed today for those in need and his vision of a renewed Church and what it can do for our nation are characteristic of his whole life and ministry. They have

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been an example to us all. Like my noble friend Lord Brentford, I look forward to many more speeches by the right reverend Prelate in this House.
I am delighted to take part in this debate because I believe that the subject is very important. I first began to realise its significance while working as an adviser to the previous Prime Minister. By profession I was an economist —an occupation not known for its obvious concern for humanity. My responsibilities in the policy unit covered the whole of domestic policy. I discovered in one area after another where there was genuine concern by the Prime Minister—in areas such as juvenile delinquency, truancy, football hooliganism, homelessness among young people, teenage pregnancies, drugs and so on—one factor which contributed to the problems was a breakdown in relationships between children and their parents.
I discovered that the cause was not simple, and nor was the relationship between cause and effect straightforward. But the more I talked to those involved (teachers, social workers, probation officers and people employed in helping the voluntary sector) the more I discovered that when physical and emotional contact between parents and children had broken down, often the children developed a low self-esteem. They found it difficult to make relationships involving trust, they had a problem with authority and they felt angry with the world.
The result was that they turned either to behaviour which was self-destructive, such as taking drugs, or to behaviour that was destructive of others, such as being violent. The conclusion which I reached was that family policy was important and anything we as a society could do to strengthen relationships within the family to prevent such developments should be encouraged.
More recently, in connection with my involvement with the School Examinations and Assessment Council, the importance of parenting has struck me forcefully in the debate over reading. Regardless, for the present, of how reading should be taught in our schools, one factor which clearly affects a child's reading attainment is the influence of the home.
Perhaps I may quote evidence referred to in the recent National Foundation for Education Research study called Reading in Recession. It mentions the National Child Development Study dealing with seven year-old children who were born in 1958. The study found that when the child was young, factors such as whether it was living with both parents, the degree of parental interest in the child's educational progress and the pattern of employment, including unemployment or whether the mother worked, were significant in affecting the child's attainment in reading.
A study in the early 1980s of nursery schools which contrasted the use of language between children at home in conversation with their mothers and children at school in conversation with their teachers concluded:
"the home provided a more fertile environment for language learning than schools".
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A subsequent study in the late 1980s of children in Bristol concluded:
"As with other researchers who have compared the language experiences of younger children at home and in the nursery or pre-school play-group, what we have found is that compared with homes schools are not providing an environment which fosters language development".
We all know of solid research which shows a strong relationship between children's knowledge of literacy at the age of five and their subsequent development.
All this suggests to me the importance of good parenting to educational achievement. I am a strong believer in the value of introducing the national curriculum and its assessment regularly through tests and examinations. I believe that the research evidence I have just referred to shows that children will still fail to realise their full potential if their parents are not involved. Children learn when they believe they can learn. Learning depends on self-esteem and self-esteem for children is something which grows with good parenting.
Of course no parents are perfect. Many of us know our faults as parents only too well. Some of us are artful dodgers when it comes to time. But to strive towards the ideal of both parents being accessible to the child so that the child develops as a person within relationships of trust and love—the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, just reminded us of that—and on a continuous basis must surely be something which all of us in your Lordships' House would wish to encourage.
The role of parents as educators is not confined to reading. Parents pass on values and they help their children form a view of the world and of themselves. Families are cradles of civic responsibility and therefore are fundamental to the nature of our society and to the future of our society. Yet regrettably there are many factors in modern life which tend to undermine parenting or else make it more difficult. For example, rising divorce rates make continuous contact between a child and both parents that much more difficult. The trend towards both parents working outside the home means less time for building relationships within the family. My noble friend Lord Brentford reminded us of that. Television and videos are such a temptation for us as parents to use to get a quiet life. I remember that from when my children were much younger. Once again the use of television and videos means less time for building relationships within the family. I am afraid that, however unfashionable it is to make my next point, I must say that the status of mothering is something which I personally feel has been undermined by the feminist movement.
If therefore there is one result of all of these trends it is that they reduce the time available within the family for parents and children to build relationships. Earlier in this debate the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, made some interesting points about the financial concerns of families. I did not think her points were central to this debate but I should like to return to them on some future occasion.
Although I put great emphasis on values and on time within the family, I do not wish to underestimate in any way the severe adverse impact which sudden

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unemployment or a sudden rise in interest rates could have in terms of the strains such matters put on a family. However, I do not wish to make economic and financial factors dominant because the problems we now have within our families in this country have been growing over a period of 20 to 30 years, during which time prosperity has also grown. As has been said, problems in families apply right across the income range. They apply just as much to high income families as to low income families. I hope we can return to that subject later.
The second part of this Motion seeks to emphasise what is being done by voluntary societies. I believe that voluntary societies have three important strengths. First, they are in a position to emphasise people above programmes. So often in this area what parents really need is personal support and a personal relationship with someone outside the family rather than being introduced to a new programme into which they have to fit. Secondly, voluntary societies tend to be more flexible than government as they are not as bureaucratic and they can respond to changing needs more quickly. Thirdly, voluntary societies tend to tap directly into the great roots of good will and "volunteerism" which exist in our society and which are a part of our tradition that is still strong.
I have seen the benefits of those strengths of voluntary organisations at first hand as I have been involved with a charity called Cities in Schools. That charity has been set up to deal with the problem of truancy. As many truants come from a situation where family relationships are breaking down, that organisation has sought to create a surrogate structure for the family. I first came across the organisation while visiting inner city schools in Atlanta in the United States of America. The school I visited was situated on the sixth floor of a department store called Rich's which is the main department store in the city.
The school has I20 pupils, all of whom have been involved in crime and drugs. The pupils write essays and study mathematics. I asked individual children, groups of children and classes of children the same question. I asked them what the difference was between the school in the department store and the schools they had left. They all gave exactly the same response. They said the difference was that in the school they now attended the teachers really cared for them. The feeling that someone cares is an absolutely fundamental concept and it is at the heart of what good parenting is about.
In this country there are great services and societies in the voluntary sector but I wish we could have more new initiatives. Like my noble friend Lord Joseph, I hanker after the prospect of small amounts of government money being given to new initiatives such as the one in America. Perhaps the budgets of our departments of state should have a few more funds to start new initiatives. I talk about a small amount of money as I fear that if too much money were made available we would unfortunately change the nature of the voluntary sector. That sector would become more like an arm of government and it would lose its distinctive strengths.
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In conclusion I emphasise how strongly I support this Motion. The children of today will be the parents of tomorrow. Parenting is not getting easier. If the children of today are deprived, as Mia Kellner would have said, of love and security, praise and recognition, responsibility and new experiences, we as a society will reap a bitter harvest. However I do not believe we shall do so. The family is an amazingly resilient institution but it needs our support. I believe that all of us in your Lordships' House should do everything in our power to encourage parents, the voluntary sector and government to provide the funding I have referred to and, more than anything else, to raise the status of being a parent in our society.
5.58 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, that is a difficult act to follow. I congratulate the noble Lord on a brilliant speech. I also wish to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, for the fact that I was not in my place when he made his opening remarks. I had a longstanding engagement to chair a befriending group which is perhaps relevant to what we are discussing today.
This is an important subject for two reasons: first because inadequate parenting causes suffering to children and, secondly, because it is extremely damaging to the citizens and parents of the next generation. Reference has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, to the cycle of deprivation and the cycle of bad parenting which arises from the fact that one cannot learn to be a good parent unless one is taught by someone. In our society parenting has traditionally been taught at the mother's knee.
I have tried to write down the qualities of good parenting. I have noted love and security, and then I noted time in quite large letters. Unfortunately, my thunder has been stolen by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, who emphasised the importance of time. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford said in your Lordships' House a few days ago that it was very important for children to be careful in choosing their parents. It occurred to me that if I was being born today I might put in a bid for the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford.
The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, referred to the problems of children who do not have satisfactory families and particularly to the fact that they develop a low level of self-esteem, which in turn leads to disruptive behaviour and poor performance at school. They become alienated and disillusioned. That is a subject on which I have spoken previously in your Lordships' House. At the root of the problem is the fact that there is no love, no security and not enough time—and unfortunately the lack of time is a characteristic particularly of single parent families and of those where both parents go out to work. Those, together with poor role models and lack of guidance, are the factors which lead to the problems of young people who are not properly parented.
The question arises, is help possible? The answer is, yes, as many noble Lords have said today. In extreme cases there is adoption, there is fostering and there are children's homes. Considerable mention has been

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made of befriending and of outreach. The Schools Outreach movement has been referred to and I should like to say that I support that movement. I like to think of the idea as family outreach. It seems to me that outreach ought to be schools based, but reaching out to the family.
Under the Children Act local authorities are responsible in large measure for looking after children who are being inadequately parented and for children in need. I ask myself what is going wrong. According to the most recent figures that I have, in the inner city boroughs of London more than 300 children on the at risk register have not been allocated a social worker. The local authority will tell you that that is because the Government do not give them enough money. The Government will say that it is because the local authority is so inefficient that it is wasting money. I speak for the children. The children are suffering. We are grown ups and we ought to be able to sort the problem out and ensure that the children get the money to which they are entitled under the relevant legislation.
I should like to ask the noble Baroness—and I hope that she will answer in due course—what happened to the London Care Committee. I remember that when we were a young married couple my wife used to be attached to the social services and to a school. She used to go as a care committee worker to the school medicals. The doctor would pick out those children who had a problem. Mrs. James would be sent to call on the relevant parent. The drill was that one knocked on the door and said, "Mrs. So-and-so, I believe you may be entitled to free school meals". She would say, "Oh, come in and have a cup of tea". In that way one got into the house, had a look round and found out what the problem was.
As often as not it was something quite simple: little Johnny had missed five visits to the dentist because there were three other children who were younger than him and his mother did not have time to take him. In that case the care committee worker would put little Johnny into the car and take him down to the dentist. If, on the other hand, it was something more serious the matter would be referred back to the social services. Why can we not use volunteers within the social services in that way today?
Prevention is better than cure. I believe that many local authorities are simply fire fighting. They tackle problems as they come up but they are not able to get on top of the job. I look at the cost of curing rather than of preventing the problem. I was told the other day that to keep a seriously disturbed child in an institution, home or enclosed school for 365 days a year costs £55,000 if the child is likely to damage itself. To keep a child in an ordinary home for disturbed children, such as the excellent Caldecote Community Home in Kent, costs £36,000 a year. If one multiplies that by eight years it comes to a very great deal of money indeed—more than a quarter of a million pounds. That would pay for a great deal of outreach.
I believe that crèches and play schools for the under-fives are a key area, not only because children whose parents are not giving them the love and care to
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which they are entitled can be given love and care by committed adults but, almost more importantly, the problems of the families can be picked up and they can be given help.
I shall ask the noble Baroness some questions to which I hope she can give me an answer when she sums up at the end of the debate. Can she give some commitment that the Government will make a serious effort to end the ding-dong quarrel with local authorities so that children can receive the benefits to which they are entitled? Secondly, can serious consideration be given to the creation of crèches and clinics for the under-fives linked to family outreach so that family outreach workers can pick up cases where children are not being properly parented and work with the families if they are prepared to receive them. Can we also have support for outreach workers in primary schools with the same objective?
Finally, I come to an issue which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, raised, namely that of financing voluntary organisations. It is difficult to secure good staff, to provide a reasonable career structure and to justify training them when the funds which are available are often provided only on a one-year basis, and are sometimes not offered until after the beginning of the year to which they apply. There is a need for core funding for key staff of voluntary organisations.
6.7 p.m.
Lord Milverton: My Lords, there can be no doubt that the idea of what constitutes the structure of the family and the role of parents is being discussed very fully. That idea naturally recognises the fact of the one parent family.
It is important for parents to feel that they have an important role to play in the influencing and guiding of their children besides that of any other body or organisation. They would like to know that the state recognises their role and works in partnership with them rather than apart or separately from them. Naturally parents need to recognise their part and responsibility so that other bodies or organisations are able to work from the foundations laid by the parents, which surely is the most important aspect.
There is a partnership, with each having responsibility. The parents' part is a very important one and they cannot pass all responsibility on to others. One parent families are in many ways more vulnerable, with stress and strain of a different nature to that faced by two parent families. They need help in their situation just as much as two parent families. That help needs to be provided by responsible, reliable persons of integrity who listen as well as talk and do not take advantage of their position. I believe that the word "listen" is important, not only in terms of parents being willing to listen to their children but also in all areas of life. Parents who are ready to listen to their children reap great rewards. In particular when the children come to adulthood and leave home, they still wish to return on occasions to talk openly and frankly with their parents. As has been mentioned, the helpers must be able to help from a knowledge of life as well as of theory. It is no good simply thrusting

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forward theory. In putting theory across there must be with it the knowledge gained from experience. There must be a balance of practice and theory to bring about a reasonable and sensible solution. That is true for voluntary organisations and for local authorities.
As well as the traditional concept of the family there are other outlooks on the family structure which may seem strange to some and need understanding. We must be honest and frank when trying to understand how other people see different family structures. The traditional family way has perhaps faltered to some degree. That may explain why, in the past few years, the traditional family concept has taken a knock, so to speak. However, I hope and believe that the traditional family way is not completely down; some young people believe that it will soon be on the up again.
As I said, perhaps the example of the traditional way has faltered to some degree. My wife and I—she teaches and knows how youngsters think—talk to young people and recognise the impact of the tragedy of divorce. It is perhaps greater than we realise. The young see the fighting over the children, separation and divorce and so on, and say, "No thank you". As a parish priest I come across the custom of people living together, although it often happens that a man and a woman will live together for a time but then decide to get married. Perhaps they live together because they fear a tragedy similar to what has happened in so many traditional marriages.
The qualities of the true parent are those necessary in life as a whole. If those qualities are shown in the parents, no doubt they will appear in the children throughout their life: it radiates from the family out to life, to school, to clubs, to institutions and to the different careers and professions to which those children will go. Parents who hold together in trust and love passed on to the children are an essential part of the structure of life. Values and standards mature with knowledge and understanding through members of a family listening to one another as well as talking. That is one of the greatest joys: families listening and talking to one another.
The house may he made of brick and stone, a woman, a man and children living in it as a family. But it is not just a place where young and old happen to sleep and live. It is a place where real communication takes place between the different ages. As I said, parents give by listening to the children as well as speaking firmly to them. In families where parents simply tell and do not listen, the results can be seen. Where there are no signs of parents being willing to listen the results are evident.
The vast depth of responsibility that parents carry in bringing up and caring for children cannot be underestimated. I am pleased to have heard the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. I agree with him. It is heartening to note that there are signs of a return of the natural way of a family, if I may so describe it. It is the natural way that we have been given by God—the instincts of care, compassion and love given to one another. That is coming back: a man and a woman take the loving plunge to commit themselves to one another. I believe
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that young people who see that want it. Basically, deep down in all young people, I believe that that is what they wish.
We are indebted to my noble friend Lord Joseph for introducing this subject. I hope that Her Majesty's Government, as I am sure they will, are able to find a way to further the hopes and ideals which have been expressed. There are parents who need help and encouragement. We thank God for those parents who bring up a family without any help. We are grateful to my noble friend for giving us the opportunity to discuss the matter.
6.18 p.m.
Viscount Cross: My Lords, I must apologise to your Lordships for not having put down my name in good time on the list of speakers. Clearly, I was not very well brought up or I should have done better. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, for initiating the debate.
Bringing up children is very important. It is of particular importance up to the age of about six, because how children are brought up affects them for the rest of their lives. Far be it from me to suggest how parents should bring up their children. But as the debate is on that subject I venture to offer a few thoughts which have proved efficacious in years gone by. Above all, treat children as though they were grown up; talk to them all the time in language that they can understand; and tell them all you know about everything. They will then be off to a flying start. Have some very strict rules but, without spoiling them, give them lots of treats and lots of affection. There is nothing that they will not do for you.
I recognise that my contribution to the debate has been an extremely small one. I shall say no more.
6.20 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, we on this side of the House are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, for introducing the debate on this subject. I begin by expressing my appreciation of the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate. There has been much emphasis in the debate on Christian values. I do not decry those. However, I am sure that noble Lords will also appreciate that there are other ethical and religious systems which provide a framework within which it is possible responsibly to bring up children. I see that the right reverend Prelate nods and appreciates that point.
Although not contained within the terms of the Motion, I believe that there is concern about an apparent growth of juvenile delinquency and juvenile crime. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, made reference to that. There is certainly a belief that society is a much less safe place than it once was, and that if that state of affairs is to be remedied we have to try to ensure that a decent respect for what are regarded as civilised values is engendered early in life—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Joseph.
We on this side of the House are also anxious to ensure that we live in a safer, kinder society. It is often poorer, older people who feel most threatened by

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delinquency in the young, as anyone who has knowledge of the more rundown estates and poorer areas can testify. However, there is sometimes a tendency to put the responsibility for poor parenting almost entirely on the parents. Clearly, in an ideal world everyone would grow up in a loving and supportive family. But we have to take into account changes in perceptions. As has already been indicated, one in three marriages now ends in divorce; and there has been a growth in the number of single parent families, mostly headed by women.
In its recent report, the Social Security Advisory Committee states that in 1990–91 the number of single parent families claiming income support rose to 0.8 million, an increase of 4 per cent. over the previous year. Of those, over half were divorced or separated and over half had at least one child under five. Only about 23,000 lone parents were working between 16 to 24 hours a week.
The committee states that, while it supports the underlying principle of the Government's paper, Children Come First—that both parents should be responsible for the financial support of their children —the clear majority of the committee was concerned about those women who do not name the absent parent, in particular for fear of violence to themselves or to their children. The Social Security Advisory Committee is pleased, as we are, that the Government have extended the good cause provision for failing to name the absent parent from what was originally proposed. Nevertheless, some anxieties remain and the committee states that it will continue to take a keen interest in the way in which the proposals are implemented. So also should we.
The degree to which poverty and deprivation play a role in rendering successful parenting impossible has been emphasised frequently in the debate. I wish to stress it again. The Child Poverty Action Group, an active organisation in the voluntary sphere, recently produced an interesting report entitled Hardship Britain. What makes it exceptional among academic studies of deprivation is the fact that the Family Service Unit and Bradford University asked people on the receiving end about their experiences of the poverty culture.
There is no doubt that the restrictions associated with a lack of money can make people feel trapped. Choice is a factor that they cannot even consider. Many of the respondents in the survey spoke about their guilt feelings because they could not give their children what they thought they ought to have. They did not refer just to food and clothing but to entertainment and, for the younger children, toys. Many said that the worst thing about being "on the social" was "watching the children go without". Shortage of money had a special impact on the self esteem of parents. Often they regarded being a good parent as of overriding value. That was sometimes judged by how much they could give the child in material terms. It was intensely distressing when they could not afford to give the children what they believed they needed.
The report comments that it may be easy for better
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off parents to dismiss the material side of parenting, but the claimants involved could not do so however much they wished to. Many mentioned the awful feeling of guilt about having to say no to children. They felt that they had failed in some way. Typical comments were, "I can't buy enough things. It makes me so desperate because I can't do anything about it". Many were like the lone parent who said, "I don't want my kids to suffer because I'm on the social. I feel awful when other kids' dads are working". Parents did not want their children to be singled out at school because they did not have decent clothes or could not afford school trips. In the survey some parents had got into debt trying to meet those needs and had become caught in a debt cycle. Pressures upon women were particularly strong since women were more likely than men to associate their own sense of self worth with how they provided for and brought up their children. Some mothers' self sacrifice in the quest to be "good mothers" while lacking material resources led them to submerge their own physical and mental needs.
Many lone parents in the survey, and in others which have been undertaken, indicated that they wished to work if employment could be found for them that enabled them to earn money to look after their children and at the same time to feel confident that the children were being properly cared for while they were at work. As my noble friend Lady Blackstone has said, the UK tends to lag behind other EC countries in that respect. Local authorities no longer appear to be in a position to provide facilities on the scale required, while workplace nurseries are still relatively uncommon. Charges for child care, where it exists, are frequently too high for those women trapped in low-paid work. There are signs that public and government attitudes to the provision of such facilities are changing but progress is still too slow.
I make these points in the debate because for the vast majority of even very poor people good parenting is perceived as an aim. They feel guilty if they are unable to provide it in accordance with the standards that they have set themselves. A good deal of the available evidence suggests that unemployment, in particular long-term unemployment, has a devastating effect upon general health and upon family relationships. The strains and tensions involved are sometimes responsible for an atmosphere in which growing children in particular feel rejected.
We have already debated in this House the Social Security Advisory Committee report to which I have made reference. Anxiety has been voiced at the paragraphs relating to 16 and 17 year-olds. There has been a disturbing increase in the number of very young people sleeping rough on our streets. The Government's social policy appears to be based on the belief that most young people, even up to the age of 25, can live at home with parents in a supportive family environment. We now know that that is by no means always the case. Indeed, in very poor families —some noble Lords have already referred to this—young people may actually be encouraged to leave, in particular in households where there has been a partnership change resulting in step parents. The

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Social Security Advisory Committee made specific recommendations to try to deal with that situation. They include the suggestion of a review of current procedures for 16 and 17 year-olds claiming severe hardship. I very much hope that the Government will take those recommendations seriously and will act upon them.
I raise those issues in the context of the debate because, although it is clear that many voluntary organisations can and do assist to improve parenting, some of the problems which have arisen recently and which have attracted much publicity have occurred in areas and among families where there has been deprivation. Assistance can of course be given to lone parents and others facing difficulties—for example, through help with budgeting and with making social security claims. Counselling can be and is provided in regard to the care and upbringing of children. However, the social context in which that assistance is required cannot be ignored. On some "problem" housing estates, for example, the majority of the population of working age is "on the social". Facilities for children and for young people are poor or non-existent.
The causes of social deprivation have to be tackled. One of the main causes is surely the high level of unemployment, which engenders alienation, loss of self esteem, apathy and a general lack of hope. This is not an economic debate, but these issues are interwoven. In my view it is not possible to discuss good parenting or its absence without referring to them.
Of course, the causes of bad and anti-social behaviour are not to be found in social deprivation alone. Many would say that the highly individualistic social attitudes that have been encouraged during the past decade have played a part. The 1980s have been described as the "me first years". I believe that there may well have been a weakening of social cohesion as a result. Those are complex issues but they must be addressed if the needs of both parents and children are to be adequately safeguarded in the future.
Finally, I must respond to a comment that was made by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. He said that Members of these Benches believed in welfare as of right and did not care much about voluntary organisations. I give no ground to anyone in support for voluntary organisations. I have long been a member of the council of the Save the Children Fund. But, yes, we on this side of the House believe in welfare as of right and we do not believe that there is any reason why we should apologise for that.
6.31 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Education (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, I too congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his excellent maiden speech. I enjoyed in particular the mini-biography given by my noble friend Lord Elton and now I know a little more about the right reverend Prelate. I also enjoyed the moving tribute made by my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach. I speak for the whole House in saying that we look forward to hearing a great deal more from the right reverend Prelate.
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Excellent speeches have been made on all sides. The debate has been not only interesting but important. The subject is complex and could take a great deal more of our time. There is no way in which I can do it full justice. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Joseph for giving us the opportunity to debate the important issue. I believe that I speak for the whole House in saying that we recognise the contribution he has made to the concern for young people and the effectiveness of parenting generally.
The Government recognise the importance of the family and the effectiveness of parenting. What is good parenting? Consistent love and discipline, firm guidance in values and behaviour are essential elements. That provides the framework within which children develop. For all too many children that is not their experience. A wholesome family life and good parenting is one of the greatest challenges of our time.
The speech of my noble friend Lord Joseph was directed at the voluntary sector as much as to government. I wish to concentrate on that. We would welcome constructive suggestions for the greater involvement of voluntary organisations and will do all that we can to create a climate in which the voluntary sector can flourish. Indeed, we have gone a long way down that road in government at both national and local level. The requirement is structurally built into the way in which our local social services departments work together with the voluntary sector to provide services to their communities.
Education has a key role in providing support to parents in bringing up their children. It can convey the right messages and inculcate the right values. And because it can do that parents must be encouraged to be interested and involved in the education of their children. That point was well made by my noble friend Lord Griffiths. If they are, education should reflect their priorities and beliefs, support them in their difficult task of bringing up their children and ensure that the classroom complements the family home.
Government can clearly do much. We can create the conditions under which good parents and responsible citizenship can flourish, but we cannot, nor should we, relieve parents of their responsibilities. However, we do recognise that, sadly, there is an increasing number of children who for one reason or another do not receive support from home and for whom school is the only anchor in their lives. It is the only place where they can receive a set of values and a moral framework in which they can learn and grow. That is why I believe that what government do, and what the other partners in education do, is of such vital importance and why we all have a part to play. That includes the Church and, as was said by my noble friend Lord Gisborough, there is also a responsibility on the media.
That view underpins much of Government policy: it aims to ensure that young people are adequately prepared to undertake the duties and responsibilities of marriage and family life and, as my noble friend has stressed, fully to understand that the responsibilities of parenthood are not to be taken lightly.

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Section 1 of the Education Reform Act 1988 requires that the curriculum as a whole for all maintained schools should promote the:
"spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society"
and prepare young people for the,
"opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life".
These complementary elements are essential for adult relationships, marriage and parenthood. This House consistently re-emphasises those points.
The promotion of family life is included in the national curriculum. Others may be included by schools in their programmes of religious, personal, social and health education or sex education. Some aspects of religious education and sex education in schools leaves a great deal to be desired. They were the subject of recent debates in this House.
Beyond the statutory requirements, it is for governing bodies to determine schools' policies on sex education. Giving governors this responsibility ensures that schools are accountable to their pupils' parents for what is provided and that these parents have the opportunity to influence governors' decisions.
All those responsible for providing sex education in the school—governors and teachers—must do so in such a way as to bring home to young people the moral dimension and the prime importance of the family. That applies equally to those elements specified within the national curriculum. Last week I watched the hour-long television programme "Female Parts". I was thoroughly depressed by the fact that there was a prolific discussion about sex but almost no hint of the moral framework within which that subject should be discussed.
The National Curriculum Council has recommended that family life education should be a key component of schools' programmes of personal and social education. NCC guidance documents on health education and education for citizenship have been issued to all maintained schools in England. Both give significant consideration to the content of family life education and ways of integrating it into the curriculum.
Curriculum guidance No. 5, dealing with health education, advises that the principal objective of family life education is:
"that pupils understand and value the central role of the family as an institution and the important part it plays in the development of attachment, love and concern".
It suggests that pupils aged seven years and above should begin to understand what is meant by "relationships" within families, between friends and in the community, to understand the meaning of friendship and loyalty and begin to develop the skills needed to form relationships.
Curriculum guidance No. 8, dealing with education for citizenship, suggests that areas of study in family life education might include a study of family life-cycles and an understanding of:
"the importance of the family for physical and spiritual well-being, parenthood and child development, the fulfilment of emotional and physical needs".
Other measures are designed to develop positive attitudes, self-confidence and responsibility in all
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children as a preparation for adult life. I outline three of these. First, all Members of this House would surely agree that regular school attendance is essential for an effective education. Parents have a duty in law to ensure that their children of compulsory school age attend school regularly. But is is more than that; they must help their children to develop a positive attitude to school and to learning in general. It is a sad fact that parentally-condoned unjustified absence remains a serious problem. We must break out of this cycle, which has disadvantaged successive generations of children.
The Government have taken action on truancy but the onus must rest—as it always has and always will —with individual parents to encourage their children to pay proper attention to their studies. Only by inculcating such attitudes into the present generation of schoolchildren can we hope to influence the parents of tomorrow.
Secondly, it is surely beyond doubt that effective learning can only take place in an orderly atmosphere. The committee of inquiry led by my noble friend Lord Elton considered the issue of school discipline in the admirable report Discipline in Schools which remains essential reading. A full chapter was devoted to the crucial part that parents play in shaping the attitudes that produce sustained good behaviour in schools. Again, that point was emphasised by my noble friend Lady Carnegy.
Thirdly, each person must have positive attitudes towards work and the responsibility that it brings. The schools also bear a responsibility here: an orderly atmosphere in school; a firm yet fair framework of discipline; a moral and spiritual ethos; a readiness to distinguish between right and wrong; what is desirable and undesirable behaviour and what is moral and amoral; and the determination to develop within children the ability to learn and to help them take advantage of the national curriculum. These things more than anything will equip children, both those from supportive homes but more especially those children who do not enjoy the support at home, to take their place in the community as responsible adults.
The Motion before your Lordships is very much in line with the basic philosophy behind the Children Act 1989. That legislation strikes a balance between family autonomy and the rights of children. The Act holds the welfare of all children to be paramount, and makes major changes to the private law relating to children. It introduces the concept of parental responsibility to replace that of "parental rights and duties" and emphasises the obligations of the parents' role. The Act recognises that parents are the best people to bring up their children and that the family is the natural environment for children. Our aim is to provide a secure future for children. That can be achieved if parents, courts, voluntary organisations and central government work together.
Where it is necessary, local authorities should provide services to help parents to bring up their children in the home and these services should be provided in partnership with families. Local authorities must identify children in need in their area and

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publicise the services they offer to support the families of those children. They must also set up a representations and complaints procedure with an independent element for those dissatisfied with the services provided.
Over 90 per cent. of children aged from two to five are to be found in organised education or under-five provision. They are at an early stage in the development of those social skills on which the success of their future learning will depend. The benefits of that provision may be deep and long-lasting, both in aiding the social and cognitive development of the children and in supporting the efforts of parents to bring them up well.
One strength of that provision lies in its variety. This country has brought together in an exceptional manner the strengths of the public, private and voluntary sectors and there has been notable growth over the last decade across the settings.
A good working relationship between provider and parents is one mark of effectiveness across the various settings. It has been given particular emphasis in the playgroup movement. The work of the Pre-School Playgroups Association is based on the belief that parents are the main educators of their children. By involving parents in all aspects of the management of groups and by special courses the PPA seeks to enable parents to fulfil that role.
The Government recognise the need to secure high standards of day care. That is why the Children Act secures conditions for the registration of day care providers and childminders. It is also why a former Secretary of State set up the Rumbold Committee to look at ways of improving provision for the under-fives. Its report Starting with Quality underlined the place of an educational component within good day care. Further research has been commissioned to do with the quality of care for the under-fives.
The role of the voluntary sector is crucial in any consideration of parenting. I have mentioned already the work of the Pre-School Playgroups Association. However, the actions of voluntary bodies complement those of local authority social services departments and they play a particularly important role in the area of advice, counselling, and befriending. Voluntary bodies are particularly attractive to those parents who may he reluctant to make a formal approach to local authorities for support and assistance.
The Department of Health funds many voluntary bodies on a regular basis, including funding to voluntary organisations for training in the Children Act. In addition, the department provides grants for specific projects and from time to time launches specific initiatives.
Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Griffiths at this point that his idea about being more innovative and trying out other ideas is one which I shall certainly take back to my colleagues in the department.
The Government are very willing to consider any specific proposals which might be stimulated by today's debate or which might arise from the Rowntree Foundation study of family support options to which my noble friend referred.
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We are addressing the issue of special educational needs for children and we shall soon be issuing a consultative paper. We shall also be producing a white paper later this year which will build on the Education Reform Act 1988. I believe that in education we have the framework in place. Through the Children Act, and with the encouragement of the voluntary sector, I believe that the support systems are also in place.
This Government's policies run across many other departments; for example, the Department of Health has targeted aid to enhance child care and support; the Department of Social Security targets its financial help, and will increasingly so on those most needy; the Department of Employment is concerned with the advice and training of young people; and the Home Office is a lead department on protection measures for young people—for example, the tackling of drug and solvent abuse.
My noble friend Lord Joseph referred to Home-Start, a voluntary body working in the private sector in an excellent way. It has done some really practical work. That work is extremely valuable. That was an innovation of Margaret Harrison, whom I have met. She is an exceptional and extremely impressive young lady. She started in a small way in Leicestershire and her work continues.
My noble friend Lord Joseph mentioned also the issue of the introduction of transferable tax allowances. In 1986 a Green Paper was issued on the reform of personal taxation. That considered a proposal to allow the full transfer of personal allowances. However, the Government concluded at that time that there was not enough support to enable them to go ahead with such a far-reaching reform. The present rules for the married couple's allowance were designed to ensure that a husband's total allowances did not fall with the introduction of independent taxation and that a married couple would enjoy the same total allowances, whichever partner had the highest income. As a way of targeting families with children, the proposal for transferable allowances is not particularly well aimed; for example, that would also benefit childless one-earner couples.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said that she would like more support to be given to organisations giving advice on marital breakdown. At national and local levels funds are being given to advice services. Indeed, the Home Office provides core funding to five major voluntary marriage guidance organisations to support the training of counsellors. The counselling is to help couples avoid marital breakdown and, if that is not possible, to reduce hostility and to encourage continuing co-operation as regards the children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, was anxious also about the level of child benefit. We are committed to increasing the current value of child benefit each year in line with prices. That will continue to be paid to all families in respect of all children. However, that is only one of the comprehensive range of benefits which can help families with children, particularly needy families with children.
As regards the National Stepfamily Association—an association with which I am familiar—the Department of Health gives core funding to that

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association. That is to be reviewed again in March 1993. It is also to be funded for a development project under the Family Support Initiative promoting services to children in need.
The right reverend Prelate referred to the importance of Government support for voluntary projects and services for the family. As I said, the Department of Health funds many voluntary bodies on a regular basis. In the financial year 1990–91 we provided £250,000 to voluntary organisations for training in the Children Act. In addition, we provide grants for specific projects and from time to time launch specific initiatives. An example of that was the Family Support Initiative. The department will spend £1.5 million over the next three years, starting this financial year, on the development of services for children in need within their families by funding projects operated by voluntary organisations which are original and innovative and which promote the use of the voluntary sector by local authorities in that field.
Lord Elton: My Lords, before my noble friend leaves the question of funding, will she take on board what my noble friend Lord Caldecote and other noble Lords said about the difficulties of being unsure of funding in advance and, if possible, the desirability of having rolling funding for a number of years rather than one? It makes the most enormous difference to the way in which charities are run.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend has pre-empted me. I was coming to that later, but I am happy to deal with it now. It is an important issue. Indeed, my own local authority seized on this point some time ago. It has taken a view about certain voluntary organisations. My noble friend Lady Faithfull is right. One has to be certain that they are achieving the mutual objectives of both the local authority and the voluntary organisations. We went on to a three-year rolling programme of core funding for those voluntary organisations which were deemed to be important to us.
I now move to the points raised by my noble friend Lord Elton. He was concerned about cross-curricula themes and thought that they might be squeezed out by the statutory curriculum. Schools are necessarily giving priority to the implementation of the statutory orders in the core and foundation subjects of the national curriculum. However, there is absolutely no intention to downgrade cross-curricula themes which are in fact delivered mainly through those core and foundation subjects. My noble friend knows that religious education, sex education and moral and spiritual education are just some examples of that.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, and my noble friend Lady Carnegie, referred to the Scottish Law Commission. As I understand it, the commission's proposal is about stopping excessive and unreasonable punishment of children. In England and Wales the law already forbids any punishment which goes beyond the reasonable or involves abuse and cruelty. Of course, it is very much for the courts to decide what is reasonable or unreasonable.
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My noble friend Lady Carnegie of Lour was concerned about the publicising of help available to parents. Again, the Children Act requires local authorities to promote and publicise family support services including those provided by other agencies, which includes voluntary organisations. I can assure my noble friend that the Department of Health is also monitoring that aspect.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, was concerned about the preparation for parenthood—a very important matter. Again, in addition to parenting being addressed in personal and social education in many schools, the parentcraft classes are included in ante-natal programmes. It is interesting that parents who have had one child seldom attend the parenthood classes when having their next or subsequent children. That is a pity. Fathers are encouraged to attend the classes. Many of the classes are held at times more convenient to parents. All new mothers should receive copies of Health Education Association publications which include advice on how to care for new babies and young children.
The size of that challenge was brought home to me yesterday. I was told about a young boy talking to another. He said that he had four different fathers to his four different brothers. The other young boy, who came from a very supportive home, found that very confusing and could not understand it. The young boy said, "My mum gets bored with my dads and they have to go and she gets another one". That is the size of the task we are facing when we consider the issue of parenting.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and some noble Lords were concerned about flexible working arrangements. The Government take every opportunity to encourage employers to consider adopting flexible working arrangements. It makes sound business sense. Career breaks, flexible hours, job sharing, homeworking, and, where appropriate, assistance with child care help to enable employers to tap the full potential of their workforce.
My noble friend Lord Caldecote took us back to what I call the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s. He referred to the era of education when discipline was lax in schools and education lacked structure. For too many children the basic subjects were not always studied throughout the school years. There is possibly some correlation between that and the parents of today. Many of the problems that we have now concern parents who were children in schools at that time. I hope that those days are behind us. There is much more structure in the curriculum and there is very definitely a "back to basics" as regards subjects.
Reference was also made to outside sporting and recreational charities. That point was very well taken. I have dealt with the long-term funding. My noble friend Lord Gisborough said that we should help lone parents on low incomes with additional costs. I say to him that there is extra help for lone parents who wish to work. They are being given higher disregards and better tax allowances. They may claim additional personal allowances. Under the Children Act local

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authorities must provide day care for children. I believe that over £100 million has been spent this year by local authorities on day care for these children.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, asked what had happened to the London Care Committee. I have no idea. I am advised by all the worthy people in the Box that they have no idea either. I shall go back to the drawing hoard on that matter and write to the noble Lord. He also pleaded with us to improve relationships with local authorities, in the interests of children. I can give him an absolute assurance that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health is doing great work in that respect. There was also an appeal for crèches and facilities for the under-fives. Again, much work is being done on that front. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, also appealed for outreach workers in primary schools. I shall take that message back to my honourable friends.
My noble friend Lord Griffiths mentioned innovative ideas in his excellent speech and said that we should be looking around to find out where the best ones are and do something about them. I promise my noble friend that I shall do that.
It was Mrs. Thatcher, whom we shall soon welcome as a full Member of this House, who once said that there is no such thing as society. I believe that is right. Society is only the sum of its parts. If society is anything, it is an amalgam of individuals. If one uses the rotten apple in the barrel analogy, society is no different. The more that individuals are amoral and lack respect for people and property, the less wholesome society will be. However, the more that individuals are moral, spiritual, self-disciplined and have respect for people and property, then the more wholesome and healthy society will be. If we are successful that must be the aim for our young people. If we are successful then I believe that better parenting will follow.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Joseph: My Lords, we must be grateful to the Minister for devoting nearly half an hour to commenting on all the speeches. I, for one, shall read with great care what she said. Her voice, as Shakespeare made King Lear comment on Cordelia, was gentle, which is a commendable thing in woman. But until the very last peroration of my noble friend I could not hear everything she said. As I say, there is much for us to study.
The debate has revealed a great deal of common ground on both sides of the House. I express my gratitude to all noble Lords who have spoken. Every speech has been sensitive, constructive, deeply felt and sincere. It is invidious to pick out particular speeches. However, I know that I am entitled by the practice of the House to mention the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate. I believe that the whole House found its communal heart warmed by what he said and how he said it. I hope that we shall have many more similar speeches from him.
There were notable speeches from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and my noble friends Lady Faithfull and Lady Strange. They managed to make us not only
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feel and reflect, but also laugh. If, of all the notable speeches that have been made, I mention especially those of my noble friends Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach, Lord Elton and Lord Caldecote, that is in no way to denigrate the speeches of any other noble Lords.
As regards the noble Baronesses, Lady Blackstone and Lady Turner, I am not in the least surprised that they took the opportunity to point out some related economic factors. There are many occasions on which we can discuss, debate and argue those issues. But the Motion is intended to focus on the voluntary services. That is why, for the first time recently, I followed a Commons practice and intervened in the noble Baroness's speech.
One factor about the voluntary services was mentioned several times, although I do not think that it received enough emphasis. I refer to the practice of the voluntary services identifying newly emerging needs and pioneering practices which the Government often follow for dealing with them.
The problem of funding has been common ground. It is a paradox that just as the issue is raised, the Audit Commission deluges us with evidence of waste in the public services. Surely it is common ground to ask the Government to find ways in which some of the savings to be made by following up the Audit Commission's appraisal can be devoted to enabling the voluntary services to be even more effective. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Young Offenders
7.1 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans for improving the treatment of young offenders.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am happy to think that I shall be followed immediately and throughout the debate by a considerable list of highly expert speakers. I am glad also that we shall not lack spiritual guidance. I do not say that such guidance will come only from the Episcopal Benches, but it will certainly come from there.
Perhaps the House will expect me to explain who I am talking about in the phrase "young offenders". I am referring to two groups—to young adults who are presently aged between 17 and 21, and to juveniles who are aged between 10 and 16. When the Criminal Justice Act comes into force in October, 17 year-olds will be transferred from the first group to the second, and the juvenile court will become a youth court. However, I am considering the situation as we find it today.
The House does not need me to stress the seriousness of this discussion. Many of your Lordships will be aware that crime in general doubled between 1979 and 1991. But perhaps not so many of your Lordships will be aware that 47 per cent. of the offenders were under 21 in 1989, the last year for which the official figures are available—or, at any rate, available to me.
The House has debated penal questions many many times since the war. We have touched on the issue of young offenders in many debates, including the notable one that was initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on 9th June this year. I cannot, however, trace any debate that was devoted exclusively to young offenders. I am sure that everyone will agree that it is high time that we had such a discussion. It is long overdue.
A number of us in this House have criticised the existing penal arrangements again and again and again. We have said that far too many people are sent to prison and that when they are there, they are not treated in a way that is worthy of a Christian country. I shall not go over that general ground again today. As I have said, I shall deal with young offenders specifically. Although it would be a profitable topic on which to do so, I shall not spend time today on the question of why there is a general and prevalent idea that young offenders should be treated better than older offenders when they commit the same crime. I have said that there is an idea that young offenders should be treated better than older offenders. There is also a widespread idea that young offenders are treated better than older offenders, but that can hardly be said to be the case for young adults—that is, those between the ages of 17 and 21.
I have visited the young offenders' institution at Feltham twice in the past few weeks. The governor is a man of wide experience and much insight. I asked him whether the conditions not only in his particular young offenders' institution but in young offenders' institutions generally could in any sense whatsoever be said to be better than those in comparable adult institutions. He said no, that it was impossible to say that the young people were treated better. Indeed, he has allowed me to say something rather stronger than that. I should now like to quote the words of the present governor of Feltham, who has stated:
"It is my belief that with the developments within the Prison Service we have actually thrown the baby out with the bath water. We have lost the all-important vision for change which formed the core of the young offenders system".
No doubt he was thinking of the old borstal philosophy. He continued:
"In spite of the new legislation, we have now created prisons for young people which have neither vision nor a soul, and we are in danger of producing nothing but warehouses for young people".
Those words should go on record as the considered opinion, which he asked me to quote, of the governor of a young offenders' institution who has exceptionally wide experience.
At the moment I am dealing with the theory that young people should in some way be treated better than adults. It has long been recognised in theory that young people are more sensitive to both good and bad treatment. There is also a general view among the public that young people are less reprehensible than their elders when they commit the same crime. Although those views are widely held and one would like to think that they are given effect to, they are not given effect to at present.
However, I shall not strike too depressing a note tonight because, as the House may be aware—the
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experts gathered here will certainly know this, but perhaps not everyone who reads Hansard—there has been a very remarkable reduction in the number of young people, and particularly juveniles under the age of 17, held in penal custody in recent years. As I said earlier, we so-called "penal reformers" have bela-boured the Government times without number because of the large and increasing number of people held in prison in recent years.
One must give credit to the Government in so far as they deserve it and, on the face of it, credit must, indeed, be given to them for the part that they have played in reducing the number of young people in custody in what are called the "Thatcherite years". to which reference was made in an earlier debate more enthusiastically than I should make it. However, we must not congratulate ourselves too soon because my next figures may not he so widely known. In the Home Office Statistical Bulletin of 28th May 1992—only the other day—it is estimated that the sentenced adult male population is projected to rise from 28,500 in 1991 to 35,000 by the year 2000. That point does not concern us immediately. However, the population of sentenced male young offenders is projected to rise until by the year 2000 it will be 6,400, compared with 5,700 in 1991.
If those projections are correct—and they have been issued officially on behalf of the Home Office —the decline in the number of young people in penal custody will not continue. In fact, it will be reversed and the number of young people in custody will increase. No one can be sure whether those projections will prove to be correct—one hopes that they will not —but at any rate the House should be made aware of them.
NACRO, which is well known to all of us, has played a leading part in promoting from outside the reduction of penal custody for young people. I give full credit to NACRO. It has been considering in a number of documents the possibility of a further reduction in the custody of young people. Its clearest recommendation is as follows:
"The Government should raise the minimum age at which the young person should he sentenced to detention in a penal institution from 15 to 16 years".
It would mean that 15 year-olds would no longer go to a penal institution. That is the clear recommendation of NACRO and it is supported by the Howard League and other bodies interested in penal reform.
NACRO wishes the possibility to be explored of keeping all young offenders under 18 out of penal custody. That would mean that 15 year-olds, 16 year-olds and 17 year-olds would all be excluded from young offender institutions, of which Feltham is just one example. The Government have accepted that 15 and 16 year-olds should not be held in penal custody on remand and they are following up that policy in various ways, which I welcome.
I have a number of questions to put to the Government of which I have given them full notice. Perhaps I may say how happy I am that the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, is handling this debate. As I may have remarked before, he cannot do better than consult his uncle, Mr. David Astor, who is doing more

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for penal reform than any other private individual. I hope that the noble Viscount has not neglected his guidance.
My first question is as follows. How far do the Government accept, at any rate as aspirations, the proposals put forward by NACRO? I should add that the numbers are not large in the case of 15 and 16 year-olds. According to my figures, which may be superseded by any figures that the noble Viscount can produce—but not by much I suppose—the number of 15 year-olds in custody is 109 and the number of 16 year-olds is 246. The numbers become a good deal larger if 17 year-olds, who, on my figures, number 1,225, are included. I should like to know what the Government propose to do about the 15, 16 and 17 year-olds who now go to penal custody.
But that is, in a sense—although I support it—a negative policy. It is a minimum requirement but it is in a sense negative. It is deciding not to do something damaging to these young people which is being done now. The more interesting question and, intellectually, the more difficult question is: what is to be done to these young people who now go to penal custody? During my recent visit to the governor of Feltham, news came through that three boys of 15 had just been convicted of raping a girl of 13. I do not know whether they did or did not go to Feltham, but it seemed likely that they would. Under the policy which I and others are advocating, they would not go to penal custody. However, they would have to go somewhere. I do not think anyone is saying "Go, and sin no more". The question arises of what to do with people who commit very serious crimes but who do not go to penal custody.
I know that many extraordinary cases come up, but on 11th June I read about a young man of 26 who had just been given a life sentence for raping and strangling a young woman. When he was 15 he began his misbehaviour. He was put under supervision for a number of indecent assaults. Even with hindsight it is not easy to say what should have been done when he was 15. It is part of my thesis that he should not have been sent to any kind of prison. But what should have been done with him? As this is the first debate that we have ever had on this question I think one is entitled to raise such questions. At any rate we have to think hard about what to do with people who commit terrible crimes at that age.
I shall take a less extreme case because I accept the point that there may not be many cases like that. I was sitting in a magistrates' court hearing juvenile cases the other day. A humane atmosphere prevailed and the young offenders were called by their Christian names. There was a most enlightened atmosphere. A young man of 16—a boy of 16—had been convicted of stealing on this and a number of other occasions. The magistrates were anxious to do all they could in his best interests. They withdrew and were out of the court for a long time. I had plenty of time to talk to the social workers involved. They nodded their heads rather sadly and said, "It looks like custody this time". It was not custody, as a matter of fact. It turned out
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that the magistrates decided to give him another chance and he was going to come back in a month's time.
Let us suppose that it had been custody. He was 16 and had committed a number of offences. What could be done? I may be told that there are local government secure units. I have visited several of those. Noble Lords may say that there are highly specialised youth treatment centres. There are only two of them, with about 30 young people in each. At any rate places exist where people can be sent. But let us not suppose that we are not talking about custody. When we talk of custody we use the word in a very ambiguous way. It is custody if one is put in a secure unit. One cannot go out and about. Whether it is run by local government or the Department of Health, it is still custody. Whatever word one uses, enlightened people—I am not authorised to speak on their behalf but I know quite a number of them—will be inclined to say that, as long as the young people concerned are cared for by qualified social workers, they will be better looked after than they would be in prison, if only because the qualified social worker, whether he is a probation officer or a local government social worker, has two years' training whereas the prison officer has only a few weeks' training. There is a presumption that fully qualified social workers will be better able to care for these people than prison officers. In some cases—certainly in the case of youth treatment centres—the ratio of staff is very much higher. So it may be the case that they will get much better treatment there.
I should like to make one point in passing. In the residential homes, which I was prevented from discussing when I was taken ill in February, the vast majority of staff are unqualified. We must be careful that wherever young people go they are looked after by qualified social workers.
That is one main issue that I want to raise. I am sorry to complicate the discussion but I have become attracted by the view that these alternative forms of custody, as I insist on calling them, can best be provided by the probation service. I leave that issue and the whole question of what they call intensive probation for the moment. I repeat that I believe that, for those who are too young to go to penal custody, the future should lie more with the probation service than with local government staff.
However, I have a second question for the Government of which, again, the noble Viscount has had notice. If we are talking about these enlightened institutions to which such young people who are spared penal custody should go—we are not talking about very large numbers—someone will have to build them and some resources will have to be devoted to them. Is the noble Viscount prepared for the Government to put up the resources to enable these more enlightened facilities to come into existence?
I shall return briefly to another topic. I am so pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is taking part in tonight's debate. However, I must say a word about intermediate treatment. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to tell us much more as he has played a very large part in the whole movement. I have visited a number of the centres. I think that the noble Lord will

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agree that it is impossible to generalise about them. There is such an enormous variety of them. At any rate, in the ones that I have visited it would be wrong to think that they are primarily intended for people who have been found guilty of offences and who are sent there by the courts. I visited one which was devoted entirely to offenders. But others are also devoted to all sorts of different people. It is possible that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will raise the question of the Government's attitude to the intermediate centres. So far as I can make out, the Government have cut off their supplies. Therefore, one would like to know something about that. However, I shall leave the topic of intermediate treatment to the noble Lord.
It may be said that we do not want people to go into any institutions at all. Certainly many progressively-minded individuals want to keep people out of all institutions, whether penal, local government or anything else. For example, the distinguished chairman of the Howard League, Mr. Andrew Rutherford, has set out to teach us that in the end most young people grow out of their offending, or their delinquency, and that we must do everything we can to look after them in the community. I entirely agree with that view in broad principle as an aspiration, but I must leave it to others to discuss the question of how far you can really avoid sending young offenders to institutions of any kind.
I see that I have now been speaking for a long time; indeed, it is a long time since I spoke for so long. My limit is usually about five minutes. However, before I close, I shall say a few words about young offender institutions. In 1989 there were still over 9,000 young people housed in them. The Chief Inspector of Prisons made fairly scathing remarks about the kind of regime which exists in such institutions. He recently published an interim report on one particular young offender institution —namely, Feltham—which, as I mentioned earlier, I recently visited more than once. He was pretty scathing about the situation there. In passing, I should like to point out that newspapers which try to present a horrific picture of places like Feltham may think that they are doing a good turn to someone. But they must realise that they can exaggerate—as, indeed, they do on occasions—the painfulness of the situation. They cause untold distress to the staff and the families involved.
However, be that as it may, let us take the example of Feltham, which is very much in the news with several suicides having taken place in the fairly recent past, three of them in the remand wing. Three-fifths of the prisoners are housed in that wing and there is no doubt that a very unpleasant life is led by most people who are sent there. One problem is bullying. It was only recently that it occurred to me—although it is a fairly obvious point if one thinks about it—that bullying is likely to be worse in young offender institutions than in adult prisons. Therefore, when we talk about trying to make life better in young offender institutions, we must realise that, in that respect, it is likely to be worse and more frightening to the timid and weak.
The governor at Feltham recently set up a special unit to deal with bullies. Of course, I do not know what happens to the bullies when they are closeted together; perhaps they bully each other or die of inanition. At any rate, the special unit has been set up and surveillance cameras have been installed, and so on. So the authorities are trying to cope with the situation. I should like to pay tribute to what the governor and his staff are trying to do throughout the prison. I have in mind one particular unit, the Nightingale Unit. I could dwell on that subject had I not already spoken for 24 minutes. I could of course speak for a further 24 minutes and other people may speak for 24 minutes on the Albatross Unit.
Great work is being done in those places but the governor of Feltham is no magician. He cannot do anything in a very big way to improve conditions unless he is given more resources. He has publicly, and more than once, called for another 40 staff. Are the Government prepared to make it possible to live up to their protestations—protestations that we have all made at one time or another—to the effect that young offenders ought to be treated better than adults?
Despite my lengthy disquisition, I have left out almost as many subjects as I have touched upon. One example is the whole question of women. There are also the issues that were discussed in the recent debate relating to the treatment of 16 and 17 year-olds and, in a general way, topics such as the restrictions on social security, lack of training and many others. However, I hope that I have said enough to launch this first debate. The central point to ask ourselves is whether we are prepared to let things go on now with conditions in some of the young offender institutions which are probably more unpleasant than in any adult prison. Are we prepared to do something really important about the situation?
7.27 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, when I was catapulted by the invasion of the Falkland Islands into the Home Office, almost the first task I had to perform—and it appeared to be required of me within a matter of hours rather than days—was to reply to a Question tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, on the entire condition and future of the prison service. It is a great pleasure to follow him many years later and to acknowledge the persistent and beneficial effect that his kindly inquiries have had on the custodial system in this country.
There is much to be done. The noble Earl draws our attention to a starkly worrying aspect. After all, it is many years since the death penalty was abolished for even the most serious crimes. Yet the suicide figures of which he has just reminded us mean that in some individual cases people are dying in custody as a result of committing much less serious crimes. That is the most stark way of emphasising my concern which flows from three years' responsibility in the prison service and which resulted in a determination to spend my spare time trying to keep people out of prison; hence my interest in this evening's debate.
Under those circumstances it seems to me that three things need to be done. The first is to reduce the use

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of custodial sentences not only in young offender cases but in all cases. As regards young offenders, that was accomplished by legislation some 10 years ago. Consequently, there is now a statutory requirement on any court to consider every possible disposal for all age ranges before it gives a custodial sentence; indeed, the decision has to be recorded.
Next we need to intervene to prevent offending before it takes place. The noble Earl has referred to part of the spectrum of treatment that now comes under the not very descriptive name of intermediate treatment designed for that purpose. I think he spoke as if he was expecting to find only offenders. It is intended now for potential offenders, those at risk of offending as well. There was in fact the beginnings of reference to this in the debate which has just concluded. In that debate we were discussing parenthood, the necessity of good parenthood, the need to provide assistance through voluntary agencies for families under pressure where parenthood has broken down and that when the chain by which good moral, ethical and behavioural standards are passed down from one generation to another has been broken in one way or another it is then necessary to repair the chain.
Offending can be prevented by intervention at various stages in a person's life. In a recent inquiry into discipline in schools which I chaired in 1988 it became clear that behaviour of pupils in school had an affinity with their behaviour in society as a whole. There was an urgent necessity to establish good disciplinary systems in schools in order to obtain the good behaviour in social terms of the pupils attending the schools as well as to protect their academic achievements.
That is work for both the academic and the administrative staff of schools. There is work there for the dinner ladies and for the school caretakers as well as for the academic staff. There is also room for work by voluntary agencies. As that has been fully covered in the last debate, I would merely urge the noble Earl and the Government to read it.
I shall now pass on to what has to be done next, and that is to see that where there is an offence and where there is a sentence that the sentence is not purely retributive but that it is rehabilitative. Until lately we were allowed to talk about alternatives to custody because we saw ourselves being in the position of providing for the Bench or for the court a disposal which was not a custodial disposal but which had the intention of correcting the misconduct of the person concerned.
It began, I believe—and I shall listen with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as a prime mover of this—as describing that which was intermediate between a fine and custody. It is now a variety of provisions designed to afford for people who have committed offences an experience which will make it less likely that they will offend again. This is very often achieved by introducing them to something which they have not actually experienced earlier in their lives, which is work for a defined purpose within an understood framework of discipline and under the personal supervision of a caring adult with very few
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other offenders under his care. That is another way of saying that they are introduced for the first time to an ordered life in an atmosphere which in younger years one would have called loving and which in their years one would call affectionate but firm.
This is a method which can be found in many guises. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, is quite right to say that there is no single word to embrace them, except that they are all designed to divert the individual either from offending or from re-offending. It is on the theme of diversion that the intermediate treatment movement focuses.
The noble Earl has suggested that he would like this effort to rest in the hands of the probation service. I give full credit to the excellence of that service, its dedication, its experience and its wide extent. But it has two disadvantages under which the voluntary sector does not labour. The first is that it has an inelastic number of people working for it constrained by finance. The people who do probation work are probation officers, full stop. The people who do voluntary work use varying amounts of their time and come with a myriad of different specialisms and experiences to bring to the myriad different cases with which they have to deal.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene. I certainly was not suggesting that all voluntary work—all youth work, for example, and everything that tries to help young people—should be taken over by the probation service. But I had better not say any more. I have talked enough this evening already.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Earl is one of the few Members of your Lordships' House of whom I can honestly say that I do not actually mind if he talks too long, but I exonerate him of any such charge. The advantage of the voluntary sector that I am seeking to stress is first of all that it has an enormous range of skills and a very large number of people who will work part time. Therefore the range of skills is extended. The other point is that it is not part of the system. If one is a probation officer, one is part of the system; if one is an educational social worker, one is part of the system; if one is a school attendance officer, one is part of the system. That applies also to a school teacher, a policeman or a magistrate. But a voluntary worker is not.
The people that we are talking about, the offenders we wish to divert from offending, have usually reached the condition where they regard the system as the enemy—something to be resisted, outwitted and not in any way to be co-operated with. So the voluntary worker has an enormous initial advantage in being able to come forward and say, "Look, I am here as your friend. I am not prejudiced and I am not committed against you. I am not paid by people who in another uniform would lock you up, keep you from home in detention or whatever". Those are two considerable advantages.
The difficulty that the charitable organisations are always under and always will be under is that of funding. If they are fully funded by government they will eventually be seen as an arm of government and

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able to be discounted as an arm of government. Further, the skills that one wishes them to apply are not the skills of fund-raising. They are the skills of negotiation, supervision, control, sympathy etc. — whatever is needed in the case.
In the last debate—again I shall not repeat it because your Lordships can read it and I hope that you will—there were three interesting inventions, one of them by my noble friend Lady Faithfull, who I see has the temerity to speak twice on one day, and another by my noble friend Lord Caldecote, who does not. Other noble Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in particular, referred to the great difficulty that voluntary organisations have in acquiring funding for their own management. It is relatively—not very but relatively—easy to go to the great charitable trusts and foundations and say, "We are doing great work. We wish to pass on your money to this organisation or to that organisation", or a whole range of efforts, and to get that money. But if one asks for even a small proportion of it to be devoted to the central expense of that effort, then almost as one they draw back in horror and say "Not So".
I speak with a little experience of this subject as chairman of what is now called the Intermediate Treatment Fund of which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, can speak with greater authority than I. It was set up in 1979 to act as a voluntary arm, but an arm of government in the sense that it was funded by government, to discover, assist, encourage and impart grant aid to a large number of small local voluntary organisations for the purpose of intermediate treatment which I have already described. It is operating still, but the Government have seen it as an arm of government. It was funded by the Department of Health, and the department regards it as no longer an area of priority. It is true that custodial sentences for juvenile offenders have diminished enormously over the past 10 years. That body also receives substantial funding from the Football Trust, which is one of the great charitable foundations of which I spoke and which is prepared to provide grant for distribution but not grant for central management.
The case I am making on behalf not just of the Intermediate Treatment Fund but of all voluntary bodies which are now available to the Home Office in its new revision of policy for the partnership in the treatment of offenders in the community is that the Government should be aware that the core funding of those bodies is a valuable investment for them. If it is not available, the cost of dealing with young offenders will be great. I believe that I am right when I say that the cost of keeping a non-violent young person in custody is in the order of £36,000 a year. Multiplying up figures of that order shows what an enormous cost to society the custodial treatment of offending is and what an enormous saving there is in prevention or finding an alternative to custodial treatment.
The body of which I have knowledge (the Intermediate Treatment Fund) recently carried out an exercise to see how effective had been the grant it had given to other bodies. It discovered, before it stopped
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going through the figures, that the other bodies said that they had been able to raise a minimum of £5 for every £1 of government money which the fund had passed to them. That must be a good investment. If it is directed at keeping people out of prisons, it is not just a good investment for the Government in economic terms, it is a humane one.
I have spoken, as I said, relatively briefly and informally on a subject which is close to my heart. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will pass on to the Home Office the central message that I am anxious he should take to it, which is that there are considerable diverse resources available to it in the voluntary sector provided that they are prepared to tap into them. Those organisations are anxious to help provided that they can have the minimal support necessary to enable them to function as the aides and lieutenants of government in achieving their overall policy of the reduction of crime and custody. As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has said, that must be a lasting aim of great priority.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I too thank the noble Earl for putting down a Question on this important subject. I wish that I could also feel grateful to him, which I am afraid I do not, for persuading me to speak. I nearly used the words "twisting my arm", but that would not look too good in Hansard. I thank him also for his generous remarks. I am conscious of being increasingly out of date. I am conscious too, looking at the list of speakers and after listening to the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that there is a wealth of knowledge and experience tonight which makes anything I have to say more or less superfluous. I speak because of my abiding respect and admiration for the noble Earl and his continuing interest in, and care for, young people in particular.
The noble Earl's Question is widely drawn. It can include all young offenders under the age of 21, as he pointed out. I propose to limit my remarks to the lower age bracket, partly because those of 17 and over are now catered for as regards the Government's intentions in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 which will become operative on 1st October. My main reason for speaking about young offenders is that they are giving rise to such anxiety. As all in the Chamber know, the age of criminal offending has now slipped down to 10 and even below. At that period in their lives most of them have not yet entered the criminal justice system. It is vitally important and highly desirable that they should not do so.
I shall speak about non-custodial measures. I shall follow the lead of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and speak briefly about intermediate treatment as it exists in the community. I understood that the noble Earl intended to make some critical remarks about schemes that he had seen or heard about on his travels: he has not done so. It is true that around the country community-based schemes for young offenders and those at risk of offending vary in quality and content. I should like to give a reassuring report—a contrary impression—about intermediate treatment, as I found it, as president of the Rainer Foundation and

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chairman of the Intermediate Treatment Fund between 1978, when the intermediate treatment scheme was first launched, and my departure in 1985.
I know from the reports of those two bodies that the facts, as I and my colleagues then found them, are still true today. The Intermediate Treatment Fund, of which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is now the distinguished chairman, made grants annually to more than 100 projects out of a much larger number of applications for support. I assure your Lordships that our criteria were strict and clear: the programme had to be relevant, realistic, constructive, and adequately supervised. Members of the staff monitored the schemes that we grant aided, and the staff, the chairman, and several members of the committee, travelled widely to see some of the schemes. That policy has been continuing.
I know that the Minister is considering the future of the Intermediate Treatment Fund. I can tell him that, unlike some who are critical, we found most schemes that we saw most impressive and the degree of local co-operation most heartening. Can the Minister confirm that the Intermediate Treatment Fund has set high standards, has improved inter-agency cooperation, and has drawn in a great deal of help from individual members of the public as volunteers and, because of that, has built good relationships between young offenders and those at risk and private citizens who have befriended and guided them? Those are the main attributes and values of intermediate treatment.
Particularly impressive in my time were some of the schemes set up after 1983 by the DHSS under Circular LAC 83/3 to deal with the more serious young offenders—intensive intermediate treatment, as it was called. It may be helpful to mention one such scheme in Basingstoke, pioneered by the Rainer Foundation which I visited several times. Its success was such that it was adopted by the probation service in Hampshire for wider application throughout the county. The county has now been characterised as a "custody-free zone" for 14 to 16 year-old offenders. In the criminal statistics for 1988 I noted that schemes in Surrey and Birmingham—two dissimilar areas—resulted in falls of between 35 per cent. and 45 per cent. in their crime rates of young offenders going through the intensive intermediate treatment.
A further question I wish to put is whether such intensive IT schemes which numbered over a 100 in 1983 and onwards are still widely available following the end in 1988 of the £15 million grant which set them up. Can the noble Viscount also confirm that the schemes have done much to increase the confidence of the courts in the probation and social services?
I wish to say a word about the content of the IT schemes. Home Office Circular 42/83 stipulated that supervised activities should provide,
"a wide variety of recreational, educational and socially valuable activities".
A notable feature of those now on offer is the great diversity of the interests for which they cater. Among them I select two which have proved particularly popular and have provided effective results. The first category consists of activities with an element of adventure which appeals to the spirit of daring among
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many young people, particularly boys. That in turn accounts for much juvenile crime. Such is the importance that I attach to this element in human nature that I believe that opportunities should be created through our education and training programmes, as well as in leisure provision, for every young person in the United Kingdom to experience adventure in one form or another as part of outdoor education and training programmes.
Intermediate treatment also includes motor projects which are designed to deal with car-related crimes. As people probably know, car-related crime now accounts for nearly one-third of all reported crime. Such is the success of the schemes that there is now a National Association of Motor Projects, established by the police, to which a growing number of projects are linked. From my own observations, they capture the enthusiasm and imagination of young tearaways who have an absolute obsession with driving away cars.
A survey in 1988 by the Home Office standing conference on crime prevention showed that in that year, of 4,500 participants in motor schemes fewer than 100 committed offences during the period of training. The Home Office has designated 1992, I understand, as "Car Crime Prevention Year". Can the noble Viscount confirm that the schemes make a useful contribution to the drive against car crimes?
Prevention was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. It is an appropriate note on which to conclude my speech. It is obvious, but the point needs constant repetition, that there is a necessity to prevent young people offending in the first instance and entering the criminal justice system if they do offend. Police cautioning has long been normal practice for under 14 year-olds and has been used increasingly in recent years for the 14 to 16 year-old offenders with considerable success. Seventy per cent. of those cautioned do not re-offend.
However, there appears to be a good deal of disparity among local authority areas in the practice of cautioning. For example, figures for 1988 show that Staffordshire cautioned only 28 per cent. of 14 to 16 year-old young offenders whereas neighbouring Northamptonshire cautioned 82 per cent. Can the noble Viscount tell the House whether such disparities have since been reduced? It is obvious that they should be.
I have been impressed by the use of what is termed "cautioning-plus" or "extended cautioning". It means that the police officer giving a caution encourages the young offender to consider taking part in one or other of the wide range of activities which are provided in his or her neighbourhood. Volunteer agencies, working in collaboration with the police, follow this up by making contacts, if possible with the support of parents. Such agencies now exist in a number of places. I have personal contact with two in the North East. In the city of Sunderland, for example, there has been an encouraging drop in juvenile re-offending of 21 per cent. among those who took part in activities from 1985 to 1989. That is twice as big a reduction in juvenile crime as for the whole of Northumberland.

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Home Office Circulars 14/85 and 50/90 encourage the extension of cautioning among the 17 to 20 year-old age group, hitherto used only sparingly by the police. Can the Minister say whether this is now on the increase?
My approach to crime among young people is correctional rather than punitive. It is all too easy to be swayed by emotion and put the emphasis on punishment. Of course there have to be exceptions for some serious young offenders of the kind mentioned by the noble Earl. I believe profoundly however that programmes of activities in which young people are encouraged or required to take pain under supervision —whether through IT or other community orders—should be introduced with the accent on their interest and usefulness rather than on punishment. Those activities can and should make demands on the participants. But the more that young offenders are enabled to take part, along with other non-offending groups, and can become integrated into the local community without being labelled offenders, the more likely they are to grow out of crime and change for the better.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I wish to congratulate the noble Earl who made a distinguished speech and who has attracted two speakers from the previous debate, which was in many ways akin to this. It was gallant of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to speak in both debates: they add lustre to this one.
Two speeches on intermediate treatment from the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Hunt, complemented each other in such a way that I need do no more than congratulate both on their speeches. I have a close interest in IT and all measures to prevent young people going to prison or to divert them from coming before the courts. Those speakers have put the case for intermediate treatment in such powerful terms that I shall not comment further on it.
I wish to compliment the Government on the Criminal Justice Act 1991. Significant changes were made in that Act, equalled only by the changes made in the 1948 provision. That 1991 Act is not yet in force and it will come into force in October. I believe the new youth court will be one of the great engines for change. As has already been said, the court will, for the first time, deal with 17 year-olds, but it is the philosophy behind the court that is so important. There is to be a new emphasis on tougher community sentences and on rehabilitation in probation orders. It is explicitly designed and implicitly the intention of the Act that its provisions should result in a reduction of custody for the young. That is warmly to be welcomed and the Government are much to be congratulated on that.
The working of the youth court will need careful monitoring and evaluation and could well provide material for making further progress in non-custodial disposals by the courts. A further reduction in pressure on young offenders' institutions could be achieved, as the noble Earl has said, by ending the
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sentencing of 15 year-olds to prison service custody. I strongly support that proposal and hope that the successful working of the 1991 Act will mean that custodial sentences will diminish in number and therefore that the pressures upon young offenders' institutions will be that much less. However, that cannot take place unless there is sufficient space in local authority secure units for the small hard core of 14 to 17 year-olds who cannot be released as they constitute a danger to the public. The noble Earl gave graphic examples of the kind of young person who clearly has to be held. I would hope that such a person would be held in secure units rather than in prison custody.
Will the Government consider the construction of far more local authority secure units for young people who can be much better treated by local authorities through the probation and social services than they can be in a young offenders' institution? My proposal would result in better treatment for young people and would relieve pressure on the young offenders' institutions so the latter could deploy a more constructive regime and, for instance, guard against the horrifying bullying and "taxing" that we hear about, and offer far more in the way of preparation for release. That relief, together with the extra staff asked for by Feltham and no doubt by other young offenders' institutions, would go a long way towards curing the ills which have been singled out in the commissioners' short report on Feltham.
Ideally and in the long run I believe that young offenders' institutions should themselves be phased out and ultimately closed. Even in the best of them young offenders have a 70 per cent. or higher rate of return to crime after two years from their date of release. Alas, that is a measure of their success. What is to be put in their place? I place my faith in the development of much of the philosophy behind the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and the youth court. Treatment, and where necessary custody, should be above all local and preferably in the hands of the probation service and social services. I would add that intermediate treatment has a great part to play in treating those young people who can safely be given non-custodial sentences.
I do not believe the noble Lords, Lord Elton or Lord Hunt, mentioned my next point. Magistrates very much want an increase in the number of IT centres where young people can be sent for non-custodial, disciplined treatment.
I wish to say a few words now about persistent young offenders. I shall go right back to 1953, as this problem has been with us for a long time but little has been done about it. Many Home Office statistical bulletins have been mentioned. I wish to refer to Home Office Statistical Bulletin 35/85 entitled Criminal Careers of those born in 1953: Persistent Offenders and Desistence. That is the first time I have come across the word "desistence" but I believe its meaning is clear. The bulletin shows that a majority of the offences committed in 1953 were committed by a small number of young offenders. Those young offenders are clearly an important group who deserve study. Such research as has been carried out on that

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group in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s has been done mostly in the United States. It suggests that such offenders should be treated in the community using community resources.
First, the treatment should specifically concern their offending behaviour and should help offenders to develop models of other ways of organising their lives and solving their problems. Secondly, the treatment should concentrate on developing good relationships, based on trust, between the offenders and those working with them. Thirdly, offenders should be taught personal and social skills. I do not think I need elaborate on those skills. Fourthly, there should be restitution and community service to help young people reintegrate into their communities. They need to recognise the wrongs they have done to individuals and to society.
Fifthly, there should be family intervention, where there is a family, and parents should be taught methods of dealing with their child's offending behaviour. Sixthly, there should be job training or studies leading to work.
I am sure that a whole range of responses is needed for these persistent young offenders. Different methods are effective with different offenders. However, I have given a range of methods that should be tried. I hope they would succeed. I hope those suggestions will be taken seriously by the Home Office. The paper of 1953 I have just referred to was taken seriously at the time and many years have passed since then. I believe strongly that that paper's contents should he reconsidered.
Those studies—mainly American—have indicated that approaches aimed primarily at deterrence appear to be relatively ineffective in reducing subsequent delinquent and criminal behaviour in young people. Of course, in dealing with persistent young offenders, as one would expect, the wider social environment is relevant. It is young people who live in the most deprived areas, with few facilities and little chance of employment, who are most likely to be at risk and become persistent offenders.
Noble Lords will recognise that many of those methods of treatment are just the ones which prison governors in young offender institutions want to carry out, and they are the ones which are being carried out at Feltham in the Nightingale Wing. However, the success of treatment far from home in a prison environment and frequently interrupted because ill-resourced is a wan hope. In another environment, in the community, such treatment might succeed. Let us try it, if only by means of an experiment in the first instance.
8.11 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I join with others in thanking the noble Earl for initiating the debate. I speak in the debate in order to seek information. The Unstarred Question asks whether Her Majesty's Government have any plans for improving the treatment of young offenders. I asked the noble Earl what he meant by young offenders and whether he meant young people up to the age of 18 or the age of 21. He told me that it was up to 21, and he mentioned
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that in his speech. Therefore, I should like to work backwards and talk about the 17-to-2l age group, with particular reference to joyriders and football hooligans.
Research has been undertaken at Leicester University which shows, strangely, that joyriders and football hooligans do not come from a socially deprived background. They have money; they have jobs. Indeed, how could the football hooligans go to Sweden if they did not have money and jobs? If they do not have jobs, where do they get the money to go to Sweden?
We have to consider whether those offenders form a separate group or whether our earlier methods of treatment have failed. It is extraordinary and somewhat worrying, but I am told that there is a network; that the offences are not spontaneous but are well thought out. I was not in Liverpool when the joyriding broke out there but I am told that notices appeared on lampposts indicating that it was to take place that night. That means that a plan had been prepared by gangs or groups of young people. Equally, I am told, and I have not been able to prove it, that football hooliganism occurs on a network basis.
Who initiates the networks? Who is running the networks? In Oxford, where I come from, the main joyriding episodes did not occur in poor areas. They were carried out on the Blackbird Leys estate where there is only 5 per cent. unemployment. The estate has a swimming bath and two leisure centres, playing fields, a church and a health centre and the houses are very well built. One asks whether those are isolated phenomena in society or are linked to the fact that we still do not have the right treatment. I ask the noble Viscount whether research has been conducted on individual cases of joyriding and football hooliganism which are brought before the courts to show whether they are isolated incidents or are linked to the failure of our earlier systems.
Turning to the earlier systems, I fully support those noble Lords who have already spoken on the question of treatment in the community. Some people seem to think that treatment in the community is a soft option. Properly run, as it often is, it is not a soft option, as I believe the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Henderson, will agree. I have had some involvement with intermediate treatments run, for example, by Barnardos. They are not soft options. The young people live at home but they have to follow a strict programme in the evenings after work or after school. They also have counselling, which some of them have found difficult.
I heard a speech at a Howard League meeting in the House of Commons by the American author of a recently published book. In his area institutions have been closed and programmes in the community have been introduced for extremely difficult cases. However, perhaps in this country we have not reached that stage. I know that very good work is done at Glenthorne, St. Charles, Aycliffe and Feltham. I congratulate those four institutions on their work. However, I agree that we should work towards treatment in the community.

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Looking back at one's own youth one remembers that on Saturday afternoons practically everyone played games and formed gangs to play football, cricket etc. In our schools and our education system are we helping young people to use their leisure time? A great deal is said about the curriculum, but what about leisure time? How much is that taught in schools? It is sad that so many of our schools have no playgrounds and have no games in the curriculum.
I make this very short speech to ask my noble friend the Minister what research has been done into joyriding and football hooliganism and into whether they reflect badly on our earlier form of treatment or are separate problems.
8.18 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I too thank the noble Earl for introducing this interesting debate. Other noble Lords have spoken with great authority on the subject and I shall therefore not take up much of your Lordships' time.
The previous debate has already been mentioned. It was very much to the point in bringing out the need for parental responsibility and family security and the mutual support to be gained from that. That is necessary to prevent young people from wrongdoing and to reduce the pressure on our penal system.
Perhaps I may digress for a moment to tell your Lordships that I was unable to listen to the whole of that debate because I was taking part in your Lordships' yacht club's race against the yacht club of the other place. It was not a great event; it was fairly short, but I am glad to say that I crewed for the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, who was first over the line. It would be a very good thing if some form of sailing and boatwork could be introduced as a therapy for all young people. Being on the water induces a great sense of self-control and responsibility. It would be good if that could be introduced.
As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, it is wrong to put 15 year-olds in prison. They are subject to enough pressures at home already. It would also be both expensive and unconstructive. Moreover, they are subject to bullying and taxing, which is a new subject that I had not heard of before. I understand that it is the closest thing to fagging at Eton—something which I did not go through myself. Undoubtedly it is more vicious than that system, but much the same.
There is obviously an important need for segregation both by age and between new remands and "old lag" remands, let alone convicted prisoners. I recognise the valuable work that is being done at Feltham, although I do not think it is universally praised. I should be very glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, how progress as a privatised prison is being made at Everthorpe, or the Wolds, as I believe it is called now.
The courses that are introduced need to be wide-ranging in skills and particularly the three Rs. There is not enough educational input into the courses that are run and perhaps much more emphasis should be put on that. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson,
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mentioned the necessary requirements that should be put in place for training. However, he did not say where those training routines should be put in hand.
There is here the possibility for positive reform, which I have mentioned in this House on previous occasions, on much the same principle as the training programmes that exist at the moment. It can weed out those who are convicted and ready to reform themselves from that body of hardened criminals who expect to do time. There could be regular courses in all the fields already described and discussed.
The point is that the proposed sentence of the court could be reduced by half or even three-quarters, say from two years to six months, so long as the individual accepted the responsibility to take part in a remedial programme. It would be voluntary. The penalty for absconding would be that the original sentence would be reimposed. The threat of reimposing the original sentence would perhaps be salutary and to a large degree remove the necessary security, barbed wire and guarded gates. This point may be a little away from the point at issue for the remand prisoner, the short-term inmates; but it is an alternative for the 15 to 18 year-olds sentenced to prison for whatever reason.
Community work is the standard stand-by as an alternative. However, it is extremely difficult to monitor. I understand that 800 new probation officers are to be introduced following the implementation of the 1991 Act, but will that be enough? The work of probation officers is incredibly difficult. They work under very difficult circumstances and are dedicated and devoted people. But they find it extremely difficult to be effective. They certainly have their work cut out to make sure that their charges are gainfully employed or at school or whatever.
We have a great responsibility in respect of young citizens who come from damaged homes and live in various forms of insecurity, becoming involved in crime. Many of them may be hardened criminals but there are others to whom we owe a great duty—those who are young and first offenders who need our help. We have a duty to them to repair the damage of the broken home and other factors which have caused their offence. I urge the noble Viscount on the Front Bench to pursue these reform activities to the best of his ability.
8.25 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: My Lords, like other noble Lords I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for tabling this Question and introducing the subject in such a clear and compassionate way. I, too, pay tribute to his long involvement in this field and all that he has achieved.
I believe that in recent years there have been some improvements in the treatment of young offenders. A non-custodial approach, particularly to juvenile offenders, has brought about a marked improvement, so that the number of receptions into prison service custody for sentenced juvenile offenders fell by 70 per cent. between 1981 and 1989; from over 7,500 to just over 2,000.

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There are a number of reasons for that fall, but chief among them perhaps has been the recognition of the limitations and disadvantages of a custodial response in terms of reform or rehabilitation, particularly where the young are concerned. At the same time there has been a recognition of the advantages of dealing with offenders in the community wherever possible. Community methods have both reduced reoffending and offered adequate levels of public protection. By comparison, reoffending rates after prison custody have remained high and there has been steadily increasing concern about the conditions in which young people are held in custody.
Common sense would lead us to expect that. Common sense would lead us to think that if young people are held in custody with those who are rather older than themselves they might well be initiated into what one might term a criminal culture. By contrast, if they are treated within the community it is more likely that they will be encouraged to become responsible members of that community. That is consistent with the view expressed in the Government's Green Paper Punishment. Custody and The Community, published in 1988, which said:
"Most young offenders grow out of crime as they become more mature and responsible. They need encouragement and help to become law-abiding. Even a short period of custody is quite likely to confirm them as criminals".
Along with other noble Lords, I should like to ask whether that process of reducing custody for young offenders can be taken further. I welcome the forthcoming implementation of Section 63 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 which abolishes the sentence of detention in a young offender institution for 14 year-olds. Nevertheless, 15 year-olds continue to be held in those institutions.
Fifteen year-olds are in many ways still children. They are open to being the objects of bullying and intimidation, without having the resources to respond or cope with such experience. I have visited young offender institutions in my diocese. I have seen the difficulties that the prison staff have in providing adequate oversight, particularly where the buildings are unsuitable. I have seen the great cross-section of youngsters that there are in those institutions. I find it not surprising that 15 year-olds find it difficult to cope; indeed, so difficult that some of them attempt and even succeed in committing suicide. Not only are those youngsters placed in situations of tremendous pressure but there is little or perhaps nothing to be gained by placing them there. They are not diverted from criminal activity. Indeed, they are more likely to be initiated further into such activity.
One may even ask: have their offences merited such a sentence? Of the 428 15 year-olds committed to custody in 1990, 81 per cent. had committed non-violent offences. It is true that 19 per cent. had committed what are termed violent or sexual offences, but none of them involved serious violence. Of those committed, 36 per cent. had committed burglary, but it seems to me that there is little point in giving those young people a sentence which is almost guaranteed to he followed by further offences. A range of non-custodial options is open for 15 year-olds. Some have already been referred to in the debate. They
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include fines, compensation orders, attendance centre orders, suspension orders and the intermediate treatment which has received such good coverage today.
I refer to one other possibility. It is the use of reparation and mediation: that is, the bringing together of offenders and victims. That too involves voluntary help. It involves voluntary counsellors being trained to handle the meeting between offender and victim. I believe that such a method needs further exploration. It is to me particularly attractive because it has a profound Christian base. It brings together those who have offended and those who have been victims and restores the relationship, through the sense of hurt being expressed on one side and of oppression on the other, with the forgiveness that can follow when those sentiments have been openly acknowledged.
I give one example from the city of Leeds in my own diocese. It involves an adult rather than a juvenile. An adult who had burgled a house at night was eventually persuaded to meet the woman whose house he had burgled. She was eventually persuaded to meet him, as a result of the work of the counsellor involved. The woman lost her temper with the young man. She exploded at him and told him just what he had done by invading her house. She told him of her sense of outrage and invasion and the profound difficulty that she now experienced in sleeping at night. Faced with the tremendous outburst of temper, he realised that he had offended against a person and that what he had done was not an impersonal act but one that had profoundly disturbed and damaged someone else. Out of that exchange there was a coming together of the two persons. I hope that the aspect of reparation will not be forgotten when we consider how best to help young people.
Over the past five years courts have increasingly used such non-custodial options. Some courts never pass custodial sentences on 15 year-olds. Should that not now be the case for all courts? Is it not right that 15 year-olds should never be sent to young offender institutions? Furthermore, should we not also consider abolishing custody sentences for 16 and 17 year-olds? Many more young people continue their education at 15 and 16. There is less expectation that they will leave school and enter the workplace at that age. To draw the line between 17 and 18 years would be consistent with the age of majority being reached at 18.
However, the proposal to abolish custody sentences for 15, 16 and 17 year-olds would involve a form of custody, as the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said. That would presumably be in what are termed local authority secure accommodation units. I believe that there is a core of young people whom it would be necessary to place in such accommodation. Young offender institutions, in common with other prisons, are served by a prison chaplaincy staff. In my experience the work of prison chaplains is often highly regarded by other members of the prison staff and by the youngsters themselves in the young offender institutions. We might wish to express the contribution that chaplains make by referring to the spiritual

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work that they undertake. But often those in the institutions speak of a humanising contribution that chaplains are able to make. They treat people as people. How is a chaplaincy service to be provided in local authority secure accommodation? If youngsters of 15 are to be sentenced to spend time in such places their need of a chaplaincy service will be as great as, if not greater than, the need of those already in young offender institutions. How will such a chaplaincy service be provided?
I make two further brief points. The first refers to the variation in sentencing which occurs in different parts of the country. I believe that on average 8 per cent. of those who are sentenced in juvenile courts are given custodial sentences. In some courts the proportion is nil. In one court the proportion is 15 per cent. Such a wide variation may be explained because of the type and content of youth crime in different areas. But in part it is surely attributable to different practices in different areas, and the way in which magistrates are encouraged to sentence. Would it not be possible to introduce some levelling of practice?
My second point has not been referred to today. It relates to the position of black offenders. I quote from the NACRO Young Offenders Committee policy paper which states,
"In 1986, over 10 per cent. of male prisoners and over 14 per cent. of female prisoners were drawn from ethnic minority communities. The statistics also showed a higher proportion of black prisoners serving longer sentences although they had substantially fewer convictions than white prisoners … The proportion of young offenders sentenced to terms in excess of 18 months who were from ethnic minorities was … 20 per cent. This over-representation cannot be explained in terms of more serious offences of offending histories … The 1991 Criminal Justice Act includes a provision whereby the Secretary of State will publish information each year to facilitate 'the performance by [persons engaged in the administration of criminal justice] of their duty to avoid discriminating against any persons on the ground of race or sex or any other improper ground"'.
I believe that there is some evidence on the figures that such discrimination continues.
Much has been achieved. I join other noble Lords in encouraging the Government to press forward with further reforms so that young people can be steered away from, rather than into, criminal activity and can become useful and contributing members of the society to which they belong.
8.37 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for having introduced the debate. I touch upon a point made by the right reverend Prelate. I should like to deal with the issue of 16 and 17 year-olds which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, and the noble Earl, Lord Longford. I want to mention a case referred to by Judge Tumim, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, in the interim report on the young offender institution remand centre at Feltham. I propose to discuss the report in detail.
The preface records that Her Majesty's Coroner to Surrey had just written to the judge following the inquest he had held on a boy of 15 who hanged himself
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recently at Feltham. Judge Tumim explained that the coroner made two points that he would report and endorse. First, the boy was sentenced to 188 days by magistrates in Norfolk. That is about 200 miles from Feltham, which was nevertheless the nearest available place for him. He received no family visits as a result. When a relative died he was too far away to attend the funeral. Then, at weekends, as a juvenile, he had only two periods of daily association, one hour in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. From 4.30 p.m. each day he was locked up and isolated for some 16 hours. That was the way we treated a child of 15 in Britain in 1991. In my view it represents a truly scandalous situation.
I ask the noble Viscount who will reply a specific question on that matter. It was dealt with by the right reverend Prelate. In the statement by the Home Secretary on the inspection report at Feltham—the point was raised directly in a number of speeches which have been made today —he repeated that the Government's aim as provided in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 was that all under-17s remanded in custody by the courts should be held in local authority secure accommodation and not in the prison system.
We all agree with that. When, specifically, will that happen? Noble Lords raised that issue on a number of occasions during the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 but secured no satisfactory answer. I should be grateful if we could be told when the local authority secure accommodation will become available.
I turn specifically to the report on Feltham compiled by the Chief Inspector of Prisons. The recent report is the result of a short inspection there. In my judgment the document was deeply disturbing. The background to that inspection can be stated briefly. A full inspection of Feltham took place in December 1988 and the report was published in June 1989. It was sharply critical. In March 1991 two inspectors paid an unannounced one-day visit to Feltham. Their main findings were that the regime had developed little since the earlier report and that there was over-reliance on the use of control and restraint techniques.
We are, therefore, in the position of discussing the third critical report on Feltham published within a period of three and a half years. I hope that on this occasion the noble Viscount will be able to reassure the House that steps have been or will be taken to deal with the various criticisms made in the reports. I further hope that we shall not have to wait for a fourth report on Feltham before those are addressed—
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene. Does the noble Lord realise that the inspectors' latest criticisms are based on anxieties expressed by the governor and the staff? They did not dig them out independently.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, if the noble Earl had contained himself he would have found that I was about to turn to that issue. It would be wrong to suggest that everything that happens at Feltham is a hideous mess—it is not. A great deal of admirable work has been done by the governor and the staff. I was about to make that point when the noble Earl

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intervened. An example of the work that has proceeded satisfactorily is that which involves boys and their families in discussions about their future.
Judge Tumim's report has identified a number of serious shortcomings in the establishment and I now propose to deal with some of them. I have given the noble Viscount notice of those issues so that he is forewarned. I am aware that the establishment contains a considerable number of volatile and criminally-sophisticated young men. However, I find it surprising that almost 3,000 adjudications took place during the first 10 months of last year. That was when the roll on the day of the inspection was 764, which was below the CNA. The report stated that there was also an excessive use of unfurnished rooms and control and restraint techniques. Those were used in more than 200 cases in 1990 and in 196 before during the time when the inspection took place. In other words, there was a greater use of those techniques last year than in the previous year. The inspectors added these significant words:
"Violent and disruptive behaviour is often associated with boredom and frustration. There is little in the current regime at Feltham to engage the interest of young men, many of whom have a low boredom threshold".
I should be grateful if the noble Viscount would give a direct answer to what is a pretty harsh judgment. What precisely is to be done to deal with that situation which was analysed by the inspectorate?
I turn to the issue of escorts and the courts. An extraordinary situation exists and I have read nothing like it in any other report. That is not to say that a similar situation does not exist elsewhere; I merely admit that I am unaware of it. I find it odd that so many productions at court do not take place at all. During the first nine months of last year no fewer than 722 inmates failed to be produced in court. Feltham was unable to accede to production orders in 590 cases. In 132 other cases it was unable to deliver prisoners even in response to court warrants. Again, I should be grateful if the noble Viscount would tell the House what is to be done in order to deal with that situation. From time to time the phrase "value for money" trips off Ministers' lips. Can the noble Viscount explain how such a situation can arise? Apart from all other considerations it is costing immense sums of public money. Let us consider all the lawyers who turn up at court assuming that their clients will arrive from Feltham. In hundreds of cases their clients do not arrive. Let us consider the hours of police time that are wasted and the effect on court officials. Why has this situation been allowed to develop? Now that it has been described in such a way, how do the Government propose to deal with it?
Furthermore, we are told that the Citizen's Charter is to be extended to all courts. I welcome that; I am not a cynic on the issue and I believe that the Citizen's Charter is a good idea. Therefore, I welcome its development in the courts. If the object of the charter is to make the system as a whole more user-friendly and to improve its quality, no doubt the noble Viscount will explain to the House how those
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admirable objectives can be related to the non-production of prisoners on such a scale. It causes great tension to many of those young men and a great deal of anxiety to their families—
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting. I must point out that the legal aid situation is also serious. Everyone is worrying about legal aid, but all those solicitors are being paid out of legal aid funds for doing nothing.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. In view of press reports about the anxieties which are being expressed by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, I hope that his department will take an interest in what has been happening at Feltham. It is clearly a matter of considerable importance.
I turn to a different issue. It was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and is of considerable concern. It is the issue of bullying. I do not believe that in that regard Feltham is unique; the problem exists in many other similar institutions. The staff told Judge Tumim's colleagues that the issue was one of their principal areas of anxiety. We read in the report that as a result of the high level of bullying some of the more frightened inmates attempted to have the minimum level of contact possible with their colleagues. Some wanted no contact at all. It must be remembered that we are talking about young men in a custodial environment. It appears to me that the matter is of serious concern. We also read that some of the young men elected to remain locked up. Others committed disciplinary offences in the hope of being segregated. A smaller group resorted to self-injury in order to be admitted into the prison hospital. I am sure we all recognise that this is a difficult matter. There are no simple solutions; I accept that. However, I should be grateful if we could be told what is to happen.
I turn now to the physical features of Feltham. The inspectors said that the positive features of the wings such as the large communal areas available for leisure activities were under-used because the population was locked up for most of the day. There were indications of vandalism, graffiti, damage to equipment; some cells were without mattress covers and others were without pillows. Outside the window there were discarded items, cell equipment, blankets and articles of clothing. The main association and minor games area in the remand wing had, said the inspectors, an uncared for look despite the fact that it was only three years old.
I fear that one could continue with that depressing analysis. The morale of the catering officers was low. There were poor working conditions. Education classes—that is, education classes for children in many cases—were cancelled regularly on a Friday because discipline staff were not available.
I believe that I have said enough to demonstrate the gravity of the report. It is true that there is one matter that I have not mentioned; that is, the issue of staffing. The governor has said on a number of occasions that Feltham is significantly understaffed. The Home Secretary in his statement on the inspectorate's report

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said that there is no immediate prospect of an increase in staff numbers. I do not believe that it is either sensible or responsible to join in that particular argument unless there is far more information available. Obviously, more staff would be welcome to the governor and could undoubtedly have an effect on the regime. But we must accept also that the number of prison officers has risen dramatically in the past 20 years. The ratio between staff and inmates has improved notably. I believe that it is for the judgment of Ministers and the Director General of the Prison Service as to how those staff should be allocated.
However, with or without those extra staff, urgent action is now needed to deal with the disturbing reports on three successive occasions by the prisons' inspectorate. We expect to hear from the noble Viscount what action the Government propose to take to deal with the problem.
8.52 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I begin by echoing the thanks which many noble Lords have expressed this evening to my noble friend Lord Longford for initiating this debate. It has been a useful airing of a very difficult and sensitive subject. The way in which intermediate treatment has figured largely in the debate has been extremely useful. When the noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam, made his contribution, initially I thought his combination of water treatment and quasi-fagging at Eton was a somewhat muscular approach, but as he went on I realised that he had positive matters in mind.
This is an extremely difficult and sensitive issue. It is difficult for the Government to know how to deal with the problem. It seems to me that the argument for removing 15 year-olds from the kind of custody to which they are now liable, if the court thinks it right, becomes almost unanswerable. I do not wish to delve into the Feltham argument on whether the governor needs more staff. But if 15 year-olds are taken out, the chances are that he will be able to manage better with the staff he has than if the 15 year-olds are left there.
I suppose that the arguments are both humanitarian and pragmatic. It is clear that many youngsters just cannot cope with the intimidation and other problems which they face in prison. Youngsters who do learn to cope with it receive an education in criminal life which stands some of them at least in all too good stead later on. The youngsters are often sent far away from their families, the very people with whom they either have to rebuild their lives or maintain a strong relationship if they are to stand any chance at all of becoming respectable, normal citizens when they come out. I echo the words of the right reverend Prelate from the Government's Green Paper. Most offenders grow out of crime as they become more mature and responsible, but even a short period in custody is quite likely to confirm them as criminals.
I wish to deal with the three specific instances of suicide, one of which has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. The first is the case of Jeffrey Horler. He was aged 15 when he was found hanging in Feltham. He came from Great Yarmouth and his
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mother could not afford to visit him because of the cost of the 200-mile journey. Feltham was the only place to which he could be sent. He had just been refused permission to attend his grandmother's funeral by the social services. A prison officer told the inquest that he had found Jeffrey sobbing in his cell when he heard that his grandmother had died. He was only 15 years and four months old. What was he doing there? He was serving a four-month prison sentence for arson and car crimes. He died alone in his cell in September 1991.
Philip Knight hanged himself in Swansea prison. He had been charged with stealing a handbag. Why was he in Swansea prison? He was in Swansea prison because there was nowhere else to put him. No appropriate place could be found for him outside the prison system. Indeed, he was there for two weeks before sentencing. This is a terrible case. How old was the child? The child was 15 years old.
Craig Walsh hanged himself in Glen Parva. He was a disturbed youth. He had been placed at Glenthorne Youth Treatment Centre for some 18 months. He absconded from the open unit at that centre and committed a robbery at knife-point against his aunt. He was arrested and spent approximately two and a half months on remand at Glen Parva. When he came to be sentenced, he was sentenced under Section 53 of the 1933 Act which, as noble Lords will know, gives the courts greater powers in relation to young offenders. There were no clear recommendations in the social inquiry report as to his disposal but it was indicated that a place at Glenthorne, which was the home at which he had been, would again become available to him. A sentence of 30 months' detention was imposed. Did he go to Glenthorne? No, my Lords. There was no room there and there was nowhere else to which he could be sent. Therefore, he went to Glen Parva, the Section 53 reception centre for the area, where at the age of 15 years he hanged himself.
I find it intolerable that children of that age should be placed in that position under that kind of pressure in this day and age. While I understand all the arguments about how difficult it is because there is no money and so on, I believe it is time that the Government accepted a definite commitment. We should be quite relaxed as regards the timetable and how long they take provided that they show a definite movement in the right direction that this House and the country can see.
I wish to make two other points. Most organisations involved with prison— and this is an interesting test—want to see an end to the practice of keeping 15 year-olds in custody. The list is a long one and it includes the Prison Officers' Association, the Association of Chief Probation Officers and the Prison Governors' Association. The Government are out of step with that consensus if they refuse to move on this point. I welcome the fact that they moved on the position of 14 year-olds, but why do they not accept that 15 year-olds should also be excluded? Fifteen year-olds cannot leave school and the minimum age for probation orders is 16. It is a strange anomaly that a 15 year-old should be considered too young to be

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put on probation because 16 is the minimum age at which a probation order can be imposed but old enough to be locked up in a penal establishment containing older, tougher and more experienced offenders up to the age of 21. That makes no sense at all.
Those of us who have listened to the debate—and in particular my noble friend Lord Longford—want and urge upon the Government to give an outward and visible sign of movement in the direction in which they have nominally accepted that they wish to move. I am afraid that the present situation is not acceptable. In Europe, the United Kingdom, after Ireland, has the highest number of young offenders under the age of 21 in custody as a proportion of the prison population. That is an indictment of our penal system and society. We look to the Government to do something about it.
9 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, like previous speakers I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for initiating this debate. As he rightly said, it is an important issue. I say to him straightaway that I took the advice that he gave me in our last debate on a similar subject. I went to see my uncle: in fact, I had dinner with him last night.
It is a commonplace to say that young people are this country's future. But it is no less true for that. We owe it to ourselves as much as to the young people who sadly become involved in crime to find the best way of dealing with them. Clearly, the response must match the seriousness of the offence and the need to protect the public. But consistent with that the objective must be to find ways of dealing with the young people which offer the greatest prospect of encouraging them to lead responsible, law-abiding lives in the future.
That has been, and continues to be, the thrust of the Government's policies towards young offenders. Before looking to the future and dealing with the noble Earl's questions, of which, with his customary courtesy, he gave me notice, I think it helpful to spend a moment summarising the very real achievements of the past decade.
Our approach has been that young offenders, and juveniles in particular, should be dealt with in the community wherever possible. To this end we have encouraged greater use of police cautioning. The proportion of juveniles and young adult offenders who are cautioned has increased substantially in recent years. There are some who say that cautioning is over done. But subsequent conviction rates—admittedly, a rather crude measure of effectiveness —are encouraging. Home Office figures show that 87 per cent. of people cautioned in 1985 were not subsequently convicted of a serious offence within two years.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that the use of cautioning for young adults has been increasing over the past two or three years. That is very welcome. Although he is not here, I can confirm his comments about the contribution of major projects. As my noble friend Lord Elton reminded us, when young people come to court the emphasis has been on avoiding
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custodial sentences wherever possible. The Government believe that custody should be used very much as a last resort. We recognise the effect custody can have on offenders. It can make them more rather than less likely to go on offending. Custody must remain available to deal with the most serious or dangerous offenders. But we believe that the great majority of young offenders can be dealt with properly in the community.
The success of these policies is clear. The number of juveniles under 17 years of age sentenced to custody fell from about 8,000 in 1981 to about 1,600 in 1990. For young adults aged 17 to 20 years the use of custodial sentences fell from about 21,500 to about 13,300 over the same period. There are a number of reasons for that drop. Not the least important is the provision, with financial help from central government, of constructive and demanding programmes for young offenders in the community. These are the intermediate treatment and intensive probation programmes to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred. He asked whether the Government will support such programmes. We have, and we shall continue to do so.
The Government fully endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Elton on the valuable contribution that the voluntary sector can make in work with young offenders in the community. In the 1980s the Government made £15 million available from the DHSS to the voluntary sector for work on intermediate treatment. The present supervision grant scheme, which is worth about £7 million in this financial year, is also channelled through the voluntary sector.
That brief historical survey sets the context for future developments, and in particular for the introduction on 1st October this year of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. That Act builds on the very real success of the 1980s. Previous criminal justice legislation introduced statutory restrictions on the use of custodial sentences for offenders under 21. That was another of the factors influencing the reduction in the use of custody for these young people. The Criminal Justice Act focuses those restrictions more closely and extends them to offenders of all ages. Under the Act, custodial sentences will be available only where they are justified by the seriousness of the offence or where they are necessary to protect the public from violent or sexual offenders. The Act enhances the role of community sentences so that they can be used to give a proportionate response to the offence without the need for courts to use custodial sentences where that is not justified by the seriousness of the offence. We expect courts to wish to make greater use of community sentences than they have in the past. The probation service has an important role to play in supervising the orders. That is one of the reasons why we are substantially increasing the number of probation officers.
The new sentencing framework applies to young people in the same way as it does to adults. But the Act gives special emphasis to dealing with young people in the community. It extends the jurisdiction of the youth court, as the juvenile court will be known in future, to

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include 17 year-olds. They will thus be subject to the special sentencing arrangements and the welfare ethos which now apply in the juvenile court. That is a significant recognition by the criminal justice system that all those under 18 years of age (the formal age of majority) should be subject to similar sentencing arrangements. Under the Act 16 and 17 year-old offenders will be treated as a coherent group. Special sentencing arrangements will apply to them. Courts will be able to select from both the adult and juvenile range of community penalties according to the stage of development of the young people. That means that a wider range of community sentences will be available for 16 and 17 year-olds than for any other group. Courts will be able to select the most suitable community penalties and thus have the greater chance of sparing the risk of an unnecessary custodial sentence. That is a measure of the importance that we attach to the avoidance of custody wherever possible in dealing with young people.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon also mentioned NACRO's proposals for the abolition of custodial sentences for 15 year-olds, and for 16 and 17 year-olds in the longer term. We always listen carefully to what NACRO says—and, indeed, to what your Lordships say on this subject—not least because very often it is the Government who have provided NACRO with the statistics which of course it uses as a stick with which to beat us. We certainly share with NACRO the objective of keeping the use of custodial sentences for juveniles to the minimum. That is why the Criminal Justice Act 1991 abolishes the sentence of detention in a young offender institution for 14 year-old boys. However, the 1991 Act is not yet in force. We must make sure that it is implemented successfully and that it works as intended. As we monitor its effect we shall be able to form a clearer view of the need for further developments.
Let me say a word about the juvenile remand arrangements, which a number of your Lordships have mentioned, including the noble Lords, Lord Henderson of Brompton and Lord Harris of Greenwich. The Government recognise the undesirability of prison remands for juveniles and are fully committed to their abolition. The 1991 Act makes the necessary provision. In future courts will be able to remand direct to local authority secure accommodation. However; this change will not take place immediately. More secure accommodation needs to be provided. We are anxious to end prison remands as soon as we possibly can. Secure accommodation is a specialised resource which takes a long time to plan and build. We are pressing on as quickly as we can but realistically we are unlikely to be in a position to end juvenile prison remands before 1995. In the interim the Act tightens the criteria for juvenile remands. Custody will be used only for those juveniles from whom the public need protection against serious harm.
Many juveniles who are convicted of the most serious offences are already held in local authority secure accommodation. The Government provide a
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100 per cent. grant for the capital cost of providing secure accommodation. The Government also provide additional secure accommodation to meet our objective of ending prison remands for 15 and 16 year-old boys.
We are taking other steps to reduce the need for custodial remands. The Government believe that greater use can be made of conditional bail for juveniles instead of custody. That is why we are making available grants for the development of juvenile bail support schemes. These schemes support juveniles in the community and are aimed at keeping remanded juveniles out of custody.
Turning to the circumstances when young offenders unfortunately have to be given custodial sentences, the Government's policy is that the regime provided should be directed toward preparing them for resettlement in the community. This is to be achieved through activities designed to promote self-discipline and a sense of responsibility and through positive relationships with members of staff. These are high purposes, and I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for recognising that. They are not easy to achieve, but in many young offender institutions the staff are enthusiastically playing their part as personal officers, getting to know the young people, who look to them for advice and help.
The Government are not complacent. We know that there are difficulties in some young offender institutions, and in particular at Feltham, where the governor and staff are working together to find ways of improving the regime. They are also taking action to control the problem of bullying, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned this evening, by installing cameras in areas that are difficult to supervise, by taking robust action when bullying is detected and by segregating the worst bullies in a separate unit. A mixture of counselling, casework and firm control will be used in the unit. But the key to the problem is good staff-prisoner relations and of course close supervision.
I fully agree with noble Lords who have said that young offenders need an active regime, and this is central to the Government's policy. This means that effective use has to be made of prison staff, who are of course an expensive resource, so that they are available to supervise activities. Governors and their area managers have been analysing their staffing arrangements against the work that they need to do so as to ensure that their staff are used in the most effective way and that when bids are made for additional staff it is clear that they are really needed.
At Feltham this analysis has been carried out particularly carefully. More staff would obviously enable more to be done but that must await decisions to be made in the public expenditure round to see what can be afforded. It is important that I pay tribute to the imaginative way in which the governor has deployed his staff so as to ensure the best possible regime within the resources available. He has put strong emphasis on teamwork and is involving the new group of prison visitors and the friends and families of inmates so as to enrich the regime and strengthen the links with the community.

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There is already an active suicide prevention management group at Feltham. In addition, the governor recognises the widespread concern about recent deaths at the establishment and has chaired a special group to identify what more can be done. The group is taking forward a range of initiatives, including a review of induction procedures and of measures to curb the incidence of bullying. Staff have been given refresher training in suicide prevention and a training pack has been produced for future use. Case conferences are held each week to manage prisoners identified as being at risk. A prison visitor scheme has been set up to support those who do not receive regular visits. Links have been made with the local branch of the Samaritans. The establishment is also continuing to develop its policy of encouraging regular contact between prisoners and their families, particularly where there is concern about the prisoner's welfare. A steering group at the prison service headquarters will review all the research on bullying. These lessons will be spread around the service.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked me about control and restraint techniques. Staff have been made aware of the importance of ensuring that control and restraint techniques are used in accordance with the prison service instructions. The governor is examining the reports of each incident where control and restraint methods have been applied so that he can be satisfied that no unauthorised use is made of these techniques. The area manager will also investigate the use of unfurnished rooms and special cells and control and restraint techniques as part of the review of his contract with the governor and will report to the director of custody.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and other noble Lords mentioned intermediate treatment. The great majority of these schemes, set up under the intensive intermediate treatment initiative, continue, most with local authority support. The schemes have certainly made a contribution to the reduction in the use of custody for juveniles over the past decade. I must endorse noble Lords' comments about the Intermediate Treatment Fund.
My noble friend Lady Faithful] asked about research into football hooliganism and joy-riding. There is a widespread body of research on the nature of crime and its causes which includes both of these, but it is all part of our general ongoing research.
The right reverend Prelate asked me about spiritual welfare in secure accommodation. We recognise the importance of the role of the chaplaincy. If there was a move to secure accommodation in place of prison service custody for convicted offenders we would need to consider how best to preserve this contribution. The right reverend Prelate also asked about secure accommodation and children's homes. The children's homes regulations require that children should be enabled to follow their religion while they are in the home. But I do not know whether there are any chaplains to any of the secure accommodation units.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked me about what is being done to reduce the number of adjudications. There has been a small reduction in the number of
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adjudications this year compared with the period mentioned by the chief inspector in his report. A study of adjudications is being conducted by the psychology department. It is hoped that this can lead to identifying any training need and the best way of tackling the problem.
The right reverend Prelate also asked about the variation of sentences. Some courts use custody more than others. That is why there is a need for consistent national standards for community sentences to be used to reduce courts' reliance on custody. The Home Office has produced draft national standards for consultation.
My noble friend Lord Clanwilliam asked me about Wolds remand prison. This is the first purpose-built remand prison. It has about 320 places and takes adult male remand and convicted prisoners. It took its first prisoners on 6th April and is building up to full capacity in September. Its current population is 150. Wolds is the first prison to have its running contracted out to the private sector under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The prison is therefore run under prison rules. Instead of standing orders and circular instructions its running is governed by a contract between the Home Secretary and Group 4 Remand Services. Copies of the operational specifications which contractors are required to meet for Wolds were placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, in order to avoid misunderstanding, Wolds is not concerned with young offenders.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Clanwilliam asked me about Wolds prison. I am attempting to answer as many questions as I am able to.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked me about the court delivery of prisoners. Feltham, like many other local prisons and remand centres, cannot meet all the requests from courts and has to make decisions according to staff availability on the day. The governor arranges productions to courts in accordance with local priority guidelines which have been agreed with the area manager: those required for the Crown Courts, those where the warrant expires on the date of production, those required on lodge warrants and production orders.
The catchment area for the over 17 year-olds at Feltham will be reduced when Woodhill opens later this summer. Woodhill will take responsibility for the St. Albans catchment area. Plans are being developed to reduce Feltham's catchment for juveniles. We wish to transfer responsibility for Devon, Cornwall and East Anglia to other establishments. A cellular vehicle has been provided for Feltham. That should aid the production of prisoners in courts in the London area.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, perhaps I may return to that very point. Does the noble Viscount realise the full extent of what he has just said— namely, over 700 inmates not produced in court? As I pointed out, there are substantial public expenditure implications involved. Has any explanation been offered to the Lord Chancellor's Department, when

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the noble and learned Lord constantly expresses concern about the costs of the legal aid bill? Surely there is a need to look again at the matter to see whether there can be dramatic reductions in this very disturbing incidence of non-production of inmates.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I have said that we are doing something about the matter. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has pointed out, it is a serious problem and one which we take seriously. We shall indeed look at it. I do not know the answer to his question about the Lord Chancellor's Department.
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But I must tell the noble Lord that it is something that we take very seriously and which we shall try to improve.
I hope that I have answered the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and those made by other speakers. It has been a most interesting debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, there is a wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject in your Lordships' House. The Government are committed to effective and humane treatment for young offenders, aimed at preventing further offending so far as is possible and encouraging their reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past nine o'clock.

  HONG KONG: VIETNAMESE MIGRANTS
  HONG KONG: VIETNAMESE MIGRANTS
  TRANSPORT COUNCIL, 22ND AND 23RD JUNE
  TRANSPORT COUNCIL, 22ND AND 23RD JUNE
  MENTALLY ILL PATIENT CARE: BUILDING DESIGN
  MENTALLY ILL PATIENT CARE: BUILDING DESIGN
  LOCAL AUTHORITY SPENDING CAPS AND CHARGES
  LOCAL AUTHORITY SPENDING CAPS AND CHARGES
  BIRMINGHAM UNITARY DEVELOPMENT PLAN
  BIRMINGHAM UNITARY DEVELOPMENT PLAN
  CORMORANT MIGRATION AND CONTROL
  CORMORANT MIGRATION AND CONTROL
  ORGANOPHOSPHATE POISONING
  ORGANOPHOSPHATE POISONING