Sitting of 18 November 1992

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

    Housing Waiting Lists
    Sir David Steel: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on current housing waiting lists held by local authorities in Scotland.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): Details of supplementary housing capital allocations to local authorities will be announced shortly. Those measures will be helpful in relieving pressure on waiting lists, although I have to say that housing waiting lists themselves are not always a reliable indicator of housing need.
    Sir David Steel: Will the Minister acknowledge that my local authorities are not alone in reporting record waiting lists, since his own Scottish Office "Statistical Bulletin", which has just been published, shows that the number of applicants under the homeless category has increased by 133 per cent. in the past 10 years? Are those figures not an affront to the conscience of Scotland? Will the Minister recognise that last week's statement is equivalent to tinkering with the housing repair problems and that what is needed is to get the unemployed building workers cracking on a house building programme?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I am delighted to be able to announce this afternoon that we are making available, this year, an additional £7·5 million to local authorities for projects to combat homelessness. Bids will be sought by 11 December and I plan to announce the distribution of those new resources before Christmas.
    The right hon. Gentleman should remember that waiting lists are not the same as the homelessness application lists returned by local authorities. Households may be on the waiting list of more than one authority. Those lists include households that wish to be rehoused at some time in the future and may include households no longer seeking accommodation. However, the right hon. Gentleman's point about homelessness is well taken. We hope to have the bids for resources in from the local authorities very soon and we shall inform them about the £7·5 million allocation straight away.
    Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Conservative Government need no lectures about out track record on Scottish housing given that, since 1979, home ownership in Scotland has risen from a paltry
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    35 per cent. to 52 per cent? Does he agree also that our fellow Scots should be congratulated on that achievement and not patronised, as they are, by the Opposition parties?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Yes; what is more, the home ownership programme will be greatly increased through the rent-to-mortgage scheme, which we are introducing in the Housing and Urban Development Bill, which will give each tenant the right to take up that option.
    Mr. McLeish: What about the homeless?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The answer lies with the £7·5 million allocation, which will help particularly with specialised bids from local authorities. When we asked in the past for such special bids, they resulted in 1,800 accommodation units for the homeless in Scotland, which was welcomed by those who worked in housing.
    Dr. Godman: How much of the £7·5 million will be allocated to Inverclyde district council? In Inverclyde, homelessness, that terrible social evil, is on the increase and many other housing problems bedevil or make miserable the lives of far, far too many of my constituents. I have asked the Minister over and over again to play the game by my constituents when it comes to housing.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: In the hon. Gentleman's district council and others, priority will be given to projects that aim to reduce the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for homeless people and help single-parent families. It goes without saying that the hon. Gentleman should ensure that all the relevant circumstances are put in the housing plan for his district authority because we shall announce provisional allocations for next year in due course.

    Water Industry
    Mr. Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the progress of his consultations about the future of the water industry in Scotland.
    Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has for privatising Scotland's water.
    Mrs. Ray Michie: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is now in a position to announce his plans for the future of the water industry in Scotland.
    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to publish his consultation document on the future of the water industry in Scotland
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang): I made a statement yesterday on the future of the water industry and have published a consultation paper.
    Mr. Wilson: Does the Secretary of State recognise that the water industry has operated for more than 100 years in the public sector in Scotland without the need for recourse to domestic disconnections? Does he accept that we are a healthier and more socially just nation as a result of the absence of those powers? Will he give an undertaking today that, whatever the other considerations about whether water is privatised, he will not change the law as a result of that consultation to make it possible for poor

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    people to have their water disconnected, with all the consequences that flow from that, which we are already seeing in England and Wales?
    Mr. Lang: I answered the hon. Gentleman's question yesterday. Disconnections do not affect the viability of the options laid out in the White Paper. The hon. Gentleman talked about the history of the water industry. Significantly, at the end of the second world war, there were more than 200 separate water authorities. It is only since 1946 that the Water (Scotland) Act has given general powers to local authorities in that matter. Gradually, the number of water authorities has been changed and the structure of the industry in Scotland has been reformed and modernised. We now face the need to make further changes and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will make a submission in response to the consultation paper.
    Mr. Wray: Will the Secretary of State tell the House that the Government put no money into Strathclyde Water? Under section 94 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, it is given a borrowing limit of £83 million and the revenue comes from meter and water charges of £94 million. The total running cost of sewerage services in Strathclyde is £86 million, the water debt is £170 million and the total debt of sewerage and water is £417 million; that means that Scottish and British taxpayers pay £66 million a year. Has not the Secretary of State for Scotland the guts to ask the Government to do exactly the same as they have done in England and Wales, by wiping off £500 million? We want a tartan dowry in Scotland, like the green dowry in England and Wales.
    Mr. Lang: The water and sewerage industries need capital for investment every year. The only time they were denied it was during the 1976–79 period of the last Labour Government, when water investment was cut by one third and sewerage capital investment was cut by half. Such vulnerability exposes the difficulty of relying on private sector funding when massive new capital investment of some £5 billion will be needed in the next 10 to 15 years. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that £5 billion should be taken from health, housing, roads, education or some other source, or will he look at the consultation paper and try to find a more positive approach to the problem?
    Mrs. Michie: I do not think that the Secretary of State has answered that question. He is threatening the people of Scotland by implying that the capital debt will be written off only if water is privatised. Does that not amount to plain blackmail?
    Mr. Lang: I do not know how the hon. Lady thinks that existing debt can be written off—it must be repaid. Although the industry needs some £600 million a year, roughly £400 million of that comes from revenues, and the remainder comes from capital. The capital expectations, which have doubled in the past four or five years, are anticipated to go on increasing in the next 10 to 15 years. That money must be found and I await the hon. Lady's submission in response to the consultation paper and her suggestions about where it can be found.
    Mr. Kirkwood: On the issue of accountability, does not the Secretary of State accept that one of the unique qualities of the existing system is that local people have the ability and the opportunity to influence the priorities of their local water and sewerage services? Some of us are
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    concerned about the priority given to legislative standards enforced from on high. It is important that customers have a chance to influence what the water organisations do in their name. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that whatever system is introduced, it will enshrine and retain that essential accountability?
    Mr. Lang: The setting of standards to which the hon. Gentleman refers is something which should be done above local level—at national and European level. It is in order to meet those standards that we are inviting public consultation on the various options for the best way forward. The degree of accountability that can be derived from the options laid out in the consultation paper varies. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will send in a submission underlining that point.
    Mr. Jenkin: I am an English Member of Parliament and my right hon. Friend will decide whether to privatise the industry in Scotland according to his consultation process—it is not so much a matter for me. However, should my right hon. Friend choose to privatise the industry, will he reassure the Scottish people that in England and Wales privatisation has led to a huge investment programme, a great improvement in water quality and improved conditions of employment for employees of the water industry?
    Mr. Lang: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling us of his experience of the industry in England and Wales. During the 20 years to 1989, investment was below £6 billion and it is expected to be more than £28 billion over the next 10 years. That shows how the resources can be found in an imaginative way.
    Mr. Adley: Without wishing to influence my right hon. Friend one way or the other—and I also declare an interest in the hotel business—may I ask him to look at that section of the legislation in England that affects infrastructure charges? Is he aware that an hotel in Leeds with which I have been associated for the past five to six years started off under the good offices of the Yorkshire water authority, which produced a quotation of £3,000 to attach the hotel to the mains? Now, the Yorkshire water company proposes to charge £208,000 for the same service. That fact does not need to influence my right hon. Friend's overall decision, but he should look carefully at the small print of anything that he introduces.
    Mr. Lang: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling us of his personal experiences with the Leeds water authority. However, I must disappoint him, as I have no responsibilities for water in England or Wales.
    Mr. John Marshall: When considering the possibility of privatising Scottish water services, as most Conservative Members wish my right hon. Friend to do, will he consider the experience of Thames Water, where there has been a 50 per cent. increase in investment and where water costs 45p per house per day—a reasonable charge? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the abolition of the drinking water directive would help the water industry throughout the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Lang: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling us of the experiences of Thames Water. The drinking water directive and other European Community directives set

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    standards to which we want to aspire. The investment programme on which we in Scotland have embarked means that we intend to aspire to those standards.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: In view of the Secretary of State's self-imposed confidentiality about the Quayle Munro report, will he tell us whether Quayle Munro is free to give advice to potential buyers and precisely what Quayle Munro said to him about disconnections?
    Mr. Lang: The Quayle Munro report did not address issues such as disconnections, but dealt with matters such as the viability of a range of options, which are now laid out in the consultation paper. Whether Quayle Munro later becomes involved in giving advice to individual companies is a matter for Quayle Munro.

    Doctors and Nurses
    Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many doctors and nurses there were in Scotland in 1979 and at the latest available date; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): At 30 September 1979 there were 9,839 doctors, including general medical practitioners, employed in the national health service in Scotland and at 30 September 1991, the latest available date, this had risen to 11,079. The number of qualified nurses in the national health service in Scotland rose from 31,931 to 43,011 over this period.
    Mr. Burns: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Will he confirm that that shows an increase of just over 10 per cent. in the number of doctors and an increase of about a third in the number of nurses in the health service in Scotland? If my mathematics are correct, does he agree that they more than underline the Government's commitment not only to health care and patients in Scotland, but to the national health service throughout the nation?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The figures are correct and beyond dispute, even by Opposition Members. They represent an increase of 12 per cent. in the number of doctors and an increase of 35 per cent. in the number of nurses since the Conservative party came to office. That underlines the Government's real commitment to the national health service and to its improvement in Scotland and throughout the rest of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. McAvoy: Is the Minister aware of the threat to the employment of doctors and nurses and to services to the public by the threatened closure of hospitals in Glasgow, especially the Victoria infirmary and Rutherglen maternity hospital which serve my constituents? There will be a consultation period, but, as Mr. Laurence Peterken has displayed his absolute determination to close the Victoria infirmary and the maternity hospital, will the Minister ensure genuine consultation by removing Mr. Laurence Peterken from office for the period of that consultation?
    Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman, who is widely respected in the House, does himself no good by personal attacks on a distinguished servant of the national health service. The hon. Gentleman referred to the Victoria infirmary and will know that it serves my constituency as well as his. The Government welcome the production by
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    the Greater Glasgow health board of a consultation document in relation to changes in medical practice and changes in population. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be the fullest public consultation before any decisions are taken.
    Mr. Kynoch: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that we are spending 44 per cent. more in real terms on the national health service in Scotland than was spent in 1979. I hope that my hon. Friend will take an interest in the review of acute services currently being carried out by Tayside health board and ensure that Stracathro hospital, the only major hospital between Dundee and Aberdeen for acute and emergency services, is retained. That hospital serves many of my constituents and those in neighbouring constituencies.
    Mr. Stewart: As my hon. Friend may know, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may wish to consider a trust application from Stracathro hospital. He will also be aware of the immense success story of the Aberdeen Royal hospitals NHS trust, about which I could detain the House with details for some time. However, Madam Speaker would not wish me to do so. Undoubtedly, the success of the Aberdeen Royal hospitals NHS trust shows that trust status hospitals in Scotland are working well.
    Mrs. Fyfe: It seems a little odd that the Minister has to be told that information in the Library shows that the true full-time equivalent increase in nurses and midwives is only 6 per cent. Is it not true that numbers have been increasing anyway since the health service was founded? I should like to ask about future funding for doctors and nurses. How many doctors and nurses will there be if five Glasgow hospitals are allowed to close'? How much income does the Minister expect to get from selling 82 acres at Stobhill or 10 acres at Victoria infirmary? How many patients will be refused treatment in his market system because the health board will not pay the costs?
    Mr. Stewart: Oh dear, the hon. Lady does talk nonsense. However, I am glad to have a reassurance that even the hon. Lady—
    Mrs. Fyfe: Read the statistics.
    Mr. Stewart: I also go to the Library. I am glad to have the hon. Lady's reassurance that, however defined, the number of nurses in Scotland has increased under the Government, as has the number of doctors. I am glad that the Opposition have today conceded that, on any measure.
    I am surprised that the hon. Lady does not think that there is a case for considering the future of acute services in Greater Glasgow. I should have thought that anyone looking at changes in medical practices and in population would concede that it was sensible to look at the options. We are moving from the stage at which we invested massively in district general hospitals in peripheral areas to a strategy of massive investment in district general hospitals in urban centres. I should have thought that the hon. Lady, representing Glasgow, Maryhill, would welcome that. [Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order so as to hear the Minister. Has he finished his response?
    Mr. Stewart: Yes, Madam Speaker.
    Madam Speaker: In that case, I call Mr. Oppenheim.
    Mr. Oppenheim: Does not this huge increase in the number of doctors and nurses in Scotland give the lie to the common Labour smear that we do not care about the health service? Is it not also the case that we have further committed ourselves to huge increases in NHS funding for this coming year, despite economic difficulties? Is that not in sharp contrast to the period when the Labour party was in power and got into economic difficulties, when the first thing that it cut was the hospital building programme?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is right. The Government's commitment is clear, and is shown by the figures. We are committed in broad terms to capital expenditure of £500 million over the next 10 years in the national health service in Scotland. As my hon. Friend rightly reminds Opposition Members, when the last Labour Government were in power, capital spending on the NHS was cut in real and in money terms. Under the Conservatives, it has increased and will continue to increase.

    Training Provision (Autumn Statement)
    Mr. Worthington: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the implications of the Chancellor's autumn statement for training provision in Scotland.
    Mr. Stewart: Training provision for Scotland is one component of the figures for my right hon. Friend's overall programme that were announced as part of the autumn statement. It reflects a division of overall training provision for Great Britain, determined on the basis of relevant factors, such as relative unemployment. The marked improvement in Scotland's relative unemployment position since last year means that our share of overall training provision is smaller.
    Mr. Worthington: In September, the Department of Employment let it be known that there was a shortfall of more than 9,500 training places for young people in Scotland, and there is a mounting level of long-term unemployment. Can the Government promise that when there is an allocation of resources to training, there will be an increase to meet that shortfall?
    Mr. Stewart: I can give the hon. Gentleman the absolute assurance that in the past couple of days I have checked with Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise on the youth training guarantee. It is being met and will continue to be met.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Will my hon. Friend confirm that, since 1979, the Government have increased the allocation of funds for training to thousands of millions of pounds, that additional training places have always been found to meet the requirements and that this is far in excess of anything ever achieved under any Labour Government?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This Government are clearly committed to an effective training policy. It is output which matters, not input. Even on the measure of public expenditure to which Opposition Members pay such attention, in real terms this Government are spending two and a half times more on training than the last Labour Government.
    Mr. McFall: Statistics on the youth training programme in Scotland show that at the end of the scheme
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    year, more than 60 per cent. of young people find themselves back on the dole. With the economic slump closing 200 Scottish firms every week, and unemployment having risen 30 months in succession and touching almost 250,000, what advice does the Minister have for those youngsters? They must feel, at that early age, that there is no future for them. They followed the Government's advice, underwent training, and now find themselves unemployed and worse off than before. Is it not the case that the autumn statement holds out nothing more than the bleakest of Christmases, and beyond, for Scotland's young?
    Mr. Stewart: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman undermines the effectiveness of the youth training scheme. No one suggests that everyone who undertakes training will automatically obtain employment at the end of it, but the Government's youth training guarantee for young people is given by no other European Community country.
    Mr. McLeish: But it is not being honoured.
    Mr. Stewart: My answer to the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) is that the guarantee is being met, though I know that he constantly issues press releases saying that it is not. I checked with Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise in the past couple of days that the youth guarantee is being met.

    Housing
    Mr. McAllion: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland who he has met in the past year to discuss the supply of housing in Scotland.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: My right hon. Friend and I have frequent meetings with individuals and organisations involved in the provision, management and sale of housing in Scotland.
    Mr. McAllion: Scotland faces a national housing crisis in terms of increased homelessness, which has risen 133 per cent. over the past 10 years, and the loss, over the same period, of 250,000 homes for rent. Does not the Minister understand that his recent spending announcements come nowhere near the sums required to meet the targets set by the Institute of Housing in Scotland of 15,000 new affordable homes for rent every year? Does he not comprehend either that people in Scotland with the most desperate housing need cannot afford owner occupation and rent-to-mortgage schemes? Most of all, they cannot afford the Minister's obsession with forcing tenure changes at the expense of the Government's failure to meet the demand for decent homes at an affordable rent.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: There is a large amount of activity in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The Scottish Homes allocation in Dundee has increased from £10·9 million in 1991–92 to more than £15·8 million. As the hon. Gentleman will be the first to recognise, the remarkable transformation at Whitfield is continuing—as I know, having visited the Ormiston people's housing co-operative and Vale of Duntrune community housing association. The hon. Gentleman will welcome, as I do, the £70 million extra that will be made available to Scottish Homes' enabling programme as a result of the excellent settlement that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State managed to obtain, which will increase the programme by

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    some £20 million in each of the next three years. I will bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's own district council's needs before we make provisional allocations.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Surely the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McFall), in his question, has done exactly the reverse—
    Madam Speaker: Order. I am not seeking comments at Question Time. I must have questions, from all parts of the House.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Surely it needs to be said to people in all parts of the country, and particularly in Scotland, that they can afford to buy their own homes—and that by purchasing their council houses, 100 per cent. of the money raised can be spent on providing the new homes for which right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House seem to be asking.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I agree. We know that 52 per cent. of Scots now own their homes, and that many more aspire to home ownership. I had the good fortune to visit the first rent-to-mortgage owner in Dundee, who works for the council. The scheme is welcomed by those who seek the right and the opportunity to own their homes, and it provides a new home ownership market which will be appreciated by those who cannot quite afford to exercise the right to buy.
    Mr. Michael J. Martin: The Minister will know that there are some excellent sheltered housing complexes throughout Scotland, including my constituency. They provide high-quality housing for elderly people who are protected by wardens 24 hours a day. Why does not the Minister give more funds to the local authority, to Scottish Homes and to the housing associations, so that more good housing can be provided for our elderly people?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The extra £20 million a year over the next three years which constitutes the extra enabling programme for Scottish Homes should allow more progress to be made in that regard. We shall bear Glasgow's needs very much in mind if any supplementary allocations are made, or else when the provisional allocations are made.

    Green Belt
    Mr. Galbraith: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to protect the green belt.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Sir Hector Monro): My right hon. Friend's policy for protecting green belts is set out in Scottish development department circular 24/1985. Our consistent policy has been to maintain and enhance the green belt.
    Mr. Galbraith: The Minister will know that much water authority land lies within the green belt. That land is much used and appreciated by my constituents in Strathkelvin and Bearsden. Will the Minister guarantee that, in the event of privatisation, no restrictions will be placed on access to the land, and, furthermore, that it will not be released for development so that private shareholders can rip off the public sector once again?
    Sir Hector Monro: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Most of our water resources come from land that is particularly attractive—the lochs and reservoirs—some of
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    which may include sites of special scientific interest. No concern should be felt about the future ownership of that land.

    Water Industry
    Mr. Welsh: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to publish the report by the consultants Quayle Munro on the future of water services in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
    Hon. Members: Answer the question.
    Sir Hector Monro: It is a good answer, worth waiting for.
    As part of the Government's review of water and sewerage services in Scotland, consultants were commissioned to give advice under conditions of commercial confidentiality for the purpose of informing policy. That advice is reflected in the consultation paper that my right hon. Friend published yesterday.
    Mr. Welsh: Actually, that was not much of an answer.
    Why have the Government allowed access to the local government report, but not to the water privatisation report? Have they something to hide? Surely, "commercial" sensitivities are in fact political sensitivities—the sensitivities of an isolated Government who are swimming against the tide of Scottish public opinion. Will the Minister confirm that the price of his secrecy is about £50,000, and will he now abandon this unwanted, unnecessary privatisation scheme?
    Sir Hector Monro: Even after 24 hours' reflection, the hon. Gentleman is getting most of it wrong. Does he not understand that the document published yesterday by my right hon. Friend is a genuine consultation document? There are eight options, and variations may be produced in the intervening period. If Opposition Members put their minds to producing constructive reports for my right hon. Friend, they would be doing something really valuable for the Scottish people whom they represent.
    Mr. Wallace: The Secretary of State said yesterday that he had engaged Quayle Munro to look into the technical aspects of water organisation. What technical qualifications—as opposed to financial qualifications—did Quayle Munro have? Do any of the commercial sensitivities relate to any French companies? Finally, is not the Secretary of State under a statutory duty, under section 1 of the Water (Scotland) Act 1980, to publish information relating to water services in Scotland? What is more fundamental than information that relates to the future organisation of those services?
    Sir Hector Monro: I hope that the hon. Gentleman too has read the report which he has now had in his hands for 24 hours. Of course, the Quayle Munro report was valuable to my right hon. Friend for its technical and financial information. What the Secretary of State has published is a fair reflection of the position. It gives many alternatives. In fact, Opposition Members were all rumbled; they thought that it would be a privatisation document, and it is not. It gives alternatives which the country can consider. We will look at it carefully and come to conclusions later next year.
    Mr. McLeish: Does the Minister accept that it is a scandal for a company that has access to confidential

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    information to be allowed to advise possible bidders in the privatisation process if the Government proceed with that crazy idea? Will he tell the House that the real reason for commissioning Quayle Munro was the cosy clique of Ministers and favoured consultants seeking private information about quotations and franchising, and had nothing to do with any of the other six options? Will he tell the House why his office is behaving in such a deplorable manner, abusing the taxpayers' money and the office of the Secretary of State? It is a scandal. When will the report be published so that we may know what is in it?
    Sir Hector Monro: The hon. Gentleman should count up to eight rather than to 10 and he would realise that there is a great deal of valuable information in the report. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman does not want to hear the answer, he need not listen. Quayle Munro was one of a number of companies that tendered for the consultation process. There was no question of a cosy operation; it was very competitive tendering.

    Local Government
    Mr. McKelvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will report progress on the consultations regarding future local government of Scotland.
    Mr. Lang: I am very encouraged by the substantial public response to our second consultation paper on local government structure. More than 15,000 copies of the consultation paper and more than 70,000 shorter leaflets have been issued. The consultation period continues until the end of January next year.
    Mr. McKelvey: The Secretary of State either forgot or deliberately did not mention subsidiarity. When he gets from the Prime Minister a definition of subsidiarity, will he relate with clarity to Charity McGarrity from Inverarity that she will not have subsidiarity, but that she, like the rest of Scotland, will have to remain in the mode of subserviarity? Does he realise that that breeds subversivarity? [Laughter.]
    Mr. Lang: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman's question was greeted with hilarity by his colleagues. I must remind him that his original question was about the consultation paper on local government reform, but his supplementary had nothing to do with that. Nevertheless, I hope that he will read the consultation paper and let me have his thoughts ahead of our decision.
    Sir Anthony Durant: Would my right hon. Friend care to comment on the press reports about the conduct of Monklands council which I understand is in the constituency of the Leader of the Opposition?
    Mr. Lang: I do not think that I want to pry into that private grief. I am happy to leave that to the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Secretary of State.

    Scottish Enterprise
    Mr. Salmond: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the chief executive of Scottish Enterprise to discuss the Scottish economy.
    Mr. Lang: My ministerial colleagues and I often meet both the chairman and the chief executive of Scottish Enterprise to discuss a range of economic development
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    and training issues. I contacted the chairman this morning to inform him that as part of the package of special measures that I announced last week, Scottish Enterprise will receive an additional £6 million added to this year's budget and Highland and Islands Enterprise an additional £1·5 million.
    Mr. Salmond: Does the Secretary of State remember the boast of his friend, party supporter and instigator of Scottish Enterprise, Bill Hughes, who said that the aim of the organisation was to eliminate Scottish unemployment? What time scale does the Secretary of State envisage for the achievement of that ambition, given that Scottish unemployment is rising remorselessly, that the modest aspects of recovery announced in the autumn statement were geared to the south-east of England and that it is widely reported that there will be substantial staffing cuts in the Scottish Enterprise training network? How can that combination lead to the elimination of Scottish unemployment, as promised by Bill Hughes?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that Scottish Enterprise was the latter manifestation of the Scottish development agency, with its functions changed dramatically so as to prevent it being the acquisitive engine of nationalisation that it was under the Labour Government. Now it is an engine of economic regeneration and is doing its work extremely effectively both at its own hand and through the local enterprise companies all over Scotland. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt also like to know that in the package I intend to increase the allocation for the trunk roads programme by £8·5 million, for local authority roads projects by £5 million, for health service and social work capital programmes by £10·25 million and for the water and sewerage programme by £6·5 million. That commitment of resources will go directly towards improving Scotland's infrastructure and reducing unemployment.
    Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to reaffirm to the House—and when he does it will he do it slowly so that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) takes it in—that gross domestic product, per head, in Scotland is currently at an all-time high and that male take-home pay in the hon. Gentleman's part of Scotland is the highest in Scotland? Will he further encourage the hon. Gentleman to stop talking Scotland down every time he gets the chance to do so?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a result of the improvement in the underlying economic infrastructure in Scotland, it is significant that the unemployment rate in Scotland is lower now than it is in the south-east of England. Whereas a year ago it was 0·1 per cent. higher than in the United Kingdom as a whole, it is now 0·4 per cent. lower than in the United Kingdom as a whole.
    Dr. Reid: Why does unemployment keep going up in Scotland, and who is to blame?
    Mr. Lang: Unemployment is rising in Scotland, as it is rising elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in every industrialised country in the world, as a result of the world economic recession. However, what is significant is that unemployment levels in Scotland were, in June of this year, at broadly the same level as they were a year ago. Last

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    month, and the month before that, the headline unemployment total in Scotland fell. Last month, job vacancies in Scotland were up. The indications are that the Scottish economy is responding to the measures brought in by the Government, Scottish Enterprise and others in order to improve our competitiveness and help to create jobs.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: Does the Secretary of State recall telling me last month that Scottish Enterprise had been set up in order to help the recovery of the Scottish economy? Since Scottish Enterprise is to lose jobs and since Scottish Enterprise knows that the effect of the autumn statement will be job losses all over the country, does the Secretary of State accept that he seems to be the only person in Scotland, given all these job losses, who thinks that Scotland is experiencing an economic recovery?
    Mr. Lang: It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman should be so derisive of all the efforts of Scottish Enterprise and all the local enterprise companies in Scotland. Business men, with many preoccupations of their own, are lending their time and effort to help to generate employment and to improve the economic infrastructure and the environment. That is creating a climate in Scotland in which our unemployment figures are standing up so much better than they are elsewhere. The hon. Gentleman anticipates the future budget for Scottish Enterprise, but perhaps he ought to wait until it is allocated.

    Governance
    Mr. Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what further consideration he has given to the issue of improving the governance of Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lang: Our review of ways of making the government of Scotland more responsible to Scotland's needs within the Union is continuing.
    Mr. Galloway: As my hon. Friends say, "Oh dear, oh dear." The Secretary of State has now been taking stock for 224 days. We have not had the merest whimper of an acknowledgment, that although he governs our country, 75 per cent. of our people voted against him. In Edinburgh on 12 December the Secretary of State, with his Cabinet colleagues, will be closeted with the European Heads of Government and grappling with them over the British Government's demand for subsidiarity, defined as the right of people to have local decisions taken as locally as possible. How can it be that it is right for this House of Commons and this British state to have subsidiarity when it is wrong for the people whom the Secretary of State misrepresents in this House and in the British Cabinet room?
    Mr. Lang: I understand the hon. Gentleman's sense of frustration. After all, he laid out his own programme in July of this year when, Scotland United, an organisation which existed at the time, and to which he belonged called for
    "more extra-parliamentary work … a less reverential approach to Parliament itself; a shadow Scottish parliament meeting in Edinburgh; selective boycotts of set-piece parliamentary occasions like the now farcical Scottish Question Time; a greatly expanded Scottish Labour front
    288
    bench; and the planned disruption of strategically-selected Commons business No 'business as usual' until the Government comes to the negotiating table."
    Plainly, as I look around me, Madam Speaker, I see that the hon. Gentleman's negotiations have not made much headway.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that in the taking-stock exercise, the Conservative and Unionist Government are not considering the flawed proposals put forward by the Labour party or the unworkable proposals put forward by the Scottish Convention? They would be bad for the Union, bad for the unitary Parliament and eventually very bad for the people of Scotland.
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that our proposals will do nothing to undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom or this sovereign Parliament, unlike the Opposition's proposals in the general election. I can also assure my hon. Friend that I and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister continue to give the matter our close attention. We should welcome any constructive, positive and sensible suggestions from any quarter.
    Mr. Trimble: In considering the future governance of Scotland, is the Secretary of State considering the introduction of safeguards against political and religious discrimination to avoid controversy such as that in Monklands district at the moment?
    Mr. Lang: I would certainly deplore the discrimination to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I am not aware that the problem is widespread in Scotland and I would not anticipate our measures being directed towards that end.
    Mrs. Ewing: When does the Secretary of State expect to end the stock-taking exercise and when will he make a statement to the House to advise all of us and the people of Scotland about the improvements he envisages in the government of Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her eager anticipation of the outcome of the deliberations. We shall make an announcement as soon as we sensibly can. I am sure that the hon. Lady agrees that it is more important to get it right than to get it quickly.

    Hospitals (Argyll and Clyde)
    Mrs. Adams: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet the chairman of Argyll and Clyde health board to discuss the management of hospitals.
    Mr. Stewart: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has no plans to meet the chairman of Argyll and Clyde health board at present, but my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State meets health board chairmen regularly.
    Mrs. Adams: I was gravely concerned when I saw the Under-Secretary of State rising, because I knew that I would not get an answer to my question. Does the Minister accept that we are told that we have a listening Government who consult the people on the management of hospitals, on water privatisation and on the governance of Scotland? Will the Government give us one iota of

    289
    evidence of their having listened to the results of consultations and of their having implemented the results of those consultations?
    Mr. Stewart: I gave the hon. Lady a completely accurate answer to her question. If she is asking about the consultation process in relation to the application for trust status by the Royal Alexandra hospital in Argyll and Clyde, I can assure her that my right hon. Friend will look carefully at all the evidence and arguments.
    Mr. Graham: When the Secretary of State meets the chairman, will he consider testing properly the democratic rights of the people of Renfrewshire by giving them the opportunity to vote to see whether they accept our local hospital becoming a trust? I am sure that if a ballot were held, the Secretary of State would get the clear message from the people of Renfrewshire that they have no truck with the Tory trust.
    Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman expresses himself with his customary clarity on these matters. My right hon. Friend will consider the representations made in his customarily objective, well-reasoned and non-partisan way.

    Scotch Whisky
    Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people were employed in Scotch whisky production in Scotland in each of the last five years.
    Mr. Stewart: In 1987, 11,100 people were employed in plants whose principal product was Scotch whisky and which had 11 or more employees. The equivalent figure for the following four years was on average 10,300. I will give details in the Official Report.
    The following is the information:

    Number

    1988

    10,100

    1989

    10,000

    1990

    10,700

    11991

    10,400

    1 Provisional.

    Mr. Steen: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister is not too surprised about the fact that the amount of Scottish whisky consumed in the British Isles over the past few years has been declining dramatically. Does he agree that one reason for that is that the unit of alcohol in Scottish whisky is charged at double the rate per unit of alcohol in French, Italian, Spanish, or German wine? Bearing in mind the fact that the number of people employed in the Scottish whisky industry over the past 10 years has declined by 40 per cent., does he agree that our job in Britain is not to create jobs in Europe and France, but jobs in this country?
    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Stewart: The reaction to my hon. Friend's question shows the popularity of his views on all sides of the House. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, taxation is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Here he is."] I can now doubly reassure
    290
    my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is fully informed of the views of the whisky producers on those matters.
    Mr. Darling: Does the Minister accept that the Scottish whisky industry needs a constant supply of good quality, cheap water? If water is privatised and a private company has a monopoly, as is the case in respect of the supply of electricity, prices will rise and that will increase the price of whisky. In addition, there will be a constant threat of disconnection for the whisky industry as there is for ordinary members of the public. Does he not accept therefore, that the threat of the privatisation of water is a major threat to the future of the Scotch whisky industry?
    Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman is living in a fantasy world which is even more absurd than that inhabited by most of his hon. Friends. I do not think that that question requires a serious answer.
    Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Will my hon. Friend contemplate the fact that in order to achieve the glory of the Maastricht union, the French are willing to forgo drinking French wine and we should ensure that we drink our whisky and that they do not drink their wine?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. and learned Friend will no doubt be drinking a toast this evening to the extra £1 million that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced for the Historic Buildings Council in his package this afternoon. With regard to my hon. and learned Friend's more general point, it is worth recording that the Scotch whisky industry was appreciative of the outcome which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer achieved in discussions on the duty regime with his European colleagues earlier this year.

    BCCI
    Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on what assistance he will give to local authorities that have lost money in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
    Mr. Stewart: Two of the four Scottish authorities that had money deposited in BCCI applied for and were granted borrowing consent to enable them to cope with their losses.
    Mr. Vaz: The Minister is no doubt aware that since those arrangements were entered into, the Bingham report has been published which severely criticises the role of the Bank of England. Those criticisms have been accepted by the Government and the Bank of England. Since the publication, the Bank has now decided to issue a health warning with its list of authorised institutions. Bearing in mind the fact that Scottish local authorities relied on that list and that there has been severe criticism, does the Minister agree that there is a compelling and overwhelming case for compensation to be paid to those local authorities? Is it not outrageous that Scottish poll tax payers and future council taxpayers have to pay for the mistakes of the Bank of England?
    Mr. Stewart: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's analysis. Only two Scottish authorities requested any assistance. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State granted Western Isles islands council consent to borrow £24 million and Ross and Cromarty district council

    291
    consent to borrow £1·8 million to help those councils to cope with their losses. On the hon. Gentleman's other point, although the Bingham report makes a number of criticisms of the Bank of England in its supervision of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, it makes it clear that prime responsibility for the losses rests with those who devised, directed and implemented the fraud.
    Mr. Macdonald: But compensation was not within the remit of the Bingham inquiry, which leaves the Government as judge and jury of their own case. Does the Minister acknowledge that an independent verdict on compensation for local authorities and all depositors can come only from the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee? Should the Select Committee come up with a
    292
    new report including a verdict on compensation, will the Government undertake to respect the findings of that report?
    Mr. Stewart: Of course the Government will consider most seriously the recommendations of the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, as they consider seriously the recommendations of all Select Committees. I must repeat to the hon. Gentleman that, following representations from himself and from the Western Isles islands council, my right hon. Friend granted that council consent to borrow £24 million. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have been sympathetic to the economic case that has been put forward by the Western Isles islands council in relation to the other aspects of the general programmes.

DSS Offices
3.31 pm
Mr. Bill Michie: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. On 2 November, in answer to an oral question about the additional £8 million to local Department of Social Security offices, the Secretary of State for Social Security stated:
"Details will be placed in the Library in due course."—[Official Report, 2 November 1992; Vol. 213, c. 1.]
Since that date, I have been asking the Library for that information, but unfortunately it is still not available. I have since found out that the local district offices are now in possession of that information. As late as today, I was told that it will be two weeks before the information will be available to right hon. and hon. Members. Surely that is just not good enough. It is embarrassing for us all. The matter shows that the Secretary of State and his staff are either incompetent or are treating the House with contempt.
Madam Speaker: I hope that Ministers on the Treasury Bench have noted the hon. Gentleman's points so that the matter can be looked at in order to ensure that documents which should be available outside the House are not denied to hon. Members inside.
We now come to the ballot for notices of motion. It would be most helpful if hon. Members would sign outside the Chamber and not at the last minute.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 4 DECEMBER 1992
Members successful in the ballot were:

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend

Mr. Kevin Barron

Mr. Malcolm Moss

Oath of Allegiance
3.34 pm
Mrs. Teresa Gorman: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that persons seeking United Kingdom citizenship should be required to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown.
The present position of permanent residents in Britain is a mess and a muddle. Some of us are full citizens. Other people come from various parts of the world to work here as foreigners. Refugees come to take refuge here. People from many parts of the world come to Britain for other reasons. People are given the right to settle in Britain, and after five years that right becomes a right to live permanently in Britain.
Yet there is no obligation on the part of such people to accept the responsibilities of citizenship as well as the benefits. I know that the Labour party will give its knee-jerk reaction to the Bill, and assume that I am talking about race. I assure them that I am talking of nothing of the sort. My Bill is a cohesive measure which will make people who live here feel that being British means that they are part of the way of life and have a citizenship they enjoy, uphold and are prepared to defend if the necessity arises.
The oath of allegiance is set out in the British Nationality Act 1981. After five years of residence or, in the case of spouses of people who are already citizens, three years of residence, people can apply for full citizenship. However, there is no obligation on them to do so. I believe that that is wrong. It would have a cohesive effect on people to take an oath to the country.
The requirement to take an oath of allegiance is commonplace in other parts of the world. People who settle in America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand—all countries which are extremely generous in allowing newcomers into their society—require that most people, after an appropriate period, take an oath. In the United States, young children swear their oath and salute the flag every day of their school life. An oath makes them think that they are Americans or Australians first and that their country of origin comes second.
I should like all people who settle permanently in Britain to feel that they are British, just as those of us who were born and bred here do. Those of us who are native citizens affirm our citizenship and our dedication to Britain in special circumstances by taking an oath. Members of Parliament do so when they enter Parliament. Judges do so when they take up office. Members of the armed forces take an oath of allegiance. So do bishops in certain circumstances. Therefore, it is not an alien concept even for people who are already acknowledged citizens by birth to affirm their allegiance to Britain when they take up special duties.
In the European legislation which we are currently engaged in debating, we are informed about a new type of citizenship—a citizenship of the union. When I go round the country, I find that many constituents are worried about that type of citizenship. They want to know whether it will interfere with their British citizenship. They want to know how it will affect Britain if a great many people from Europe choose to settle in Britain permanently. Such people would benefit from being in Britain, yet would have no obligations to Britain, for example, in time of war or when questions of treason arise. They would have the benefits but not the obligations.

295
People in Britain would welcome the requirement that people who reside here permanently accept the obligations which go with that privilege. Therefore, I should like to introduce a Bill which will require those who decide to settle here permanently, as they are able to do after five years of being allowed to reside here, to make a commitment to the Crown, using the oath of allegiance set out in the British Nationality Act 1981. That will have a beneficial effect on our country. We know what happens to societies where people are drawn together under the name of one country, yet feel no allegiance to it. Those countries are fracturing and falling apart, and their people may even be involved in fratricide.
As Britain becomes more open to people from many parts of the world, including Europe, there needs to be a sense that the British nation has an identity—that being British means something to all those people, wherever they come from. By taking an oath, they would have to do no more than they would in other countries which exercise the same sort of generosity as Britain. I beg leave to introduce my Bill.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. I understand that Mr. Tony Banks seeks to oppose.
3.40 pm
Mr. Tony Banks: I wish to oppose the ten-minute rule application. The hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) is a feisty individual, who has espoused some worthwhile causes in her time, but this is not one of them.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Name one.
Mr. Banks: A woman's right to choose was one very good cause espoused by the hon. Member for Billericay.
I cannot support the measure, because it seems to be a regal variant of Lord Tebbit's cricket test. I oppose the Bill on a number of grounds. First, it is unnecessary. Existing citizens would not be required to take such an oath, as the hon. Lady rightly pointed out. If the Bill got on to the statute book, which it will not, it would create two classes of citizen and would add one further hurdle to the process of application for citizenship, which is already tedious, expensive and time-consuming.
When one thinks about it, the requirement to take an oath of allegiance is not onerous. I imagine that, if it were a requirement of citizenship to stand on one leg and sing a chorus of "My Old Man's a Dustman", most people would do so to secure their objective. Rather than create more obstacles to citizenship, the hon. Lady would do better to use her undoubted energies to propose a fairer and faster method of citizenship application.
Secondly, why should an oath of allegiance be restricted to the Crown? If we were going to insist on such a thing, it would be far more appropriate to take an oath of allegiance to the country. Most of the powers of the Crown, especially in respect of the royal prerogative, have long since passed to the Government of the day and to the Prime Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "And to Brussels."]—yes, as my hon. Friends say, to Brussels. Perhaps we should take an oath of allegiance to Jacques Delors and the European Commission.
I realise that, since the Prime Minister has so many of the powers of the royal prerogative, it would be attractive
296
to Conservative Members if new citizens had to pledge allegiance to him. Before we move down that road, perhaps they should apply that test to Tory Back Benchers, especially in view of the impending debate on Maastricht, and start with the hon. Member for Billericay.
Finally, what about citizens who hold republican views? This country still passes for a free society, and it is not illegal to believe that, in a proper democracy, the Head of State should be elected and be accountable to the people. To hold such views should not be used as a way to call into question the patriotism of any citizen, new or old. With an oath of allegiance to the Crown alone, people with republican views would be forced either to break their oath or to disown their beliefs. That is an invidious choice, and it should not be imposed on any individual.
The hon. Member for Billericay said that MPs are required to swear such an oath before taking their seats after an election. I find that anachronistic. My allegiance is to the country and to the people who elected me, and to no one else. If oaths are to be taken, they should be to the country, to democracy, the rule of law, civil rights and the liberties of the people. Because the proposal in the Bill is restrictive in extent and limited in application, I beg leave to oppose it.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—
The House divided: Ayes 64, Noes 135.

Divison No. 89]

[3.44 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

Alexander, Richard

Legg, Barry

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Lidington, David

Beggs, Roy

Maitland, Lady Olga

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Marlow, Tony

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Bowden, Andrew

Neubert, Sir Michael

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Nicholls, Patrick

Brandreth, Gyles

Pawsey, James

Cash, William

Porter, David (Waveney)

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Powell, William (Corby)

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

Robathan, Andrew

Dickens, Geoffrey

Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

Dover, Den

Ross, William (E Londonderry)

Duncan, Alan

Shaw, David (Dover)

Duncan-Smith, Iain

Shersby, Michael

Dunn, Bob

Sims, Roger

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

Spink, Dr Robert

Faber, David

Spring, Richard

Fabricant, Michael

Sproat, Iain

Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

Stephen, Michael

Fry, Peter

Sykes, John

Gardiner, Sir George

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Gill, Christopher

Thomason, Roy

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

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

Hannam, Sir John

Trimble, David

Hawkins, Nick

Watts, John

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Whittingdale, John

Jenkin, Bernard

Jessel, Toby

Tellers for the Ayes:

Kilfedder, Sir James

Mr. Bill Walker and Mr. Nirj Joseph Deva.

Knapman, Roger

NOES

Adams, Mrs Irene

Bayley, Hugh

Ainger, Nick

Beckett, Margaret

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

Allen, Graham

Bennett, Andrew F.

Armstrong, Hilary

Bermingham, Gerald

Austin-Walker, John

Berry, Dr. Roger

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Blunkett, David

297

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

Lewis, Terry

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

Livingstone, Ken

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Llwyd, Elfyn

Burden, Richard

Loyden, Eddie

Callaghan, Jim

McAllion, John

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

McAvoy, Thomas

Cann, Jamie

McCartney, Ian

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

McKelvey, William

Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

Madden, Max

Connarty, Michael

Mandelson, Peter

Cousins, Jim

Marek, Dr John

Cox, Tom

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Cryer, Bob

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Cummings, John

Michael, Alun

Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Darling, Alistair

Milburn, Alan

Davidson, Ian

Miller, Andrew

Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Dixon, Don

Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

Donohoe, Brian H.

Mullin, Chris

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Murphy, Paul

Enright, Derek

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Fatchett, Derek

O'Neill, Martin

Faulds, Andrew

Pendry, Tom

Flynn, Paul

Pickthall, Colin

Fyfe, Maria

Pike, Peter L.

Galbraith, Sam

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Galloway, George

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Gerrard, Neil

Purchase, Ken

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Quin, Ms Joyce

Gordon, Mildred

Radice, Giles

Graham, Thomas

Rooney, Terry

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Gunnell, John

Salmond, Alex

Hain, Peter

Simpson, Alan

Hardy, Peter

Skinner, Dennis

Harman, Ms Harriet

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Hill, Keith (Streatham)

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

Hinchliffe, David

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

Hoon, Geoffrey

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Snape, Peter

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Soley, Clive

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Steinberg, Gerry

Hutton, John

Stern, Michael

Illsley, Eric

Stevenson, George

Ingram, Adam

Strang, Dr. Gavin

Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Jamieson, David

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Janner, Greville

Watson, Mike

Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

Wigley, Dafydd

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

Wilson, Brian

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

Winnick, David

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Wise, Audrey

Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

Wray, Jimmy

Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

Khabra, Piara S.

Tellers for the Noes:

Kilfoyle, Peter

Mr. John Maxton and Mr. Keith Vaz.

Kirkwood, Archy

Leighton, Ron

Question accordingly negatived.

Autumn Statement
[Relevant documents: Minutes of Evidence taken before the Treasury and Civil Service Committee on 16th and 17th November (House of Commons Papers Nos. 250-iii and -iv)].
Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. Between the hours of 6 pm and 8 pm, I have imposed a 10-minute limit on speeches, and I ask other right hon. and hon. Members to exercise some voluntary restraint over the length of their speeches.
Mr. Adam Ingram: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I understand that today the staff and unions at AE Technology were advised that the Government have decided to cancel the European fast reactor programme, to which Britain was committed to the tune of £12·87 million. Given that that announcement pre-empts the Government's review of their energy policy, which is on-going as a result of a resolution of the House, is it not out of order for the Government to act in such a way as to put at risk many hundreds of jobs in districts such as Dounreay in Scotland'?
Madam Speaker: I find it strange that hon. Members should raise points of order about such documents, which are not of a parliamentary nature, of which I have no knowledge and which I have not seen, and that a point of order which is out of order is used in order to raise the matter.
3.56 pm
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Norman Lamont): I beg to move,
That this House approves the Autumn Statement presented by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer on 12th November; welcomes the Government's continuing commitment to the firm control of public expenditure; supports the new expenditure plans, which honour the Government's commitments and provide protection of capital spending; applauds the specific measures the Government has taken to encourage confidence and foster recovery; and congratulates the Government on achieving a substantial reduction in underlying inflation, which has laid the foundations for sustainable growth.
I welcome the opportunity to have this early debate on the autumn statement. The principal aim of the measures that I announced was to restore confidence and to hasten recovery. To secure that objective I set out four key elements in the Government's strategy for growth: first, spending plans for the next three years which are fully consistent with what the economy can afford; secondly, within that tight overall settlement, special protection for programmes, particularly capital programmes, which strengthen the long-term health of the economy; thirdly, a substantial package of measures to boost activity in particular sectors of the economy; and fourthly, a further reduction in interest rates, following the dramatic progress that we have made in reducing inflation. That is the right strategy for Britain, and it has been warmly welcomed, not just by my right hon. and hon. Friends, but by industry and the country at large.
Conservative Members have never believed that the Government can spend their way out of recession. It is the private sector that generates growth and creates jobs—not the state. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) takes a different view. He believes—as he told a

299
recent press conference—that the state is what he calls the "engine of growth", a view that has been discredited and discarded right across the world. It is not even fashionable today in Albania.
What the Government can, and must, do is to create an environment in which businesses can plan, invest and succeed, and that is exactly what we have done. British business now has an underlying inflation rate below the European Community average, interest rates that are lower than anywhere else in the European Community, one of the lowest rates of corporation tax in the industrialised world, and the best industrial relations record that we have seen in this country for very many years. On top of all that, British exporters are now nearly 15 per cent. more competitive in foreign markets than they were just two months ago. That gives British industry massive new opportunities to win back markets both at home and abroad.
All too often, economic commentators—joined by Opposition Members—talk down the prospects for business and the outlook for the future. Well, in the months and weeks ahead, Conservative Members will be encouraging business men to seize the opportunities provided by the new environment. Low taxes, low inflation and low interest rates—that is what business has been asking for, and that is what it has got.
Mr. A. J. Beith: While that may be so, are there not two things that business men do not know? One is what will happen to the exchange rate, which they knew—or thought they knew—when we were in the ERM; the other is whether Britain will be in the single currency system or in the forefront of the development of the European Community.
Mr. Lamont: I have repeatedly made it clear that the Government are not operating an exchange rate target, that I believe in a strong currency, and that we will take the exchange rate into account in formulating our anti-inflation policy. The right hon. Gentleman asked about a single currency. We have always made it clear that a decision will be made at a later date. That is the right and appropriate course.
Mr. Peter Hain: In the light of the widespread view in business circles and elsewhere that the figures in the autumn statement do not add up, will the Chancellor confirm the briefing given to The Sunday Times by "senior Treasury and Downing street sources" that, come what may, the PSBR next year will be kept to 7 per cent.?
Mr. Lamont: I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman means when he says that the figures do not add up. They are set out clearly in the Grey Book. We have published what we believe is a realistic forecast for the PSBR for this year. We do not make a forecast for next year, but we have made an assumption. The PSBR for next year will be set at the right time, which is in the Budget. The hon. Gentleman is concerned about the PSBR, as I am. I should like to know what expenditure Labour intends to cut to bring the PSBR down. I hope that we shall not have any more such talk.
Mr. Gordon Brown rose—
Mr. Lamont: I shall give way in a minute.
Economic activity is the product of millions of separate decisions by consumers, investors and business. They are
300
about whether to spend or to save, to invest today, or to wait until tomorrow. Confidence is the key to unlocking that activity, and Governments must do all they can to build and sustain it. That is why I introduced my package of measures in the autumn statement.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Dunermline, East could not raise even half a cheer. However, I was not surprised, because for him every piece of good news is just another page that has to be ripped out of his speech. With his shopping lists and his grim sound bites, the hon. Gentleman likes to seize on a critical report, perhaps from the CBI, or a gloomy report, perhaps from the Institute of Directors.
I look forward to the hon. Gentleman's quotes in this debate from the CBI, which said that the package
"will rebuild industry's confidence in itself".
The chairman of the CBI's economic affairs committee said:
"We needed a whole package of measures and that's what we got. The Chancellor has listened to what industry has said to him."
He said that that was what industry needed.
Mr. Brown: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lamont: I shall give way in a minute. I have given way twice.
The Association of British Chambers of Commerce said:
"Businesses have heard the right messages".
The Institute of Directors said:
"the Chancellor has given businesses the framework needed to begin the recovery."
Those are the views of the leading business organisations in this country. They speak for British business men and know what is actually happening in industry, and they have all endorsed the measures that I have taken.
Mr. Brown: Will the Chancellor also confirm that Mr. Howard Davies, the director-general of the CBI, said that no one could be sure that these measures are sufficient to take us out of recession? The Engineering Employers Federation said that they did not add up to a coherent strategy. Will the Chancellor look at his own figures and confirm that the autumn statement assumes, first, that unemployment will continue to rise; secondly, that it assumes in the budget to be awarded to the insolvency service that business bankruptcies will continue to rise? Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it also assumes that business investment will stagnate? Does that add up to the recovery that the right hon. Gentloman said he would give us?
Mr. Lamont: It was absolutely predictable that the hon. Gentleman would, as always, come out with his long shopping lists. He did not cite the most significant quotations from the largest, most important, and most representative business organisations. If the hon. Gentleman had quoted Howard Davies, the director-general of the CBI, in full, he would have said that Mr. Davies warmly welcomed my measures. To say that nothing can guarantee what happens in the next year is to say something that is true of all measures. There are no measures without risk and none with complete security attached to them. However, the package was warmly welcomed, and rightly so, throughout British industry.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Lamont: No, because I should like to get on a little further.
My autumn statement was based on two fundamental principles—low inflation and tight control of public spending. Those are the key requirements for any lasting economic recovery, and they are the crucial conditions for the sustainable reduction in unemployment that all of us want to see. Opposition Members have never learnt those basic principles. They have never understood that inflation is the enemy of investment and saving, that reckless spending is the route to slump. That is why, in the past two years, we have fought a remorseless battle to get inflation down to the sort of levels that our European partners enjoy—levels that give our exporters the chance to compete abroad, and give consumers the confidence they need to spend rather than to save.
On Friday, we had some more excellent news on inflation. Underlying inflation is now down to just 3·8 per cent.—below the European Community average and the lowest for four years. The dramatic progress that we have made on inflation has allowed me to reduce interest rates since we left the ERM. More than anything else, that relaxation of monetary policy will help get Britain back to work. Interest rates are now at their lowest level for nearly 15 years; they are the lowest anywhere in the European Community, and they have fallen by a full 3 per cent. in the past eight weeks. That is a considerable injection of extra spending power in the economy—£45 a month off the typical mortgage payment, and over £3¾ billion off industry's interest bill. That comes on top of the interest rate reductions that we have seen continuously over the past year.
If we are to keep interest rates down, however, it is vital to maintain firm control over public spending. A prudent approach to spending is important for another reason, too—the more of a burden the state becomes, the less companies and individuals strive and prosper.
That means that we have to hold the growth in spending below the long-term growth level of the economy as a whole. That is why we decided to stick to cash plans for next year and to set tight ceilings for public spending for the following two years. Those ceilings are consistent with growth in the new control total of 1½ per cent. a year on average. Spending will grow in real terms each year, but the new system that I have put in place will ensure that we spend no more each year than the country can afford.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: We have heard about the CBI, and it always has a loud voice, and about the Institute of Directors, and it gets a fair showing in the House. However, the Chancellor fails to recognise that there are 4 million to 5 million low-paid people who he is demanding should have either a pay cut or a pay freeze. Their voice should be heard more often.
I have news for him. If he wants to balance the books, why does he not claw back, through taxation, the £26·2 billion that the richest 1 per cent. in Britain had in the first 10 years of the Tory Government? He should get that back, and then, instead of having a pay freeze for low-paid workers, he could use that money to finance the health service, to pay pensioners and to start building houses again. He should not be calling on low-paid people to clean up the mess created by the Tory Government.
Mr. Lamont: Perhaps I misheard the hon. Gentleman, but I thought that he began by saying something about
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people with loud voices. No one would accuse him of not having a loud voice. He has what often goes with loud voices—a tendency to get his facts completely wrong. It is not true to say that low-paid people are exclusively or predominantly in the public sector. I am afraid that that does not accord with the facts.
In my Mansion house speech, I made clear that I was determined to protect capital wherever possible within this survey. I have done that in two ways: by giving priority within the new spending plans to capital programmes, and by liberalising the rules on private finance.
The new plans support capital projects across a wide range of programmes. We will invest £6·3 billion on roads in the next three years. That is what we promised at the election, and that is what we will do. We will invest more in British Rail next year than in any year in the 1980s. That means that investment is up by one fifth compared with 1979, even after inflation.
We will invest a record £2·1 billion next year on capital projects in the national health service in England; why do not Opposition Members even begin to welcome that? We shall more than fulfil our election pledge to provide 153,000 homes through the Housing Corporation over three years.
There will be hundreds of capital projects—almost 400 major projects in the NHS; £1·4 billion of channel tunnel-related projects; £170 million on new rolling stock for commuter services in Kent; and twice as many new road starts next year as this.
On top of all that, we have made provision to move ahead quickly with one of the biggest projects that London Transport has put forward for decades—the Jubilee line extension. That means more work for the construction and engineering industries—perhaps as many as 12,000 on one project alone.
Those plans and proposals ensure that, after a rise this year, total public sector investment will be maintained in the year ahead.
Mr. Richard Tracey: My right hon. Friend is truly to be congratulated on his spending announcements last week and today concerning the Jubilee line—which even Opposition Members must welcome. However, perhaps he will clarify one point that mystifies me. Following last week's statement, London Transport's chairman said the following day that he was aggrieved that core funding is to be cut over the next three years. What is that supposed to mean? My right hon. Friend announced good news for London Transport, so why does its chairman complain?
Mr. Lamont: Investment in London Underground will be at the highest level for 20 years since records began. Even taking out the Jubilee line—which is an extraordinary way of looking at things, as though it were not a major project that must be paid for—investment will be higher than in any year other than the current year. By any standards, that is a major injection of funds into London Underground.
Improving the nation's infrastructure is not just a job for the Government. The radical new approach to private finance that I announced last week will, for the first time, really open up infrastructure projects to the private sector.
I have abolished the need for comparison between private and public projects which used to prevent schemes going ahead. Provided a project is self-financing and

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conforms with regulatory requirements, there is no reason, in my opinion, why the Government should stand in its way. I have opened the way to more joint ventures between the public and private sectors, and I have liberalised the rules for leasing, so the public sector can make the best use of the capital resources available.
As a start, British Rail will be allowed to lease some £150 million of new rolling stock in the next three years, which will help to develop the leasing market and pave the way to privatisation. That provision comes on top of BR's existing Government funding.
There are now immense opportunities across a wide range of projects. I listed some when I made my statement. The way is now clear for the private sector to come forward with further specific proposals for projects that they would like to carry out in partnership with the Government.
The Green Paper on motorway charging, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will publish in the new year, will be another radical step. Road charging raises many difficult questions, which will need the most careful consideration, but a future decision to proceed with electronic road pricing would open up enormous opportunities for new private sector investment in Britain's roads network.
Of course, the best way of involving the private sector in capital projects is through privatisation directly. The Government have been following that policy for many years, and many successful private companies have been created as a result. Next year, the Government will hold another major sale in one of those companies, British Telecom. That will be done to promote further our policy of wider share ownership.
Mr. Alex Salmond: Does the Chancellor remember telling me on Thursday—this can be found in column 1009 of Hansard—that Scotland, or "the territories" as he put it, would gain more from the changes in the Barnett formula than it would otherwise have done? Given that the Scottish Office has since estimated the loss over the next three years at £27 million from this year's block allocation, would the Chancellor care to amend his remarks and bring them closer to reality?
Mr. Lamont: I do not believe that I told the hon. Gentleman anything that was incorrect, but I will have a look at what I said. I was explaining that the consequentials formula for Scotland had been adjusted in line with the results of the latest population census; that strikes me as sensible and, indeed, overdue.
Mr. Gordon Brown: Last week, the Chancellor said that he would recoup the £700 million from the car tax in further taxes for road users. Is he now telling us that his April Budget will feature that plan for all road users? If so, what form will it take?
Mr. Lamont: The hon. Gentleman would be amazed if I gave the full details; indeed, it would be amazing if I were able to do so. What I said was that the cost of the motor tax abolition would be recouped, and I think that it would be reasonable to expect—[Interruption.] I have not made up my mind about which part will be recouped from particular taxes.
Capital spending does not just mean more roads, more hospitals and more rolling stock. The Government have also been determined to invest in the future of our people:
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that is why, in this very tight public spending round, we have continued to give priority to both education and health. Education spending will rise by 6 per cent. next year, and by 1995–96 it will be £l½ billion higher. That will allow 222,000 more students to enter further education; it will also allow Britain to rise nearer to the top of the international league for participation in education by 16-to-19-year-olds. At the same time, we are providing for a growing proportion of school leavers to take up youth training places.
Spending on the health service will rise in real terms in each of the next three years. Next year, it will rise by 3 per cent., enabling 2½ per cent. more patients to be treated. We have also kept the promises that we made to pensioners and to the less well off, who rely on benefits for their standard of living. That is why child benefit, pensions and other benefits have been indexed in full.
We could not have maintained capital spending, while at the same time focusing on health and education and uprating benefits, unless we had been prepared to adopt a firm stance on public sector pay. If we are to control current spending, the choice comes down to restraining the growth in wage bills or restraining the growth of services. In current circumstances, I judged that a policy of pay restraint in the public sector was the correct response.
I know that the limit of 1½ per cent. for settlements will seem hard to many who work in the public sector, but the facts must be recognised. In the past two years, earnings in the public sector have outstripped those in the private sector, where settlements are now at a 25-year low. Many private sector employees have experienced a pay freeze or a pay cut. I believe that a 1½ per cent. pay ceiling for one year is quite justified in the circumstances, given what it will yield.
The public sector pay bill represents an immense claim on the public finances. Controlling public spending is what we had to do, and what the autumn statement is all about.
I know all too well that the recession has been difficult for businesses and home owners, and particularly for those who have lost their jobs. More recently, the gloomy world background and the blow to confidence caused by the suspension of our ERM membership has raised renewed concern. But the fact is that, over the spring and into the summer, car production rose, being up 19 per cent. in the first half of the year, manufacturing production rose in the first and second quarters, and retail sales rose in the second quarter and again in the third.
Despite the gloomy headlines of the last few months, some of these hopeful indicators have been maintained. Car production again in October was 22 per cent. higher than a year earlier; industrial production rose in the third quarter; and today's new figures show that retail sales were up for the third month in a row, to their highest level for well over two years.
Over the months ahead, we need to see that this progress is consolidated and spread to those sectors, particularly housing and construction, which have been especially hard hit. It was to reviving confidence in those hard-pressed areas that the package of measures that I announced last week was addressed. Those measures, together with the cuts in interest rates, will provide major opportunities for businesses.
First, on the housing market, the Government are providing £750 million in the next four months to remove at least 20,000 empty properties off the market. The more private finance, and the better the terms, that can be

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secured, the more such properties will come off the market. Housing associations will be looking to builders, building societies and the whole range of lending institutions to get involved. This measure has been warmly welcomed by all those who care about the housing market. The National Association of Estate Agents has already described the move as "a recipe for recovery".
Secondly, as to the construction industry, local authorities now have a one-off opportunity to spend all the receipts they get over the next year. That should boost capital investment by local councils by over £ 1¾ billion—extra money for house renovations or refurbishing schools. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has taken steps to ensure that the extra investment is spread widely and has the maximum impact. Opposition Members were asking the other day why more could not be done. It can. They should go and tell Labour local authorities to sell their council houses and spend the money on the improvements we all want to see.
Thirdly, I have given exporters new opportunities to compete and succeed. I have increased export credit cover by £700 million for this year and next to help exporters take advantage of their new competitiveness and win new orders in world markets.
Fourthly, in regard to investment, with increased capital allowances and the lowest interest rates in Europe, every company has opportunities to invest. Even today, business investment accounts for a higher share of GDP than at any time during the 1970s. The higher capital allowances that I announced will add to this by giving firms the extra incentive they need to bring their investment plans forward.
Fifthly, the abolition of car tax will provide another major boost to Britain's car industry and to suppliers and component manufacturers throughout the country. That is why the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said:
"we can now look forward to the motor industry leading the economy out of recession".
British industry, which is the largest purchaser of cars produced in this country, will also benefit. The chairman of Lex Service, the car retailers, said that the abolition of car tax would
"reinforce the improvement that has already been seen in the new car market in recent months".
As I have said, there have indeed been improvements in the car market in car sales and in car production.
Low interest rates, low inflation, a package to build confidence and recovery—those are the steps which we have taken to tackle unemployment. Governments beat unemployment by encouraging growth and creating the conditions which business needs to invest and prosper. Job creation is a consequence of economic recovery, not its cause. Unemployment cannot be solved simply by letting the state sector grow year by year, as Opposition Members seem to believe.
Indeed, because of their commitment to minimum wages, any Government formed by the Opposition would increase unemployment, not reduce it. That is not just my view. After the election, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) explained it all. He said:
"I knew that the consequences were that there would be some shake out. Any silly fool knew that."
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I repeat:
"Any silly fool knew that."
Apparently not. No one would accuse the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) of being a silly fool. However, it was the right hon. and learned Member who described Labour's minimum wage plan as
"an unwavering commitment, not open to negotiation"—
even by any silly old fool. However, Labour's confusion over the minimum wage is nothing compared with the shambles of its tax plans.
Ms. Hilary Armstrong: How dare he?
Mr. Lamont: The hon. Lady shouts, "How dare he?" Does the hon. Lady mean, how dared we tell the British people at the time of the election, and was it not outrageous for us to do so?
Before the election, Labour's finely tuned, finely targeted answer to the recession was the biggest increase in taxes on incomes since the war. Since the election, the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East, has been unrepentant. He explained:
"I strongly defend these proposals."
However, the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East takes a different view.
Mr. Gordon Brown indicated dissent.
Mr. Lamont: He told a press conference last week:
"Further tax increases at this time would be a mistake."
So who is right? Is it the leader of the Labour party, or is it the shadow Chancellor? Opposition Members will remember that there is only one way to settle this sort of dispute. They did it before the election and they can do it again: clear the diary; get on the phone; call in the journalists; book a table at Luigi's; and settle down to a bit of spaghetti diplomacy. The fact is that the Labour leader's tax plans have been buried by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East. His shadow Budget, launched in such splendour and media hype, has been quietly, thank God, laid to rest.
However, Labour's problems will not go away that quickly. As usual, the Labour party's response to the outcome of the public spending round defies, as it always does, every known law of arithmetic. On pay, the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East believes that we have been too tough and he would like more. I should be surprised if he were to deny that. On capital spending, the hon. Gentleman says that we have not spent enough. Again, he would like more. However, when it comes to borrowing, the hon. Gentleman says that it is too high and should come down. On taxes, he says, "No, not today."
It does not even begin to add up. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East does not know how much he would spend; he does not know how much he would tax; he does not know how much he would borrow. [Interruption.] We are not talking about next year's Budget. We are talking about the situation today and Labour's response to the plans that we have put forward.
When the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East was asked what was wrong with the Government's plans and what he was proposing, he replied:
"I'm not prepared to put a figure on it."
He is the first shadow Chancellor to have volunteered for permanent purdah. This afternoon, we on this side, and the country, would like some answers. If the hon. Member

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for Dunfermline, East wants higher public sector pay, where would he get the money from? Would he take it from patient care in the health service? Would he cut spending on schools? Would he axe the Jubilee line? Would he cancel the hospital building programme? That was the pattern followed by previous Labour Governments. These are the questions that the hon. Gentleman must answer when he seeks to make any points about the statement that I have presented to the House.
The autumn statement is about tight control of public spending, protecting capital programmes and encouraging recovery in key sectors. This party alone has the policies and the determination to achieve those goals. British industry now has its best opportunity in years to attack the markets of its competitors and show what it can do. Low inflation and a competitive pound, the lowest interest rates for nearly 15 years, time-limited tax measures, low rates of tax and good industrial relations all give Britain the edge as a place to invest and to do business.
Yes, we have been firm on public sector pay—firm so that we can build roads, so that we can build hospitals, so that more and more of our young people can have the education that they deserve. We have been firm on what we pay ourselves today so that we can build a more prosperous country for tomorrow.
Now is the time for business leaders and managers to make the most of these opportunities to invest, to ex port and to build for the future. They can do so in the knowledge that behind them are a Government investing record sums in the nation's infrastructure and in the nation's future.
That is why this statement has given an opportunity to every business man and has set the right course for this nation's spending priorities in the years ahead. It has been warmly welcomed across the country, and it deserves the wholehearted support of this House.
4.29 pm
Mr. Gordon Brown: I beg to move, to leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
'regrets that the Autumn Statement confirms that the recession is continuing and that unemployment and bankruptcies will continue to rise; regrets also that investment which has fallen substantially during the recession will fall again for 1992 and will at best, according to Government forecasts, rise by only one quarter of one per cent. during 1993; deplores the worsening balance of payments and the failure of the Government to recognise the need for a policy for manufacturing and for the regions; demands an emergency employment programme to reduce unemployment and the fear of unemployment and additional investment measures to boost the construction industry and business as a whole; and calls for a long-term industrial and training policy for Britain.'.
When unemployment is approaching 3 million, when long-term unemployment is almost 1 million and when investment is falling, I do not think that the House has heard such a complacent statement from a Chancellor as we have heard this afternoon. If the Chancellor is in any doubt about the problems that British industry faces, will he talk to the Government's own Insolvency Service?
In the autumn statement forecast, the Chancellor assumes a large increase in the budget of the Insolvency Service merely to deal with the problems of business bankruptcies over the next year. Does he agree that the number of bankruptcies—20,000—with which the service dealt two years ago will rise to more than 40,000 in the year
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to come? Far from redundancies and bankruptcies falling as a result of the autumn statement, they will rise significantly.
Our argument is that last week's autumn statement and the measures that the Chancellor was forced to announce were an admission that his entire previous strategy had failed. He should apologise for three years of recession when measures that he is now being forced to consider were rejected and even ridiculed as unnecessary.
More important, the Chancellor should admit that the policies that he has explained this afternoon do not in any way measure up to the problems that we have at present. Most fundamentally of all—it became clearer and clearer as the Chancellor spoke—the Government still have no long-term industry or economic strategy for rebuilding the industrial base of this country.
The Government are unable to recognise that the fear of unemployment is the biggest barrier to the return of consumer confidence, so they have failed to introduce the employment measures that are urgently needed to bring down unemployment and to reduce the fear of unemployment.
The Government are unable to recognise that a complete policy shift and not just a series of ad hoc, piecemeal measures is necessary for industry. They have, therefore, failed to bring forward the industry strategy that is essential. The result is that the budget for the Department of National Heritage for the preservation of our past will soon surpass the budget of the Department of Trade and Industry for investment in our future. The Government are unable to distinguish between the cosmetic initiatives as a tactic and the real changes that are necessary to make Britain an economic world leader. That is why they have failed to provide a stable, long-term environment for industry.
Mr. John Townend: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that his criticisms of Government economic policy would be far more convincing if, last summer, when British industry was being squeezed by excessive interest rates and by an overvalued pound, especially against the dollar, he had joined some Conservative Members in urging the Government to leave the exchange rate mechanism, to float the pound, to reduce interest rates and to have the economic policy that the Chancellor is now putting forward?
Mr. Brown: Who was squeezing British industry? Who was responsible for the rise in interest rates? Who failed by not having an industrial policy for the country? Who was pushing up unemployment? It was none other than the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Sir Peter Tapsell: Given that situation, why did the hon. Gentleman urge the Government to remain in the ERM up to the very last minute?
Mr. Brown: Our policy was not the devaluation of the pound; it became the policy of the Government. Let us be absolutely clear about what has happened over the past three years. The Government told us that they would stay in the exchange rate mechanism. They promised at the election that they would not devalue. I have the election manifesto in which they said that the exchange rate was the cornerstone of their anti-inflation policy. Who left the ERM and devalued? It was none other than the Chancellor.
Mr. Tony Marlow: Would the hon. Gentleman have left the ERM? If he had, would the pound have been devalued?
Mr. Brown: We have said to the Chancellor that he had the option of realigning within the exchange rate mechanism. The Chancellor has failed to give us a convincing answer. I ask him again today: was realignment discussed within the Government—yes or no? Was he not aware that if the Government had put that proposal to the authorities in Europe it would have had a sympathetic hearing? The answer to that is, of course, yes.
Mr. Rod Richards: The hon. Gentleman has just said, as many of his colleagues have said in the past, that the pound should have been realigned a week or two before 16 September. What should the central value of sterling have been at that time? What should have been the corresponding rate of interest?
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman has the audacity to ask me, when the Government have devalued the pound by 15 per cent. The difference between us and the Government is that we believe in a managed exchange rate. The Chancellor cannot even tell us this afternoon whether he believes in a floating or managed exchange rate.
Let us be absolutely clear about the autumn statement. First, unemployment is going to rise and the Chancellor cannot deny that. Secondly, our industrial capacity will continue to shrink. Thirdly, we are bottom of the league in Europe for investment, employment, output and growth. Fourthly, the Chancellor's figures in the autumn statement admit that, even at the depths of the recession, the balance of payments of this country will worsen and import penetration, even as we fail to grow, will mean that foreign producers will benefit from any sales in the shops and more so than British industry.
Mr. Keith Mans: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brown: I will give way only once more.
Mr. Mans: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with his colleague the shadow transport spokesman who said that any silly fool knows that minimum wages result in lost jobs?
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman has taken the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) completely out of context. My hon. Friend was defending a minimum wage. He was not opposing it. He was saying that the abolition of wage control in the wages councils is completely unacceptable and would even have been offensive to Winston Churchill who brought them in. It is obscene that Conservative Members continue to tell us that there is no floor below which wages should not fall, while they have been absolutely silent when some executives in British industry have awarded themselves huge pay rises above £10,000 a week—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. While I fully appreciate from the Chair the advantage of interventions in debate, I will never tolerate a deliberate policy on either side of the House of shouting speakers down.
Mr. Brown: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not know whether the interventions are voluntary or as a result of arm twisting on the Conservative Benches. However, I am happy to deal with Conservative Members whether they intervene from a desire to do so on their part or because of prodding from the Whips.
Let us consider the autumn statement. Last Thursday, Conservative Members not only cheered and waved their Order Papers; they stood and congratulated the Chancellor on his autumn statement. I can tell the Chancellor now that they were cheering his admission that the housing market would not recover of itself; that industry would not revive of itself unaided by the Government; and that investment would continue to decline without special measures. They were cheering the admission that simply waiting for free market forces to work was simply not enough.
When the Chancellor introduced the investment incentives that he himself once called phoney, which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry before the election called vague and misplaced and which the Conservative election briefing called misdirected, and when the Government said that the use of capital receipts that the housing Minister once called fool's gold were acceptable forms of intervention in the marketplace, what we saw from Conservative Members was the belated and enforced admission of the failure of all that they had held most dear—the experiment of the 1980s in a free-for-all economy. That admission should lead them to apologise to the thousands of people who have lost their jobs, their homes and their businesses over three years of recession when the Government were, by their own admission now, pursuing the wrong policy.
Let us remember what happened at the election when the Prime Minister said not that a recovery programme was needed but that all that was needed was a Conservative election victory to bring about recovery. He said:
"Our re-election will make recovery certain. Don't let anyone tell you that the recovery isn't there for the taking. The return of a Conservative Government is the remaining ingredient to ensure a return to growth."
In a speech called "Thumbs up for Recovery", he said:
"All Britain is waiting for is the confidence a Conservative victory will bring."
Such phrases show that the election was not so much about the representation of the people as about misrepresentation to the people about Conservative views. At the election, when the Prime Minister was asked about a recovery programme, he said:
"£1 billion on a recovery programme"—
roughly what the Chancellor is giving in the recovery measures—
"any economist will tell you that that will make no impact whatsoever."
Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brown: I am not giving way.
The Prime Minister said:
"It is sticking-plaster over the lack of policy. I have never heard such ludicrous nonsense in my life."
Mr. Oppenheim: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brown: I am not giving way.
Last Thursday, we witnessed the final—
Mr. Lamont rose—
Mr. Brown: Every time I give way to the right hon. Gentleman I have to remind him of the promises that he made in his party's manifesto that he was never able to fulfil.
Mr. Lamont: We all know what the hon. Gentleman was promising at the election—it was very large tax increases. If Labour had won the election, presumably the hon. Gentleman would have implemented those tax increases which he now thinks should not have been implemented. What has caused him to change his mind? Why is his view today different from what it was at the election?
Mr. Brown: I thought that it should have been obvious to the Chancellor that the recession has become a slump. British industry is faced with problems that it cannot of itself solve, and that is why the Chancellor has had to introduce a recovery programme.
Last Thursday we witnessed the final recognition of how wrong it was to say that the recession would end of itself and that recovery was inevitable and how wrong it was to assume a spontaneous free market end to the recession. Let us remember what the Chancellor said: he is reminding other people of what they said. In a speech on 27 June, 1990, as the recession began, he said:
"The real test of Thatcherite economics is only now beginning. The slow-down in prospect will put to the test the new-found flexibility and resilience of the economy and the effectiveness of the labour market reforms. It looks as if we may now be seeing the beginning of a reverse of the long-running trend which has seen the share of manufacturing in GDP fall. I feel that the resurgence that we have seen so far is nothing like the resurgence that we are about to see."
That was the Chancellor speaking just before the recession finally got going. But the problem that the Government face is that, having had to admit that past policies have been wrong, and having had to admit, as they cheered, that the free market solution was insufficient, they have not in any way measured up to the scale of the problems that they themselves have created by their policies.
Mr. Michael Stephen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brown: I am not giving way.
As with the coal crisis, the Government are wrong and have been shown to be wrong. As with the coal crisis, they have modified their policies in the light of being shown to be wrong. But my fear is that, as with the coal crisis, they are doing the right thing belatedly, half-heartedly and with the continuing intention, as soon as circumstances allow, of reverting to their original destructive course of action.
Let us look at the scale of the problems that the Chancellor should have dealt with—the seventh quarter of recession, the longest recession since the 1930s, £30 billion lost output, unemployment rising for many months to come, manufacturing investment down 20 per cent., and business saying that industrial capacity is becoming so small that some people doubt whether in key sectors British industry will be able to benefit from recovery.
What do the Government's proposals achieve? Even if the Chancellor's forecasts were right, having lost 7 per cent. of our industrial output during the recession, he assumes that we can win only 1 per cent. of it back next year. Having lost 20 per cent. of our manufacturing investment, his proposals assume that we will recover none of that over the next year. Investment in our manufacturing future is 20 per cent. lower than when the
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recession began—no wonder many people are doubting whether the autumn statement in any way measures up to the problems that we face.
If the Government's forecasts are right, we will reach a position by the end of 1993 when national income in recession-hit America will have risen by 4 per cent. since 1990, in Italy by 4 per cent., in Canada by 5 per cent., in Germany by 5 per cent., in Japan by 10 per cent., even in Greece by 8 per cent., and in Spain by 5 per cent., but will have fallen by 2·5 per cent. in Britain. That is the scale of our problems in comparison with other countries.
As everyone knows, the question is whether the test of the sincerity of the Chancellor's conversion from the failure of his previous policies can be seen in the actions that he proposes in the autumn statement. Let us look at what it adds up to in practice. We know that the Jubilee line, which was announced and then re-announced and which was in the election manifesto, has still to secure a starting date. We know also that many of the other projects that the right hon. Gentleman put before us last Thursday have no starting dates at all—for example, the proposals that were going to help us with new public-private partnerships for investment and the east-west crossrail which he mentioned in his autumn statement. Of course, that project was first announced in 1989, but construction cannot begin until 1 April 1996.
The central Scotland fast link that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned on Thursday—again, first announced not by him but several months ago—has an earliest possible starting date of 1996. The Birmingham west orbital road, again announced some time ago, has a first possible starting date of 1996. The channel tunnel rail link, which was announced in October 1989, has a first starting date of 1996. Perhaps the Government plan to help with the next Tory recession—they will make absolutely no difference to the current Tory recession, because not one truly new capital investment programme was announced last week for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the west of England.
It is not so much an autumn statement as an autumn restatement of projects that were previously announced and have been repackaged by the Chancellor. We must take into account the facts that transport expenditure is to be cut by 20 per cent. in real terms by 1996, that, as has been mentioned by a Conservative Member—the Chancellor did not deny it—London Underground financing will be in difficulties over the next few years, and that, whatever people say about the roads programme, the one thing that is absolutely certain is that roads that need urgent repairs will not be repaired. The promise of action is not for now, in the depth of the recession, but for a long time into the future.
Last week, Conservative Members were cheering not action now but the possibility that, at a later date if funds become available, things might be done long into the future—when we needed, in addition to the housing measures that the right hon. Gentleman announced, a home owners' rescue scheme and a direct boost to building houses, when we needed the construction industry to be directly assisted, when we needed the release of capital receipts that had been accumulated by the sales of the past, and not those receipts that local authorities do not even possess in most cases for the future and that are certainly likely to be far lower than the Chancellor's figures. People will see that the measures that the Chancellor announced

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last week were limited, too little too late, and of course they will not deal with the substantial problems of homelessness.
Let us examine the Government's car industry initiatives. Some people might be excused for feeling a little cynical. The Chancellor looked at the problems facing 3 million unemployed, the financial difficulties of 5 million people on public sector pay who will have a pay cut, and the utter hardship of a quarter of a million people whose homes have been repossessed. He decided that, of all the measures that he proposed, the most generously funded would be the £400 off the price of the average new car. That measure could not bring joy to the unemployed miner or the underpaid home help who will receive an increase of at best £1·50 a week. As a result of the Government's policies, such people cannot even contemplate buying a second hand car, let alone a new car.
Let us examine the abolition of the car tax. I welcome it, but the measure has to be part of a full national recovery programme. The measure will cost the Treasury £750 million. The motor traders predict that, such is the recession in the economy, only 70,000 additional cars will be sold next year as a result of the initiative. That means that the cost to the Treasury of each additional car sold will be £10,500. Yet the average car costs less than £10,000. [Interruption.] It is absolutely right.
As the Chancellor has failed to contemplate additional measures to ensure industrial recovery and make it possible for people to afford to buy cars, it would have been cheaper to give cars away to 70,000 people. [Interruption.] Conservative Members may laugh but if 70,000 additional cars will be sold in the next year as a result of the expenditure of £750 million, it works out at almost £10,500 per car sold. The Chancellor would have been more sensible if he had spent the money on the first hand-out from the national lottery. That would have been a more sensible central element of his recovery programme.
The point that I make illustrates—[Interruption.] Conservative Members claim that they know how to add up, but the fact is that the measure costs £10,500 per car. Such is the false economics of isolated random and assorted measures. If they are not part of a co-ordinated recovery strategy—
Mr. David Shaw: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have you had any request from the Opposition to lay a paper before the House which explains that if 70,000 additional cars are sold, additional moneys will be earned through VAT and—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is a frivolous point of order and the hon. Gentleman knows it.
Mr. Quentin Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brown: No, I shall not give way. I have given way quite enough.
Conservative Members do not seem to understand that if the Chancellor does not introduce a full national recovery programme which includes investment, housing, industry and employment measures, the isolated measures that he takes will be costly and will not yield the benefit that he expects. The main point is that so long as people
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are afraid of losing their job, and so long as the Chancellor fails to recognise that fact, an isolated gesture will achieve far less than it should. It becomes a huge cost which does not achieve great benefit for the country.
Let us summarise the net effect of the Chancellor's measures. He expects £300 million in additional investment in the next year. He expects investment to rise from slightly less than £71 billion to slightly more than £71 billion. He expects a 0·25 per cent. boost in investment. Let us examine the shortfall since the recession began. Investment has fallen from £80 billion to £71 billion—an 11 per cent. fall.
The best that the Chancellor can hope for as a result of his car tax and other measures in the next few months is that a £9,000 million fall in investment will be made up by only a £300 million increase. In other words, for every £100 in investment lost to the economy during the recession since 1990, only £3 will be put back in the next year. Investment will be a smaller share of the economy at the end of next year than at the beginning. Far from the investment-led recovery which the Chancellor argued that he would bring about, we have the opposite: Britain's share of investment in its economy will fall.
The problem is that, while the Chancellor admitted under pressure that he was wrong to pursue a wholly free market solution in the past few years, through lack of conviction he has failed to apply the remedies that we need. The first element that he should have considered was an industry policy for Britain. Germany, Italy, Japan and France are introducing programmes for manufacturing and technology. France and Italy are using this period to boost their computer and information technology industries. Japan has announced special measures for small businesses, technology and the new generation industries of the future. In Germany special action has been taken for engineering and technology. America is preparing to introduce an industry policy of its own.
Yet here in Britain, the Chancellor is happy to contemplate Britain producing fewer ships than Norway, Denmark or China, fewer cars than Spain, fewer commercial vehicles than South Korea, less steel than Brazil, fewer computers than Taiwan and a quarter of the machine tools that Germany produces. We import some of the most basic consumer goods which we could produce here. Is it right that the Government are prepared to preside over a massive cut in our industrial capacity? Worse than that, the autumn statement figures reveal that the Government propose to cut support for industry, technology, regional aid, small businesses and research and development.
The only budget increase of any significance at the Department of Trade and Industry is for the closure of coal mines. Yet the Government should build an energy policy that will make coal an essential element in our planning for the future.
The second element missing from the Chancellor's autumn statement is vital to the economic future of Britain. It is a long-term strategy for investment in people. We have fewer students at universities and colleges than Taiwan or Korea. The autumn statement admitted that, although there are more qualified people, only the same number of people could expect college places. Is not the net effect of the predictions in the autumn statement that training, which is central to our future, will be cut? The training and enterprise councils will have smaller budgets at a time when they have even greater need.

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What does the Government's strategy add up to? We hear nothing now about zero inflation, nothing about the British economic miracle, nothing about the pound replacing the deutschmark as Europe's central currency and nothing about the first green shoots of spring which the Chancellor saw before. The Chancellor now tells us that he discounts forecasts. But for the past two years he has predicted month in month out that we will recover from recession.
What is the basis of the Government's economic strategy now? They have given up the medium-term financial strategy; they have given up shadowing the deutschmark; they have given up membership of the exchange rate mechanism. What does the policy now rest on? The Chancellor told the Treasury Select Committee that the economic policy rested on none of those strategies but simply on the Chancellor's judgment.
We have come through M0, M3 and sterling M3, the medium-term financial strategy and membership of the ERM. Now, after 13 years of experimentation and all the pain of it, we have the answer that economic policy, interest rate considerations and what happens to inflation must rest on the soundness of the Chancellor's judgment. "Lamont puts faith in judgment", as The Daily Telegraph put it on Friday 9 October. The Chancellor said:
"My aim will be to reach a judgment on inflationary trends."
The Chancellor intends to build an economic strategy on the element which no one can claim is credible with the City or the country—the soundness of the Chancellor's judgment. He will bypass the relative certainties of astrology, reading the tea leaves, palmistry and cutting a pack of cards. The Chancellor's judgment is to be the central element of economic policy in Britain.
I suppose that each day, the Chancellor wakes up and reads the newspapers; he gets into his bath and sings, or not, as the case may be; he looks out of the window and sees, or does not see, the green shoots of spring; he hears, or does not hear, vague stirrings; and then he considers the economic issues of the day and what the judgment should be on inflation and interest rates. Every day is judgment day—the Chancellor's judgment—Norman's wisdom. That is the basis of economic policy—unsound before breakfast, unsound before lunch and unsound before dinner.
This is the Chancellor who told us that there would be no recession, and there was. He told us that there would be a recovery two years ago, six months ago, at the election, and after it. He told us that he would not devalue, and he did. He said that he would not leave the exchange rate mechanism, and he did. He told us that he would give us a new economic strategy, and now we find that it does not add up to much. That is the problem which the economy faces.
Mr. Lamont: Since the hon. Gentleman has talked about adding up, will he tell us precisely where he thinks the funds for all the programmes that he has put forward would come from? He told us that, although the 1988 to 1995 roads programme is to double, it is inadequate. He told us that, although London Underground's investment is to be the highest for 20 years, it is inadequate. He told us that the Department of Trade and Industry budget is inadequate, and that the budget for training is inadequate
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even though it will increase next year. Can he tell us whether he is proposing to fund his programme by more borrowing, more taxes, or a combination of both?
Mr. Brown: The Chancellor does not understand that the public sector borrowing requirement is rising because of the recession and unemployment. Policies for growth will bring it down—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer!"] I have set out a number of measures that the Chancellor could take. One includes a public dividend on the utilities that have made excess profits, which Conservative Members have defended, throughout the recession.
If the Chancellor could achieve proper growth in the economy, the cost of unemployment would fall and the investment that we would make in the economy would yield the necessary results.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Does the hon. Gentleman think that his projected tax on utilities will increase investment? Does he really believe that?
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to have considered the fact that the utilities have huge amounts of cash in the bank which they are not using productively in the economy. He does not seem to realise that during the past three years, when the Government have done little to regulate them, the utilities' profits have exceeded £20,000 million, which is roughly £800 for every family in the country. I shall ask him and his hon. Friends a question: do they believe that the utilities have made excess profits during the past three years? I do not think that anyone is in any doubt that that is what has happened.
My argument is that the country can have little confidence in the economic leadership of men and Ministers whose every prediction has failed and whose every promise has been broken. Having told us that a recovery programme was not necessary for recovery, they now tell us that it is a prerequisite. Having promised year-on-year tax cuts, which is what the Prime Minister did to win the election, they are saying that tax increases can neither be ruled in nor out. Having promised balanced budgets—initially annually, when the Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer, then over the trade cycle—they have redefined what they mean by a balanced budget. Because of the vast cost of unemployment arid recession, they have retreated to the assertion that the best that they can promise is to balance the budget in one or two years of the cycle.
Having told us that a pay policy in the public sector was inflexible and unnecessary—the Prime Minister said that specifically—and would mean recruitment and retention of staff difficulties and make it difficult to offer incentives, the Government now tell us that a pay policy that hits the poorest and weakest hardest is essential for the economy. Having been told that wage norms were unnecessary in a free market, two nights ago—when everyone expected a speech on foreign policy—we are now told that a wages policy is part of the economic policy for the private sector as well. Having promised a classless society, opportunity for all and a nation at ease with itself, the Government, by underfunding the health service, allowing waiting lists to rise and allowing huge increases in poverty, inequality, deprivation and homelessness, have reneged on any promise that opportunity for all was ever possible under such a Government.
What is at stake is not merely the Chancellor's personal fate—that has long since been decided—or the political

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fate of the Conservative party. What worries me is the economic fate of millions of people who cannot depend on any consistency in economic policy while the Conservative party is in power. How can people spend with confidence or plan ahead? How can people move home? How can businesses invest when they do not know from week to week what Government policy will be and whether they will have the guts to stick with it? That is why it is the Government who have become the obstacle to economic recovery; people do not have any confidence in them.
The Conservative party is fond of comparing everything to what happens in business. Let it be clear that if the senior executives of any company had been responsible for the Government's mistakes; if they had consistently misrepresented the true state of their finances; if they had recklessly entered into promises that they were never able to keep; if they had published a series of false prospectuses and said that they stood wholeheartedly behind them and would not change; if they had lost billions off the reserves in a few days as a result of speculation; if they had presided over the rundown of core manufacturing activities, with more goods having to be imported from abroad; if they had to say that all past statements that they had made were virtually inoperative, as the Government did on 16 September; and if they had been found responsible for errors and misjudgments on the scale that the Government have made them, would there not have been a boardroom coup? Would not those people intimately associated with the company have demanded big changes and resignations? Would not those executives have resigned as the error of their ways had been exposed?
The Government's philosophy seems to be to make excuses and stay. The Government have been forced by events to admit that they have been habitually wrong on a massive scale for a long time. Yet even now they cannot get it right. The Chancellor says that he is going for growth. He should be going now, so that growth can succeed.
5.7 pm
Mr. John Biffen: I always enjoy the speeches of the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown). He has all the fervour and moral zeal of the manse, and that was evident this afternoon. I confess that I bring different qualities to the debate—philosophic doubt and general agnosticism.
I am anxious for those who believe that one can handle the components of spending, income, and borrowing as though they were mechanical levers which can produce a predetermined end to the recession. If we look across the western world—in particular, this week, at Germany—we find other economies, with different economic philosophies, thrust into the miserable experiences that we enjoy. In that context, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on the reception that his autumn statement received within the Conservative party—because it was an important component in the restoration of confidence—and in the business community. I hope that the confidence shown can be vindicated.
My enthusiasm centred around the decision which preceded the autumn statement to allow our exchange rate to find a more realistic level. It is now 15 per cent. below its ERM rate. For all those people who talked about a managed devaluation, especially the Opposition Front
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Bench, were any of them thinking of managing it to the level that has proved to be the economic reality? No. They would have chosen a lesser figure. It could have been managed initially at that level but speculation would have recommenced after a short time. I am delighted that we now have that particular freedom and the consequent lower interest rates. I wish my right hon. Friend well in the pursuit of those policies, because I believe that the more we expose ourselves to underlying and prudent reality in the economy, the more likely we are able to trace our steps back to a happier economic situation.
I must tell my right hon. Friend that that marks the end of those of my words which will come gladly to him. What I say hereafter he may well support in his bosom, but I suspect that he might feel that there are other occasions when they could be said more appropriately. I happen to think, however, that one's job in the House of Commons is to offer good-natured advice and that I will now do.
I shall concentrate my remarks on three matters: borrowing, incomes policy—I prefer to identify it by what can be familiarly understood—and taxation. My right hon. Friend has, understandably, pursued a high level of public spending. I welcome the figures contained in the statement, particularly in terms of the protective areas of state activity such as health, education and social services. Of course, as a consequence, public borrowing is now at substantial levels—£37 billion for the year 1992–93, or 6¼per cent. of the gross domestic product. I do not dismiss the Financial Times or The Daily Telegraph as the more radical elements of the press and they have calculated that, in the following year, public borrowing could rise to between £44 billion and £45 billion, or between 7 and 7¼ per cent. of GDP.
For those who just have a sense of history, I remind them that the last time that we had a PSBR higher than that was in 1975–76, back in the territory of the International Monetary Fund and Mr. Witteveen. Those hallowed memories inevitably diminish over time and it is just as well that we remind ourselves of them.
The figures for public borrowing are quite formidable and the point must be made—not least in the context that we are all concentrating our minds upon Maastricht—that in article 104C—I put in a detailed reference for the benefit of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary—the borrowing threshold for excessive deficit is triggered at 3 per cent.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor needs no reminding that we provide the shock troops who seek to serve him. The public borrowing figures represent a potential future inflationary timebomb. The recovery may come unexpectedly fast; the truth is that none of us knows about the timing of that recovery. The confident assertions that seem to be the stock-in-trade of economic debate not merely in the House of Commons but outside is extremely depressing. We cannot prudently contemplate borrowing of that magnitude without realising that, even with a modest recovery, there may be great difficulties in funding that borrowing other than in an inflationary fashion. We would then be back on another treadmill, having just escaped from one.
In that context, I should like to consider incomes policy. Given the current level of public borrowing, the Government, quite naturally, wish to minimise their spending and in as painless a way as possible. So a formula has been developed, a crude 1½ per cent. across the board limit on pay increases in the public sector, just for one year.

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I am not going to be so hypersensitive as to cavil about the circumstances that persuaded the Chancellor to make that judgment, but other considerations should be put on the scales.
For a long time we have been trying to disaggregate the public sector through the operation of performance pay and a host of other techniques to try to bring about a much more open system of payment. We persuaded ourselves that that was a prime requirement. Let there be no misunderstanding: to go for the flat rate approach will make that objective a good deal more difficult. I suspect, however, that that approach will still persist, which will make the actual implementation of the 1½ per cent. limit more and more partial and will therefore give rise to more and more resentment. I say that not looking into the crystal, but merely reading the book of the 1960s, when we went through all this.
One may start with the hope that the decision is a rather clever wheeze to keep public spending under better control than would otherwise be the case, but it begins to get out of hand. We have already seen how the private sector is being invited to take part in this great exercise. The Prime Minister wheeled out his wayside pulpit and took it down to Mansion house where he gave a little lecture about the 1½ per cent. limit to the private sector. If wealth creation means anything, it means striving. It means rewards for the successful. Those efforts should not merely be disparaged by ministerial rhetoric—for it is no more than that. As for the weekend lectures, the language of senior Government politicians is far too valuable to be squandered on that kind of exercise because it merely devalues their general currency.
Given that I have an anxiety about the level of borrowing and that I do not believe that one can have restraints on the public sector in the form of a 1½ per cent. pay settlement—certainly not beyond one year—which is now being promulgated, it is important to consider the debate in the global sense. I started my speech by referring to what has happened to other countries in the western world. I do not think that President Bush did himself or the United States that much good when he said, "Watch these lips, no more taxes". I do not think that Kohl did himself much good by foreswearing the use of taxation to deal with the unification of Germany and rather to depend heavily on monetary weapons. We have to be prepared to see increases in taxes in the coming Budget as complementary to what is now being elaborated in the Government's spending and borrowing programmes.
I am not for one moment going to suggest what kind of taxes are appropriate, but I believe that it would be better to devise a tax system that bore upon people as they spent rather than as they earned. In that way we will gradually downgrade the impact of so many of the items that are set against tax liability, which has bedevilled a good deal of tax planning and tax management.
I do not believe that the policy to get a measured and I hope successful emergence of Britain from the miseries of the recession can possibly succeed unless all the major elements of policy have some realistic relationship with each other. In that context I believe that taxation has a part to play, and that comes not happily from my lips when I say that it must mean an increase in taxes.
5.18 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith: The right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) has given the Chancellor much food for thought. I want to draw attention to something that he said at the beginning of his speech, when he referred to the reception that the autumn statement got from those on the Government Back Benches.
That reception was indeed a warm and enthusiastic one, but it seems to have faded a little. However, the point is that the Chancellor should not look to his Back Benchers to assess the value of his policies. The fact that he has a great need to do just that because of recent events, and the fact that those who delivered that reception have, primarily, short-term considerations because of recent events, are bad pointers for economic policy. The pursuit of an economic policy based on judgment will not be assisted if the test of that judgment on the day is how pleased the people sitting behind the Chancellor are. I hope that he will bear that in mind in the future.
First, I wish to enter a complaint that we are having this debate so soon after the autumn statement. Our normal practice has been to give the Treasury Select Committee time to prepare a report and take evidence. The Chancellor and the Chief Secretary have made it their business to come along to the Committee during the short interval, but there has not been enough time for hon. Members to study the contents of the autumn statement, which makes me suspicious that the Government did not want us to have time to consider the details before this debate.
Usually, the statement, together with an avalanche of press releases from Departments, can bear a different interpretation when studied more closely. Even Conservative Governments juggle and emphasise the figures in order to give the impression that they are spending more new money than they really are. It is sometimes surprising that Conservative Governments should want to give that impression. Time to study the detail is necessary.
Time is also needed for the Secretary of State for the Environment's statement on what will happen to local government finance and what the standard spending assessments will be. The Government clearly promised that this year the same mistake would not be made. We were told that the Secretary of State for the Environment would probably make his statement by the end of October, and that we would be able to consider in this debate not only central Government but local government finance. We are being denied that opportunity, because that statement has not yet been made.
When the figures are studied in more detail, they become interesting. For example, the Government seek to argue that they have done well in protecting the overseas aid budget, but the figures are constant for the two years after next year, at £1·9 billion, which implies a real cut of 6 per cent. over those years using the autumn statement's assumptions on inflation—the GDP deflator.
The increase in overseas aid to take place in the coming year is effectively dedicated to aid to eastern Europe. I strongly support helping eastern European democracies and economies to develop, but the Government have always asserted that that would not be done at the expense of aid to developing countries. Therefore, the figures for aid to developing countries turn out to be less rosy than the Government suggest.

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Transport expenditure had a significant boost in the spending plans that were already in place, but it becomes apparent that there is not really a further increase. The extra money for British Rail next year—£130 million—buys only the new Networker trains promised before the election. The extra £100 million for 1994–95 is only for channel tunnel expenditure.
London Underground is complaining vociferously about the effect of the Government's plans for it, because, although the Jubilee line is in—despite not yet having been finally agreed—modernisation of the Northern line goes out as a consequence. None of the key projects that British Rail has planned, from modernisation of the north-west line to smaller routine maintenance projects or further electrification, finds a place.
The Government have said that they are protecting existing capital expenditure. To that extent, they have been clear about what they have done for most of the time. We argue that additional capital expenditure is needed if this is to be the route to economic recovery. I think that the Government feel that, by protecting capital expenditure, they have assisted the dash for growth, to which the Prime Minister referred in his recent remarks. If it is to be a dash for growth, it will require additional capital spending.
One of the most confusing areas is local authority capital spending.
Mr. Stephen Milligan: Will the right hon. Gentleman repair the omission by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown)—he would not answer the question put by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor—as it appears that the Liberal Democrats, too, would like to see much more spending in those areas? If the right hon. Gentleman favours more spending on capital projects, would he pay for it by cutting current spending on, say, pensions or would he raise taxes?
Mr. Beith: I shall come to financing before the end of my speech, if the hon. Gentleman will wait that long. I shall not make the same mistake as Labour Members in not saying how they propose to finance their suggestions—or, to be fairer to them, by having a smaller programme of additional expenditure than some of their rhetoric suggests. That would be a fairer criticism, and that is what the Chancellor said.
The Government have chosen to allow local authorities to increase their capital spending on the basis of the sales of capital which they undertake from now on. They have closed off the route of using previous sales of assets for that purpose. Their argument for doing that is that they do not want to reward local authorities that hung on to money and failed to repay debt.
When pressed, as Ministers were before the Treasury Select Committee, to explain how local authorities would achieve those sales in a depressed market, Ministers said that it was all right, because some local authorities had dragged their feet over council house sales. So the authorities that will be able to spend—those that will be rewarded—are those that have dragged their feet over council house sales. I do not see the logic of that. What sense does it make as an incentive?
An even more perverse incentive—to use the Chief Secretary's phrase—is to tell local authorities to go out now and achieve sales of assets, when the market is in its
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worst possible condition, when the price achievable will be the worst possible, when the effect on the market for everybody else will be as bad as it can be and when they will be unable to start their capital projects until they have achieved those sales. There can be no rapid or early action, because local authorities cannot undertake that capital expenditure until they have carried out the sales.
Mr. John Watts: Rewarding local authorities is one of the arguments that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary used, but there was a more fundamental one, which the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge. The total of Government borrowing as a proportion of GDP is an important economic factor.
Being committed to Maastricht, the right hon. Gentleman would not wish to see the British economy diverge too far from those criteria. Does he not accept that there is a fundamental difference between releasing past receipts that are currently treated as reducing growth borrowing to get to the net figure of general Government indebtedness, which adds to total borrowing, and allowing the full use of future receipts, which are self-financing? When a local authority sells an asset and receives funds from the private sector, there is no net additional Government borrowing.
Mr. Beith: If the hon. Gentleman is right, capital expenditure by local authorities on a self-financing basis would have been acceptable had the Government allowed it before now, so I do not understand how the hon. Gentleman can advance that argument. The question is simply how much of it we think that the economy can stand. The Government think that the economy can stand £1·8 billion of it over three and a half years, and prefer to see it financed from new asset sales. I doubt whether that figure will be achieved, because local authorities will be unable to achieve those sales, particularly in the earlier part of the period, when it is most necessary for the capital expenditure to take place.
I do not need to dwell on the needs that that capital expenditure could meet in terms of housing, school repairs and other improvements to the stock of things that help the community and industry. There is considerable doubt whether the Government's objective of increasing capital spending by local authorities will be met.
The Chancellor has taken a significant change in direction on fiscal measures. He used to be opposed to fiscal fine tuning and any measures that smacked of that. He has now accepted that changes in car tax and capital allowances, housing market intervention and the spending of capital receipts are desirable, although he found them undesirable earlier in the year.
A number of those measures are welcome, but they do not add up to much. If the Chancellor has accepted the case for fiscal stimulus, why does he not do the job properly, instead of stinting on capital receipts and making no additional funds available? The reflationary impact of his small fiscal package may be more than offset by the deflationary impact of public sector pay curbs.
The right hon. Member for Shropshire, North mentioned incomes policy. It is a confused area. In the public sector, there is to be a 1·5 per cent. ceiling, although that does not mean that no individual will get more than 1·5 per cent.—it would not be possible under the

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increasingly decentralised mechanism. It is supposed to mean that no Department or major area of activity could achieve more than 1·5 per cent.
What is to happen in the private sector? According to the Prime Minister, the private sector must take note and respond, but the Treasury forecasts for the economy assume higher real personal disposable incomes of about 1·5 per cent., while the public sector is expected to suffer a cut in real incomes. What is the Prime Minister saying to the private sector? Is he saying, "Don't achieve an increase in real disposable incomes or our recovery plans will not work"? That seems to be the Government's dilemma.
If the private sector does not receive a substantial increase in real incomes, the money will not be available in the form of spending power to bring about recovery. It is possible that some of that money, if not paid in wages, might be paid in industrial investment and enter the economy by another route. However, a significant part of that money might well stay in industrial saving—it would not be spent in the short term, the period about which we are most concerned.
Should the private sector listen to the Prime Minister and obey the instruction to model itself on the 1·5 per cent. limit, or ignore it and follow the message contained in the Treasury's forecasts? There is great confusion about the Government's overall objectives.
All those factors seem to add up to the fact that the Chancellor has become an honorary member of the Cambridge Economic Group. We have devaluation, a fiscal boost and an incomes policy—the tripartite policy of the Cambridge group. The Chancellor has bought the lot. He has given a limited fiscal boost; he has introduced an incomes policy in a traditional Conservative way, starting with the public sector and asking the private sector to follow.
Do Conservative Members believe that there will be only one year of incomes policy? What will happen in a year's time, when the Chancellor—whoever he may be by then—has to say to the public sector that it cannot have wage increases of much beyond 1·5 per cent. and to the private sector that it must continue to exercise restraint? We seem to be re-entering a familiar period, which some of us who have been in the House for some time can remember.
The policy marks a significant change of direction, but I do not believe that it is the right one. Some people, including Conservative Members, suggested that the Chancellor had to make a choice—to adopt a cautious policy or to take considerable risks by undertaking additional borrowing to stimulate the economy. They suggested that the Chancellor had a choice between caution and risk, but there is no such choice. There is a choice of two risks. The first is to borrow in order to invest in measures that create employment and help to bring about recovery. The second risk is that there is no recovery and the borrowing requirement goes up and up because of the costs of recession.
The Government did not acquire their present high public sector borrowing requirement through a conscious desire to bring it about, and their objective was not to invest through borrowing. They acquired the high PSBR because of the recession. The borrowing requirement exists to pay for unemployment benefit and social benefits, and replace forgone tax revenue. That pattern will continue if we do not have a recovery.
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We believe that the package proposed will be insufficient to bring about recovery. Our alternative would be to give a substantial boost to capital spending, funded by additional borrowing. That would be combined with a sound basis for monetary policy by means of an independent central bank and direct help to business.
We also argue that it might have been more sensible in the current circumstances to help those businesses which would otherwise go to the wall, by providing a cut or holiday in the uniform business rate, rather than introducing a capital allowance scheme that helps only those businesses that expect to pay significant amounts of tax, against which they can use an allowance. Many businesses are not in that position; what they fear is not paying tax, but going bankrupt. That is particularly true of many small businesses.
We would also like to have seen a significant expansion in training, which is quite out of the question under the projections given in the autumn statement figures. Instead of those measures to bring about recovery—
Mr. lain Duncan-Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Beith: No, I shall not give way; I am coming to a conclusion.
The Prime Minister thinks that he has changed his policy in favour of a dash for growth, but the Chancellor thinks that the policy is unchanged, except for the consequences of black Wednesday, which meant a change in interest rate policy. The current method of economic management, which is based entirely on judgment, is in the hands of a Government who have made all the wrong judgments. They have introduced a package which is supposedly dedicated to recovery, but which is insufficient to bring it about.
5.36 pm
Mr. Cranley Onslow: I mean to be brief, but I hope that I shall be forgiven if I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on his autumn statement. I particularly welcome one part of the statement that has not yet been mentioned today: the undertaking given in column 994 of Hansard for 12 November that the Government would bring before the House a resolution to apply to Members' pay the same limits as they intend to apply to the public sector. That will be widely welcomed outside the House and, I hope, supported inside the House.
The problem has a long history, which I do not intend to rehearse today. I believe, and always have believed, that hon. Members should never shuffle off responsibility for fixing their own salaries. It would be an abdication of responsibility to do so. The temptation to do so has not always been resisted in the past, and the way that salaries have been decided has not always been satisfactory.
Therefore, I am pleased to see a return to previous practice, and I hope that it will herald a change in the basic approach to the matter, for which I have always argued and which I hope to see introduced now. Whatever is judged to be the appropriate salary for a Member of Parliament should be fixed by an outgoing Parliament before a general election, so that the incoming Members of

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Parliament know what their salary is, never have to pass judgment on it, and need not expect it to be increased during the life of that Parliament.
Mr. Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Onslow: No; I intend to be brief.
I hope that we can move towards such a policy, which is the only sensible and honourable way to tackle that difficult matter.
I can identify two sectors of our society where a change of attitude will be needed if the Chancellor's proposed measures are to work as well as he intends. The first is the banks. I do not think that any banker could deny the charge that banks have made a number of serious mistakes in policy judgment in recent years. They have made lending mistakes on an international and domestic level.
If I am rightly informed, between 1987 and 1989, the remuneration of an average bank manager was fixed on the basis of the amount of money he lent. It was based not on the quality but on the quantity of money that he managed to lend. It is not surprising that many of our fellow citizens in business found themselves encouraged to take on risks that, with better advice, they might have been encouraged to avoid. That was done in the name of market share among the major clearing banks. The consequences of that policy have been extremely unfortunate and regrettable.
I should like to think that we shall now see a change in attitude on the part of the banks—a much more positive, supportive and understanding approach, particularly to small businesses. I am afraid that, to judge from present evidence, that seems unlikely to happen. The press has recently had many stories about small business men being harshly treated by bankers. The House will have great sympathy with small business men, and much less sympathy with the banks.
I have recently been visited by a constituent in connection with this subject—as no doubt have many other hon. Members. My constituent brought to my surgery a letter that he had received from his bank undertaking to grant him a £75,000 overdraft. But the small print of the letter stated that the interest on the overdraft would be 4 per cent. above the bank's base rate, and subject to a minimum rate of 11 per cent. per annum no matter what happened. Not unnaturally, my constituent wrote back and said that the conditions seemed unfair, as they meant that he was unlikely to share in the full advantage of any prospective interest rate cuts. He asked how the bank could justify its policy.
The letter that he received in reply stated:
"The Bank has taken the view that, in all but the largest lendings, as base rates fall there comes a stage where it is not cost-effective for us to continue to pass on these reductions. The minimum interest rate is the Bank's way of overcoming this."
I am sure that the bank manager who wrote that thought that his head office would approve and may even have thought that he had put himself in line for promotion. However, as a contribution to the revival of the economy it counts for nothing. It does nothing for the confidence of the small business man, and seems to embody much of what is wrong with the banking sector.
I hope that, when the Chancellor next has an opportunity to speak to, whisper in the ear of or shout at
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the chairmen of our leading banks, he will tell them that a change in attitude on their part is an essential ingredient of economic revival.
Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fact that banks can get away with imposing such conditions on their customers at a time of recession, when there is falling demand for loans, poses questions about the degree to which there is a genuinely competitive market in banking? Some 90 per cent. of the corporate lending business in England is in the hands of four lenders. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is prima facie evidence of oligopoly, which should be examined by the competent authorities sooner rather than later?
Mr. Onslow: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I forecast that, when economic conditions change and borrowers are in a stronger position vis-a-vis their current enslavement, there will be a fundamental change in the structure and composition of the banking system. Some of the principal banks may be displaced by incomers who will adopt a different approach and to whom would-be lenders will be almost irresistibly drawn. That will not be good for the banks.
The second change of attitude that the country and the Chancellor needs if his policies are fully to work must be made by the media. It is a long time since I suggested in the House that the "Today" programme was totally dedicated to getting the nation out of bed on the wrong side, and since then I have not noticed much change. However, it would be unfair to single out that programme, because the tendency is widespread. Shortly after the autumn statement, a "PM" programme thought it worth carrying a report from someone sent to the nearest high street to ask whether the autumn statement had led to any sign of a spending spree, as if that was an informed judgment and a fair test of the Chancellor's measures.
The concept that the effect of economic policy can be judged only by its impact on retail sales is fairly over-simplistic. However, it would be unfair to single out the BBC for criticism. To correct the balance, I need to look back only to last Sunday and quote the extraordinary episode on Brian Walden's programme.
The Secretary of State for Transport had been invited to be interviewed by Mr. Walden about the autumn statement, with particular reference to its impact on the Department's spending plans, which, of course, is a relevant matter. My right hon. Friend had been warned that in passing he might be asked one or two questions about other topical subjects such as Maastricht. But once in front of the camera, my right hon. Friend found himself subjected to an increasingly hysterical tirade by Mr. Walden because he refused to answer questions about Matrix Churchill, a matter totally outside my right hon. Friend's area of responsibility and totally outside the area upon which he had been led to expect he would be invited to answer questions. That is a thoroughly irresponsible way to conduct a current affairs programme.
It would still be unfair to imply that only radio or television are exclusively preoccupied with dishing out daily doses of doom and gloom. Any newspaper on any day will show that, generally, reporting is as negative as possible. The cumulative effect on the nation's morale cannot be ignored—and I am speaking about the effect not on the Government's standing but on national morale. Perhaps too many current affairs programmes and too

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many newspapers and journalists are competing for sensational news in the progress of a circulation war. The media leaders should ask themselves how they expect confidence in Britain, at home or abroad, to revive when they ceaselessly accentuate the negative.
The positive elements in the autumn statement have been well listed in the CBI's reaction, part of which has been quoted. I shall rehearse them briefly. There is to be a significant increase in the transport network, not just in the construction of the Jubilee line but nationally in road building. That is right.
The change in the treatment of capital receipts is especially welcome. Unlike the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), I do not think that it should be impossible for local authorities to meet the Chancellor's target, especially if they look not only at house property but at industrial estates. Many councils should long ago have left the business of investing in such estates, and should have realised those assets and applied the money to more constructive uses.
The reduction in interest rates is welcomed by everyone, and the treatment of capital allowances and the stimulus to housing have been sought by many people, who will be glad to see those measures.
I must make one qualification. Although it is important to stimulate the housing market and to rescue many of my constituents from the negative equity trap, it cannot be sensible to try to drive house prices back to the peak of the late 1980s. That would make no sense and do no good. It would benefit estate agents, but eventually it would force up the price of development land, which is an artificially restricted commodity. Such an increase has no lasting value for any economy.
I hope that the Chancellor will bear that in mind, and that he will constantly seek to shift the emphasis on saving and wealth accumulation towards investment in productive industry and commerce and the creation of real national wealth.
I welcome the autumn statement. The country has welcomed it, and I hope that the House will also do so.
5.47 pm
Mr. Roy Hughes: I agree with the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) that Members of Parliament should be responsible about their salaries. However, I am worried that some hon. Members are more equal than others and by the failure to consider remuneration from outside sources that is so prevalent among Conservative Members.
The autumn statement has been coloured by black Wednesday and our withdrawal from the exchange rate mechanism. Our problems have been exacerbated by the increasing depth of the recession. As unemployment approaches 3 million, the need to put people back to work is being increasingly recognised. The cost of state benefit for 3 million people must be enormous. It is like a tap left running—a complete waste.
To meet this situation, all that we had at first was a smokescreen, with all manner of horrors being suggested—increases in national insurance contributions, savage cuts in social security benefits and tax increases, all this amidst the worst recession in the past 60 years. None of these horrors materialised. What we got was a crackdown on the pay of public sector workers, many of them poor and needy. The policy will mean that a hospital domestic
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will get only £1·80 a week extra and a staff nurse only £2·38. There is not much justice there when we think of the many thousands awarded to the chairmen of public companies, particularly those of the former public utilities—water, gas, electricity and British Telecom—and the cool half a million or so that is going to the chairman of British Airways. As for the chairmen of supermarket chains, they seem to have a licence to print their own money.
We have been told that the economy is suffering from a lack of effective demand. People are just not buying houses, cars, washing machines and so on. That is a classic Keynesian situation. The wages of the lowly paid public sector workers are to be restrained, yet they tend to spend what they earn, for their income is stretched to the limit. To restrict their wages could have the effect of further depressing the economy. Therefore, not only is it morally wrong to knock poor people in this way but it does not make economic sense.
The Chancellor has succeeded in keeping Government spending within the £244·5 billion ceiling fixed in advance, but only just. However, the PSBR has risen for the current year to £37 billion and is likely to be £44 billion next year. Conservative spokesmen had said that such figures spelt the horror that was likely to ensue if Britain elected a Labour Government in the spring of this year. Some of us are accustomed to such hypocrisy on the part of the Conservative Government.
The 1 per cent. cut in interest rates—a policy that has long been advocated by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), the Leader of the Opposition, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), the shadow Chancellor—is welcome. It will benefit home owners and generally help to restore confidence. However, there is only limited help for the construction industry. Capital receipts accruing to local authorities from now until the end of 1993 can be spent over the next three years. If the Government really wanted to assist the construction industry, improve the quality of housing and increase the amount of affordable housing, they would have unlocked the £5·1 billion in accumulated receipts and directed it to a housing investment programme. Such a decision would have been a major factor in providing urgently needed housing as well as in creating jobs, since the benefit of a boost to the construction industry would be that it would put back to work not only unskilled workers and tradesmen but highly trained architects.
The Chancellor also ended car tax—a move that I warmly welcome. The construction industry and the motor industry could be the engine of our economic recovery. I have long been an unashamed supporter of the motor industry. Personal transport has been a great boon to ordinary families. Apart from the immediate facility, for them the car has opened up new horizons. It is used to travel to work, and more and more housewives take the car to the supermarket when they purchase the week's necessities. I appreciate that there are the problems of congestion and pollution, but these are issues that must be, and are being, tackled.
Another aspect of the industry is that, unfortunately, slightly over half of new cars coming on to British roads are assembled overseas. For at least a quarter of a century, the Volkswagens, the Mercedes and the BMWs from Germany, together with the Renaults from France and the

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Fiats from Italy, have had a field day in the British market. Despite all the EC regulations, I want the Government to use their ingenuity to boost our car industry.
British cars are now first class. If we increase their share of the market, we shall ease our balance of trade problems and put our people back to work. The growth of the motor components industry has been heartening news. Wales relies heavily upon it, with companies such as Ford engines at Bridgend, Lucas Girling at Cwmbran and many other major firms. From a Welsh point of view, stimulus of the car industry will assist our steel industry, which is suffering badly from the effects of the recession.
Having said that, I should also say to my many friends in the motor industry that they should beware of a Shetlander bearing gifts. The Chancellor has already said that the £750 million lost through the decision to end car tax is to be recouped in the Budget through an increase in other forms of motor taxation. Yet the fact is that, of the £19 billion collected annually in motor tax, just over 20 per cent. is spent on roads. The Government are said to be seriously considering putting tolls on motorways. Wales already has tolls, on the short stretch of the M4 that runs over the Severn bridge. From 1 January, any heavy vehicle bringing vital goods and supplies into south Wales on the M4 will pay a toll of £9·30.
Any outside observer would imagine that Wales had an overheated economy. In fact, we have heavy unemployment. There is terrible deprivation in some areas, particularly in those badly affected by pit closures and steel redundancies. These tolls are a disgrace. What is more, the Government had no business to hand over the Severn bridge, together with construction of the second Severn crossing, to a French-American backed consortium, which is determined to extract the last penny. Tolls are an anachronism and for the Government even to be considering them on other motorways is the height of folly.
The matter does not end there. Some weeks ago, on 12 October, I challenged the Secretaries of State for Transport and for Wales to deny reports that the contract for the steel structure of the second Severn crossing was to be handed over to a foreign company. In reply, both said that the contract had not yet been awarded.
That answer was evasive, to say the least. A report on page 11 of yesterday's Financial Times clearly revealed that the £7 million contract is to be awarded to Cimolai—an Italian company that allegedly entered the lowest tender. I bet my bottom dollar that there is a hidden subsidy involved in that Italian tender. Britain has an efficient steel industry, and right by the Severn crossing is a company named Fairfield Mabey, which specialises in the construction of the steel works required for new bridges. A host of expertise in that type of work is available among the people of Severnside, but many there are out of work.
The President of the Board of Trade should keep his promise to the Conservative party conference to intervene before breakfast, before lunch, before tea, and before dinner on behalf of British industry. There is an urgent need for that, and I call on the right hon. Gentleman to act without further delay.
The Chancellor has taken a few short steps in the right direction, but there is a sleight of hand in it. One commentator remarked that the autumn statement is
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stimulus by magic mirrors. It anticipates and embodies a growth rate of 1 per cent., yet to make any impact on unemployment Britain needs growth of at least 2·5 per cent. The autumn statement deserves to be judged in the way I suggest.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the House that Madam Speaker has imposed a limit of 10 minutes on speeches made between now and 8 o'clock.
6.1 pm
Sir Rhodes Boyson: I welcome the autumn statement, as other of my right hon. and hon. Friends have done, and was intrigued by the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen)—particularly in respect of incomes policy. As to the salaries of Members of Parliament, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow).
I am only sorry that the autumn statement was not made two months ago, on the day that Britain left the exchange rate mechanism. We seem to have wasted two months finding a distinctive alternative policy. I have no belief in the ERM, which is something like GCSE economics grade seven. Schoolchildren run three-legged races, but the ERM was a 12-legged race, and all the runners fell down. It has been said that it is easier to foretell the winner of the Derby in the year 2000 than to know the value of a country's currency next year, because it is a judgment by the rest of the world as to the economy behind it.
I am glad that Britain has left the ERM, and that we now have a policy of moving towards lower interest rates. Again, it would have been better to take that action earlier and in larger dollops. That would have helped the housing market and those who pay mortgages—many of whose businesses are dependent on their properties. It would also have helped business men and encouraged people to borrow more.
Interest rates will have to fall still lower before we move out of the recession. When we left the gold standard in 1931, interest rates fell to almost a negative level before growth occurred again. No growth came between 1925 and 1931, because the pound was over-valued on the 1914 gold standard parity. With low interest rates between 1931 and 1937, Britain enjoyed the fastest economic growth of any power in the world—far ahead of America and even of Germany. In 1939, we had the economy to be able to stand up to Germany, and low interest rates are the only way of achieving growth again.
I welcome the emphasis on the construction industry and particularly on the Jubilee line investment, which will create employment for 12,000 people. Without it, the whole of docklands would have become a ghost town and a depressed area. The sooner that the Jubilee line is built, the better. However, I share the concern expressed by London Transport's chairman about lack of investment in the capital's other tube lines. My right hon. Friend the Minister should travel on the Northern line early in the morning and late at night to appreciate the agony that commuters suffer.
A number of lines run through my constituency, and they are used by those who commute to the City. Regular delays and breakdowns mean that travellers must leave home 15 or 30 minutes earlier in the morning—and can

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never tell when they will arrive home. That has created the sandwich society, because the wife has no chance of knowing when to have a hot meal ready for her husband's return.
Mr. Mark Wolfson: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Sir Rhodes Boyson: No, because I am under the ten-minute speech rule.
I have lived in London since 1962 and have represented a London constituency since 1974, and I believe that if it is to remain a major capital city, three important factors must be considered. One is transport. We are living still on the capital investment of the Victorians and Edwardians. Present investment is nothing compared with that which must be made to give the capital a proper transport system.
The second is London's theatres, and the third is its museums. I am sorry that cuts have been made there, because our capital has some of the best museums in the world. We must keep them up to standard, because many tourists come to London not just for its theatres but for its museums. They certainly do not come here for the tube travel.
I am suspicious and alarmed at the prospect of spending three quarters of a billion pounds on acquiring 20,000 repossessed houses. It would be better to help people to remain in the homes that they have. Why wait until home owners have lost their houses, local schooling, churches, and neighbours and then hand them over to a housing association? If that is not something out of "Alice in Wonderland" I do not know what is. Money available should be used to help people pay their mortgages, particularly at a time when the interest rates are being reduced so that they can remain in their homes.
I await the result of the council tax in London and the south east. If it costs no more per household than the community charge, I and my constituents will be happy. If it costs more, I shall not be happy—any more than my constituents. We are threatened again with a rates system from Labour, but householders will compare the council tax with the community charge that they have paid for the last three years. Anything new must be comparable.
Mr. David Evans: The council tax will not, on average, be more than the community charge.
Sir Rhodes Boyson: My hon. Friend puts his head on the block, but obviously he has specialist knowledge that will make headlines in tomorrow's newspapers. I know that he is a very wealthy man, so if my council tax is more, he can make it up. I welcome his gesture. It is one of the finest gestures that I have known for some time.
As to defence, I am increasingly concerned about this country's safety and that of the world. We will look hack at the balance of power between the NATO countries and the communist bloc as the most peaceful of our lifetimes. All the wars that are being fought around the world today will escalate and threaten us. I do not want any more cuts in this country's defence, for two reasons. First, I want the safety of this island of ours to be preserved; secondly, I think that the organisation of the armed services is one of the things that we still do well.
We are good at training. I would like to see a lot of short-service commissions, along with training for other ranks before they move into civilian life. I mentioned the
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underground earlier. I think that a general should be put in charge of tube trains: he could be told that he will be made a lord if he makes them run in a year, and that if he does not his head will be chopped off. That, I think, would be a very effective sanction. [Interruption.] Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) would prefer to offer alternative financial incentives—if, that is, any money is left after my constituency receives the subsidies due to it.
I welcome the autumn statement, because it seems that we have a policy at last. I am sorry that it came rather late, but I am glad that we have it. I hope that interest rates will be reduced further, and quickly, so that we can get the country going; I do not think that any other course will help. I also think that the construction industry is the key to recovery. It is not a question just of the extension of the Jubilee line; something must be done about the rest of London's tube network. We should provide incentives where we can.
Having said that, let me add that I am much happier than I was before I heard the autumn statement—although I hope that I shall be even happier on the day when the council tax is announced.
6.11 pm
Mr. Alan Milburn: The autumn statement will probably go down in history as a missed opportunity. To Opposition Members, it seemed a very eclectic statement: it managed to steal a little from the CBI, a little from the House-Builders Federation and even a little from the Labour party. We were presented with a veritable pot-pourri of initiatives and ideas. Given the Government from whom the statement emanated, however, it still managed to come out reeking of free market failure; after all, a pot-pourri of initiatives does not add up to a strategy for growth.
It has been said that there is no strategy behind the autumn statement. There is a strategy; the problem is that it is concerned more with digging the Chancellor and the Government out of a hole than with rebuilding the British economy. It is precisely because the autumn statement was so geared to the short term, rather than to the long-term, deep-rooted crisis into which the economy has been plunged, that it will ultimately fail to return either long-term prosperity or growth to the country.
In many respects, the autumn statement constitutes an admission—an admission that many of the economic icons that Conservative Members have worshipped so long and with such affection have been destroyed. Whatever happened, for example, to the hostile attitude to borrowing? The public sector borrowing requirement is now set to spiral not to £40 billion but to £60 billion by 1994–95, and it may be even higher if we fail to achieve growth of 2·5 per cent. per annum.
The autumn statement is hardly confidence-inspiring in itself. It promises growth of just 1 per cent. next year; that hardly suggests that the Treasury believes its own claims about the statement's potential. It also fails to answer the question that the whole country is asking: when will unemployment stop rising? That is not an incidental issue. Without a reduction in unemployment, there will be no return of consumer confidence. The Henley Centre for Forecasting recently announced that some 6 million households were failing to spend because they feared that an increase in joblessness would affect them directly.

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I am afraid that the increase in unemployment will not abate, because the Government have not done enough to make a real difference. Over the past two weeks, two major engineering firms in my constituency—Torringtons, and Darlington and Stockton Rolling Mills—have announced that 80 skilled workers are to be made redundant. Perhaps equally worrying is the fact that the redundancy announcements were accompanied by dire warnings that there would be no recovery in the market for the foreseeable future. The measures in the autumn statement will not hasten the recovery of first-class companies like those, because they fail to acknowledge the depth of the problem and do not tackle the three performance gaps that currently hinder the British economy: the gaps in manufacturing investment, training and support for the regions.
The temporary capital allowance incentive scheme for industry is all very well, but a sum of between £200 million and £300 million is hardly likely to close the investment gap between the United Kingdom and its competitors. Our industries are having to struggle for international markets with competitors that possess much better and more up-to-date plant and equipment. Between 1980 and 1989, this country spent less than £2,000 a year per employee on manufacturing investment; Germany spent nearly £3,000 a year, and Japan more than £5,000. That is not a temporary problem, and temporary solutions simply are not good enough.
The CBI's report "Making it in Britain" calls for a doubling of investment in plant and machinery by the end of the decade to enable United Kingdom companies to compete more effectively in the international market. The Government have ducked their responsibility to encourage industry to invest and to provide the necessary incentives.
The same applies to the Government's attitude to the United Kingdom's training deficit. It is universally acknowledged that the United Kingdom has the worst-trained work force in Europe: we have fewer workers with occupational skills than any other European country. Yet—as hon. Members will see when they read the fine detail in the autumn statement—our training budget is to be cut in real terms. Already this year, 500,000 fewer employment training places are being made available; the ET budget has been cut by £30 million, and almost half our training and enterprise councils are worse off in this financial year than they were in the last.
In regional terms, my region is the biggest loser. The north has lost £21 million. My TEC, Durham, has been cut by nearly £6 million. It would be an understatement to suggest that it is economically illiterate to cut training programmes in the region that has the highest unemployment in mainland Britain: in my view, that is plain daft.
Not only do we have a Chancellor and a Prime Minister who have destroyed more than I million jobs since getting theirs; they have cut the funds for those who are desperately trying to return to work. By cutting training budgets still further, the Chancellor is not only writing off the unemployed in the north, but weakening the whole country's competitive position.
The autumn statement as a whole spells further decline for the regions. The industry budget is to be cut by almost half between now and the middle of the decade—and, if
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the experience of the last 13 years is anything to go by, we are in for severe problems. Since 1979, the budget for assistance to industry in the regions has fallen by 70 per cent., and in my region it has fallen by 85 per cent. That amounts to a massive withdrawal of funds. Many hon. Members whose seats are currently part of the assisted areas map fear that the cuts in the industry budget will bring about a loss of assisted areas status, a loss of new investment and a loss of new job potential in our towns and cities.
It is not as though areas such as Darlington—or, indeed, the north-east as a whole—do not have a potential for growth, but I fear that, without assisted area status, companies intending to invest in the north-east will begin to look elsewhere for the establishment of their new factories. This is not just special pleading for the north; it makes good economic sense for the Government to invest in all the manufacturing regions. As we saw in the middle of the last decade, free market regional policies inevitably mean overheating in one part of the country, usually the south, followed by an icy recession across the whole country.
Returning to the spending on the regions that we saw in the early 1980s would be relatively negligible in European terms. Indeed, it would cost the equivalent of one and a half extra lanes on the M25. Many Members from northern constituencies welcome the commitment to the Jubilee line, but we are concerned about the potential impact on our regions of cuts in the transport budget. There is great concern that those cuts will be felt most deeply in regions whose position on the periphery of the single European market should cry out for more, not less, investment in infrastructure.
The autumn statement is a missed opportunity to put Britain in Europe's fast lane. Instead, free market dogma has been set aside temporarily on a few high-profile projects, presumably until the Government think that their current troubles are over. Then it will be back to business as usual. There will be no partnership with industry, no attempt to tackle our training and regional deficits, and, worst of all, no ambition to help British industry succeed. It is a cost which the Government are happy to bear.
6.21 pm
Mr. Michael Stern: The hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) drew comfort from the statement from the Henley Centre for Forecasting. His comments might have been more valuable if he had not picked that body, whose forecasts in the past have been even less reliable than those of the Treasury.
In the 10 minutes available to me, I wish to concentrate on a small section of the autumn statement—its effects on the property market. In the autumn statement, which I sincerely welcome, my right hon. Friend underlined the point that the housing market remains depressed. It is not just the housing market that is depressed, but the commercial and industrial property market as well. The measures which my right hon. Friend has taken, which will affect the whole property market, are therefore doubly welcome.
The extent to which property values underpin so much of our economic and social activity is a peculiarity of the British economic system. A strong housing market is the only key to mobility of industry and labour. A strong property market generally underpins the whole banking

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system, and by and large British banking cannot lead without reliable property values. The property market as a whole is the basis for the confidence which will be needed to enable the autumn statement to provide the take-off for growth which we all hope and believe will result from it.
In the context of the housing market, many of us who represent stressed inner or outer-city estates will know of the problems caused by what are now seen as the over-expectations of property values in the late 1980s, and the reaction from them.
I have only to go to Southmead in my constituency to see the boarded-up houses that are the result of people buying not from the council but from those who had bought from the council at what seemed proper values at the time, and who had found that, with declining income, perhaps because of unemployment or cyclical adjustments, they could no longer afford their mortgages. However, their properties were unsaleable. Even if they had sold, they would never have been able to buy another property because of the negative equity that they would thereby have realised.
In that context, I underline my gratitude to the Government for having recently altered the rules on negative equity so that that trap no longer applies. Therefore, people who still desperately want to own their own homes, since that is their preferred form of housing, will no longer be locked out of the market because of one mistake.
I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to one other aspect of the housing market. We hope that the reduction in interest rates will help to revive the housing market, but he could do something else. Over the years, there has been much discussion in the House of the value of MIRAS, the system of tax relief on mortgages. Opinion on both sides of the House is divided on MIRAS, but I believe in it. It is not reasonable to expect a revival in the housing market over the next few years, even to the extent of price stability, if the MIRAS system remains under threat.
While I would not ask my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General to recommend to the Chancellor any statement about the long-term future of MIRAS, I should like to hear that, at least in the short term, there will be no downward adjustment in its value. If such an adjustment were still feared, it would act as a negative factor in the housing market. In replying to the debate, I hope that my right hon. Friend will underline the need to retain MIRAS for the foreseeable future.
The commercial property market is equally a key to future prosperity, and will also benefit substantially from the reduction in interest rates that the autumn statement brought. As I said, commercial and industrial property is a key to banking, to the ability of new business to start and to the ability of existing business to expand. Therefore, we must be as careful to underpin property values in the commercial and industrial sector as we are in the housing sector.
One great barrier to a revival in business confidence is the fact that it is almost impossible to put a value on much commercial property. What my right hon. Friend has done will go some way to overcome that, but other supply side measures could have an equal effect on the commercial property market.
Many of us have seen the effects in our constituencies when someone in business who assigned a lease of, say, 25 years many years later finds the original landlord knocking on his door because all subsequent tenants have defaulted.
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That cannot encourage people to sign leases to start in business or to expand their businesses. My right hon. Friend should encourage his noble Friend the Lord Chancellor to re-examine that aspect of the law to see what can be done at least to limit the liability of an assignor.
A further aspect of commercial leases which acts as a barrier to the person who is starting or expanding a business is the ratchet effect on rent renewals when the renewal can only be upwards. There has grown up within the banking sector a belief that the only suitable security for a leasehold property is a lease with a guaranteed increase in rent. The result is that, where rents have got too high—for example, in a shopping centre—the only way in which that shopping centre can be revived is through the bankruptcy of every tenant, so that leases can be torn up and they can start again.
That may be a slight exaggeration; occasionally, despite the terms of the lease, downward rent reviews are agreed, because that is the only available alternative. The fact is that the barriers to downward rent reviews, where the circumstances in a particular property market have changed, are too great, and must be relieved. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer can help In this relief by making sure, through discussions with the Bank of England, that the banks and insurance markets—which will lend, as security, only on commercial leases with an upward-only rent review—are encouraged to reconsider their attitude to leasehold property so that they themselves do not act as a barrier to a truly mobile market in commercial property.
I have focused on one aspect in what I believe was a major autumn statement. When he summed it up, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that its purpose was to make the markets work better. I believe that he will succeed, but a number of supply side measures can still be taken that will aid my right hon. Friend in making the markets work better and creating the recovery and growth that this country needs.
6.30 pm
Mr. William Ross; The hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) will forgive me if I do not follow the line of argument that he pursued in his thoughtful speech. Instead, I shall concentrate on other matters that concern me and the people of Northern Ireland.
In a most vigorous speech, the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) attacked, among other things, the speech that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made in June or July of 1990 about the situation that prevailed in our country at that time—especially the economic life of the nation. I noticed that the Chancellor smiled. I wonder whether he, like me, recalled that, at that time in 1990, this nation had not entered the exchange rate mechanism, and that we did not do so until considerably later in the year.
In his autumn statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the nation that our membership of the exchange rate mechanism was wrong. Admittedly, he did not say so in so many words, but that was what he implied. He suggested that, when we were in the ERM, monetary policy was tighter than it needed to be, and that now, with a floating pound, he has been able to cut interest rates by 3 per cent.—interest rates now being set according to British monetary conditions. The implication was that,

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when we were in the ERM, interest rates were set according to monetary conditions that prevailed elsewhere.
Another speaker in the debate inaccurately described the day we left the exchange rate mechanism as black Wednesday. I do not consider it to have been at all black: I think of it as the day when the chains that bound our nation were cut. I welcome the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now free to act in the interests of the United Kingdom, and I sincerely hope that we stay in that happy position.
When he made his autumn statement, the Chancellor confirmed that the public sector borrowing requirement had increased by a third from his forecast in March of this year. Given that the sum is £37 billion for this year and that it is to rise next year to a figure that the Chancellor dared not forecast, the question that I asked last year—whether the Government had abandoned the concept of the balanced budget—was one with which I did not care to embarrass the Treasury Bench last Thursday.
However, that question will keep coming back, because the level of the PSBR does matter, as the Chancellor admitted when expressing his concern about the sums that he now has to find for interest payments. I understand that that sum is about £18 billion or £19 billion a year. I feel fairly sure that, if the Chancellor had that sum to play around with now, he would be a very happy individual.
The real concern is that the £37 billion that has been borrowed is being used not for capital expenditure but for current expenditure. The Chancellor said in his statement that social security benefits—which is another term for unemployment—were the cause of much of the increase in the PSBR. However, in answer to a question from me, the Chancellor said that the PSBR had increased because of falling tax revenues—another way of saying that it was because of unemployment.
The Chancellor then told us that he expected the PSBR to decline over time. I noticed that he was careful to say that it would decline as a percentage of gross domestic product, not of the total sum. He is therefore clearly not thinking of the situation in which we found ourselves a year or two ago, when we were able to repay debt. The PSBR sum can decline only if employment prospects improve quickly, or if the Chancellor increases taxes.
On this occasion, the Chancellor was kind enough to forgo the revenue he could have gaind by raising national insurance contributions, or taxes and other fees, but the reality is that he has only postponed that action. I believe that he will be unable to avoid tax increases over a fairly wide base next March if he hopes to get the PSBR back under firm control. He will have to keep firmly in mind the fact that, with a £37 billion deficit, the debt total for the nation will soon be over 50 per cent. of gross domestic product. Neither the Chancellor nor any other hon. Member would welcome that.
In the present economic climate, the Chancellor has tried to ring-fence capital projects in order to provide employment. Many projects in every part of the United Kingdom are waiting for the go-ahead. I shall mention but two, one of which I consider to be absolutely vital to the long-term infrastructure and welfare of Northern Ireland—the upgrading of the Belfast-Larne road. The other is in my constituency—the Limavady bypass. Those are small
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matters for the House as a whole, but I hope that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will bear them in mind whenever he is considering what he can do under the Government's changed expenditure plans.
The help that has been offered for housing, in one form or another, is of more value than road building. Most road building is done with machinery and very few people. The construction of all sorts of buildings leads to the employment of large numbers of people. Anything that increases the number of folk employed in the construction industry is to be welcomed. The problem, however, is that many of the fixtures and fittings for houses now have to be imported; they are no longer produced here.
Another aspect of the construction industry in Northern Ireland concerns the rebuilding that has to take place after terrorist violence. Coleraine, the principal town in my constituency, has a heck of a lot of that to do after last Friday night. I am pleased that London was spared that day the attention of the bombers. We are grateful to the security forces for having managed to intercept those people before they were able to commit their evil deeds. My town was not quite so fortunate.
The Government clearly accept that there is a need to build confidence in the nation and in the community at large in order to move us forward out of the recession. The Paymaster General will appreciate that the same inspiration and confidence is needed by an individual who has suffered as a result of terrorist action.
If the Government bear that in mind, greater help will be provided for businesses in Northern Ireland that suffer as a result of terrorist violence. The cost of security and the cost of restoration after bomb damage is high in terms of the public purse, but the alternative, if we think about it logically, leads to anarchy. No one wants that.
The Government motion asks us to approve the autumn statement. We are asked to welcome the control of public expenditure, which is a doubtful claim, but hopefully there will be better news next March. The motion also asks us to congratulate the Government on the reduction in underlying inflation, congratulations that we sincerely offer. We are being asked to thank the Government for their attempts to get us back on to the path of duty, which has been somewhat neglected in the past few years.
The Opposition amendment, on the other hand, regrets that the harsh truth was told by the Government in the autumn statement, but they do not spell out their alternative in any detail. Therefore, I regret having to tell the Opposition that, since they have not been more positive, we cannot support their amendment.
6.38 pm
Mr. David Martin: Having listened to speeches by Opposition Members—the speech by the hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) was an exception—it is clear why more than 14 million people did not put their trust in the Opposition in the general election. The Opposition have plans to go on and on spending without having any proper way in which to pay for it.
Serious as our position is, we are not in the kind of crisis that previous Labour Governments, with or without Liberal support, failed to tackle. In present circumstances, with their present leadership and with their present policies, Labour would fail again.

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I have no doubt that the first priority in my right hon. Friend's mind in fashioning the autumn statement was the correctly identified need to build up confidence in our economic future as rapidly as possible. Some have criticised my right hon. Friend for not starting that task earlier. I have some sympathy for my right hon. Friend. He is like a man who inherited a house that was fully furnished by two predecessors in title whom he had understudied for some years. The last piece added was membership of the exchange rate mechanism. From then on, the contents were treated like heirlooms, to be preserved in their inherited condition. That was the position until the vandals rudely and abruptly broke in on so-called "black Wednesday" and the defences against them were raised in vain. When the vandals left, much was in disarray.
Many around the Chancellor were at first like Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted. It was rumoured that my right hon. Friend was not joining in the weeping. He was, no doubt, recollecting the wise words of the great Lord Salisbury that one of the commonest errors in politics is sticking to the carcases of dead policies.
A month later, the Prime Minister raised before our eyes the high road to recovery and growth—the British way. The energy and imagination with which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, ably helped by the Treasury team, have set about furthering that policy are clear from his proposals and from the politically skilful way in which he presented them to the House last Thursday. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will need all that skill—I wish him luck in his task—in fashioning part two, which is the Budget next March in which he will set out more detailed measures by means of which the large existing and even larger projected Budget deficit for future years is credibly to be financed.
If we are to get out of the recession with sustainable real growth, low inflation, low interest rates and the creation of the jobs required, I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will need the spirit of 1981 and of the noble Lord Howe rather than the ghost of the late Lord Keynes. Public borrowing as a proportion of national income must be reduced. If we choose to support high levels of public spending and growth—we hope for growth which may or may not pay for such public spending in the future—we must support the taxation and other measures necessary to fund them. That was the essence of the spirit of 1981. There was then no belief—
Mr. Austin Mitchell: Look where that got us.
Mr. Martin: I shall explain in a moment where it got us. There was then no belief in greatly increased public sector spending being the vehicle of growth, in pay norms and in pay freezes. We were too close to the memory of the Opposition's failures in the 1960s and 1970s, including the damaging industrial unrest, the bottling up of inflationary pressures, and the feeling that every pay claim was decided in Downing street and that every breach of the norm was a victory against Downing street. We have spent many successful years putting a distance between ourselves and those notions.
In 1981—here I come to where it got us—in the teeth, famously, of 364 economists and others who said that it was all impossible, the noble Lord Howe courageously laid the foundations for six years of sustained growth, low
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inflation, falling unemployment, record numbers of jobs and ever increasing prosperity. My right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) reminded us about the 1930s. Those six years were the longest such period for 50 years—since the 1930s. That was Conservative government at its best. There was a genuine break from the failures and the retreats of the past in the teeth of misguided calls to change gear. It was also electorally rather popular.
By 1988, we had public sector debt repayments, not a public sector borrowing requirement. What happened from 1988 onwards was not the result of economic policy faults related to those earlier years. I confess that I rather hanker after those times. I have not yet been sufficiently educated or politically corrected. These days, in my rather melancholy moments, I feel like the poet Thomas Moore who said:
"I feel like one Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed!"
I felt that today until I heard the speeches by my right hon. Friends the Members for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffert) and for Brent, North. They are lurking somewhere in the corners of that banqueting hall.
We must all look ahead. Under my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, we have the lowest interest rates since 1978. We have an obviously competitive pound, we have low tax rates and we have special incentives for investment. Those are firm foundations, one hopes. With the necessary Budget measures next March, we have a chance to enjoy in the 1990s the economic confidence, the rising prosperity, and the hope that we enjoyed in the mid-1980s. In bringing about that happy series of events, my right hon. Friend will have my support, 242 majority and all.
6.45 pm
Mr. Peter Mandelson: In the speeches so far, apart, perhaps, from that of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin)—who seemed to find little wrong in the economy, although his perceptions and his departure from actualité may be influenced by the fact that he was previously a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr. Alan Clark—a clear recognition is emerging that the biggest barrier to economic recovery is the lack of confidence in the economy, and that the biggest barrier to confidence is the length, extent and nature of unemployment in our country.
That is why I say that jobs, jobs and jobs should have been at the heart of the autumn statement. That should have been the overwhelming impact and effect of the Chancellor's measures. It is in the Chancellor's failure to tackle the need to create jobs directly, swiftly and where they are needed that the statement's failure lies.
In his speech today, the Chancellor seemed to recognise the logic of what I am saying. He said that confidence was the key to unlocking recovery, and that confidence was the essential condition for increased spending in the economy. The problem is that, while wishing the ends and desiring to see confidence grow, the Chancellor is, tragically, apparently not prepared to take the necessary action to lift that confidence and to ensure that recovery comes quickly.
A serious absence from the statement and the one thing that would immediately give a tremendous boost to

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economic recovery by reducing the fear of unemployment, lifting confidence quickly in our economy and making such a difference to millions of people and families blighted by unemployment throughout the country would be the introduction of a new Government programme of work to tackle mass unemployment—a programme to allow people who are unemployed once again to work in their communities.
As everyone recognises, the recession is now so deep that the private sector, it must be manifestly clear to all hon. Members, cannot by itself, whatever action it wants to take and however much it wants to resume growth and to bring forward investment, overcome the fear of unemployment. Nor will the capital projects the Chancellor has announced, which will not start early enough or be extensive enough to help to overcome that fear of unemployment.
Those measures cannot by themselves stimulate the employment necessary to build confidence in the economy quickly enough to promote growth in the way we all want. That is why I argue that it is so crucial for the Government to step in to aid recovery by introducing measures to take people off the dole queues and put them to work. I believe that that need has never been greater at any time in recent memory.
We now have the highest male unemployment since the 1930s. Many people believe that the real level of unemployment is closer to 4 million than to 3 million. In my region—the northern region—31,000 more people have joined the ranks of the unemployed since the Chancellor took office. The number of people out of work for more than a year—the long-term unemployed—rose by 50,000 in the three months to October.
There is now a four-and-a-half year high in the number of long-term unemployed, at 956,000. The Secretary of State for Employment recently described that figure as the smallest for a year. I cannot understand how she can describe it in that way. Long-term unemployment has risen 46 per cent. over the figure a year ago. More than half the people out of work in my constituency have been jobless for six months. Very many of them have been unemployed for more than a year.
It is not surprising—although it is certainly very revealing—that the autumn statement made no forecast of unemployment next year. We know from every authoritative estimate that growth of more than 2·5 per cent. next year will be required to have any impact on the level of unemployment. However, even the Government's own forecasts hope for a growth rate next year of 1 per cent. On the Government's own admission, therefore, growth will be too weak next year to bring down unemployment, which Goldman Sachs predicts will swell by hundreds of thousands of people, thus raising fear of unemployment even more. That is why I believe that Britain needs an immediate employment programme.
The paltry crumbs offered by the Department of Employment over the past week were tragically inadequate. The initiative was pitiful. According to a press statement from the Secretary of State for Employment, her contribution to fighting unemployment consists of the formation of something called jobplan workshops and the merging of employment action and employment training.
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The best the Government can do as bankruptcies rise, firms collapse and more and more people are made redundant is to merge two already inadequate small programmes and set up jobplan workshops, which are the old restart scheme rechristened and made compulsory. People will be hauled into jobcentres and asked what they are doing to search for non-existent jobs.
The only difference between jobplan workshops and restart is that, instead of one and a half hours of frustration explaining why one cannot find a job, the new scheme requires people to spend four and a half days explaining, and if they do not last the four-and-a-half-day course, their benefit is docked.
The Government's approach is shamefully simple and inadequate: less training, more coercion and no separate jobs programme for the unemployed. There are merely exercises in public relations, when we really need a programme of public action. I do not decry the efforts of local jobcentre staff, who are doing the best they can. However, they are being asked by the Government to put more effort into the management of publicity than into the organisation of work for the unemployed. That is a tragedy.
Mr. Julian Brazier: Has the hon. Gentleman visited his jobcentre?
Mr. Mandelson: Yes; I have visited it twice.
The tragedy is not that we are short of experience of setting up the kind of jobs programme we require. The recent community programme had its critics, and I was certainly among them. However, at its best, it combined a chance to work, train and search for a job. I believe that the community programme could have been developed and improved, and turned into a proper programme for the unemployed.
Work that would be rewarding for individuals on such a programme would also be immensely useful to the community. It is work that needs to be done. For example, in the environment it could involve clearing and making up derelict sites so that they can be put to practical use. In relation to energy, so much loft insulation and conversion work is required—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. The rule is inflexible. I call the hon. Member for East Lindsey (Sir P. Tapsell).
6.55 pm
Sir Peter Tapsell: I very much welcome the change of economic and financial policy since 16 September in respect of which the autumn statement is a very useful further step forward. I welcomed it on the day.
I do not share the view of the shadow Chancellor and other Opposition Members who have spoken today that it is sad that we have moved away from the dogma of an obsession with sterling M3, medium-term financial strategy, shadowing the deutschmark, being obsessed with a public sector borrowing requirement figure which had been set years before in different circumstances and which cannot be changed and changing over to the traditional policy of the Chancellor's judgment. If the Chancellor does not have good judgment, then the Chancellor should be changed—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am not suggesting that he should be; I am simply making a general observation.

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We are sent to this House to bring our judgments to bear. That is what we are here to do. We are not a tribe of American red indians who set up a totem pole and believe that it will solve our economic problems for us. Factors such as the PSBR and monetary aggregates are all tremendously important, as are the parities with other major currencies, and they must all be taken into account at all times by the Chancellor. However, it is a great mistake—and one that we have made repeatedly in the past—to set up one of those as a particular yardstick.
When Mr. Charles Goodhart was at the Bank of England, he quite rightly pointed out in what has now become known as Goodhart's law that as soon as one sets up a particular yardstick, it ceases to do the job for which it was invented. Our new approach of using all the yardsticks but allowing the Chancellor, the Cabinet and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to use their judgment is much more likely to produce good results. I argued that point of view throughout the early 1980s when an entirely different view was held.
One of the prime objectives, quite rightly, in the autumn statement is to increase investment. There has been under-investment in Britain for a century. Joseph Chamberlain complained bitterly about it in the first decade of the century and he pointed out the much higher rate of investment in industry in Japan, Germany and the United States. One could read out passages of his speeches made in 1903 and 1904 and they would be absolutely apt today. Nothing has really been done about it for a century and it is about time that we put it right.
In that context, I want to refer to inward investment from Japan about which a great deal of absolute nonsense has been talked. I have had more than 30 years' experience of business with the Japanese in one way or another and I am an international adviser to three huge Japanese companies which trade world wide and have a lot of investment in Britain. I should like to explain what I think is the truth about inward investment from Japan.
Some people have suggested that the debate about Maastricht and the uncertainty about the attitude of the House of Commons to the Maastricht treaty will damage inward investment from Japan which has been immensely valuable to Britain in recent years and has accounted for 40 per cent. of all Japanese investment in the European Community. It is true that, this year, there has been a decline in Japanese investment in Britain, but that has nothing to do with Maastricht—or only marginally, anyhow—and there are two reasons for that decline. One is that Japan is going through the same recession that the rest of the industrial world is experiencing and its banking system is pulling in its loans, and the Japanese are more reluctant to invest anywhere overseas in the present conditions.
The other reason is that the Japanese anticipated that Britain would have to leave the ERM and devalue. One did not need to be clever to know that. On 16 July, the day before we adjourned for the summer recess, I told a member of the Whips Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman), that we would almost certainly have to leave the ERM and either devalue or float in the week before the French referendum. Everyone who takes any interest in such matters, except members of the Treasury, was aware that that was almost bound to happen. Of course great Japanese companies are not going to invest huge sums in a currency that is about to be devalued. Incidentally, as a result of devaluation,
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they have made a substantial short-term book loss on the investments that they have already made. Those are the reasons for the slow-down in their investment.
The Japanese want access to the single European market. They understand that Maastricht has nothing to do with that. Maastricht adds all sorts of things about a federal Europe, about a single currency, which they do not want, because it would reduce their room for manoeuvre and bring about European monetary union and a federal Europe, all of which they regard as a threat to Japanese interests. No shrewd Japanese industrialist wants to see anything like a close-knit, centralised, federal Europe. Japanese industrialists want access to the huge market, and that is guaranteed to them through Britain's existing treaty arrangements. The fact that we have signed the Rome treaty and the fact that we have signed the Single European Act gives us access to the free market. For a variety of other reasons, not least that we are the European country which is closest in sympathy to the United States, which is the Japanese prime market, they prefer to invest in Britain and they will continue to do so. It is ludicrous for some people to pretend that, if we do not endorse the Maastricht treaty, the Japanese will change their policy because of fear of a fortress Europe being set up.
One hears scare stories that Germany, France, Holland and one or two other countries might tear up the Rome treaty and the Single European Act and start a new fortress Europe of their own with high exterior tariffs from which Britain would be excluded and that, therefore, the Japanese might transfer their investment to France and Germany. That is not going to happen. For one thing, if a group of European countries attempted to do that, they would immediately provoke a total and permanent breakdown of the GATT arrangements and violent tariff reprisals by the United States and Japan against them, That is not going to happen. Our access to the single European market, whatever happens to Maastricht, is guaranteed, and the Japanese know that.
Many Ministers and people such as the chairman of the stock exchange, who wrote an absurd letter to The Times last week on this subject, should know better than to use arguments which are absolute nonsense and which no top Japanese industrialist believes for a moment. I promise the House that that is the case. I hope that we will hear no more of that line of argument.
The Japanese are most scared that Europe will become involved in a tariff war with the United States as a result of the breakdown of GATT. They have a much bigger trading interest in the United States and wider diplomatic and defence interests there than they have in Europe. They are extremely concerned about the present negotiations between the European Commission and the United States over GATT and fear that they may be caught in them. The worse the relations between the Commission and the United States become on GATT the more strongly the Japanese will feel that Britain is the best clearing house for their European investments.
The European economy is extremely important to us because of our large exports to Europe. I have always favoured the closest possible economic and trading relations with Europe. I voted for the Macmillan 1961 application. I have voted all the way through for the pro-European ticket, including the Single European Act, because I believe in the best possible trading relations with an enlarged Europe. I voted against Maastricht recently because it is adding quite—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.
7.5 pm
Mr. Peter Hain: The autumn statement has failed abjectly to measure up to the scale of the crisis for which the Government have been responsible over the past 13 years or so. They have created a candy-floss economy from which we are suffering.
In supporting that statement, I need rely on no more than the Chancellor's own words. In an answer to me on 6 November, he pointed out that consumer expenditure between 1979 and 1991 rose by 37·5 per cent. and that, by comparison, output rose by 23·6 per cent.; that output excluding North sea oil production rose by 21·8 per cent.; and that manufacturing output rose by 5·8 per cent. All those figures are at constant prices. In other words, consumer expenditure rose by almost double manufacturing output excluding North sea oil production, and consumer expenditure rose almost seven times as much as manufacturing output.
The Chancellor is grappling with massive forces which are beyond his control, or which he has decided not to control because he does not want to adopt policies that can help him to do so. His behaviour is not like that of a maiden aunt who has had a few too many glasses of Pimm's and has become rather merry but is like that of a roaring drunk, staggering from binge to binge via ever longer hangovers.
One needs to look no further than the statement of a leading industrialist, Mr. Neil Johnson, the director general of the Engineering Employers Federation, to The Guardian of 28 October:
"All the Government does is throw up its hands and say `it's nothing to do with us Guv'. The Government does not understand the crisis and ministers quote statistics that are demonstrably not correct."
That statement was not by a left-wing Labour Back-Bench Member but by a leading engineering industrialist.
Another past leading industrialist is John Harvey-Jones, the former chairman of ICI. On 1 November, he wrote in the Observer that the Government are
"destroying our industrial base, to the level where it cannot sustain our standard of living."
That is another reason why the Chancellor's autumn statement does not measure up to the scale of the crisis into which the British economy has been plunged.
We should look, for example, at the catastrophic balance of payments. To use the autumn statement's own figures, there is a £12 billion deficit in the current financial year, rising to £15·5 billion next financial year. In all probability, if there is an upturn, the balance of payments gap will worsen.
Kevin Gardner of S.G. Warburg, the merchant bankers, said recently that, for the first time ever in Britain's industrial history, we are dogged by a combination of rising import penetration at a time of falling domestic output. That has never happened before. For example, in the second quarter of 1992, manufacturing output fell by 1·4 per cent. but manufacturing imports rose by 8·3 per cent. The Chancellor seems impervious to the depth of the crisis for which he is responsible and with which we are now all grappling.
The Chancellor's answer to my intervention earlier today did not measure up to the figures in the autumn statement. It is interesting that The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that senior Treasury and Downing street sources were saying that the Government would have to
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increase taxes in order to keep the PSBR below the 7 per cent. limit which they say they will not allow it to exceed in the coming financial year. The tax increases may be in the form of VAT, national insurance contributions or excise duties increases. Without such increases, the figures contained in the autumn statement and the projections for the next financial year simply do not add up.
The figures do not add up in another respect. The Government predict that unemployment will remain at about 2·8 million. Most independent forecasters suggest that 3·5 million is much more likely. The Chancellor must come clean on that. If unemployment rises to 3·5 million, that will play havoc with the Government's finances.
Although the autumn statement showed that Government borrowing was set to hit £37 billion—much greater than forecast this year—and rise to £45 billion in 1993–94, many City economists expect the PSBR to go much higher—to £50 billion or even higher. For example, according to Goldman Sachs, the state of the public finances will depend on the economy's growth rate, and an output growth rate next year of 2·5 per cent.
"would be just sufficient to stabilise the level of unemployment at just under 3·5 million".
Yet the Government predict unemployment of 2·8 million. Goldman Sachs says that the PSBR, excluding privatisation proceeds, will be left stuck at about £60 billion to £65 billion. That is a deficit of about 9 per cent.
Michael Saunders of Salomon Brothers says that the slow economic recovery in prospect means that borrowing could rise well above the Treasury's figures. He predicts a PSBR of more than £50 billion, or 8 per cent. of GDP, for next year, rising to £65 billion, or 9·5 per cent. of GDP, by 1995–96. He concludes correctly that
"Higher taxes or spending cuts appear inevitable".
So the future is gloomy, and the Government are not coming clean about their own figures, let alone the position in the real economy. If the economy grew at only 1·5 per cent. a year in the three years covered by the autumn statement, unemployment would almost certainly rise, even on the figures in the autumn statement. Public borrowing would probably balloon to more than £80 billion by the end of this Parliament. Those are disturbing figures.
A PSBR of more than 9 per cent., or even as high as 13 per cent., compares poorly with the 3 per cent. PSBR specified in the convergence conditions specified for monetary union under Maastricht. The British economy is way out of line with the projections for monetary integration under Maastricht.
What are the prospects of recovery under the Government's policies? As it is being set in train by the autumn statement, and as it has been developed in the past three years, the British economy is unsustainable, given both the inherent industrial weakness of our economic base and other constraints on the current account deficit. The deficit will explode if there is even the modest upturn projected by the Chancellor.
Then the economy will be locked into the same old rising balance of payments deficit and higher interest rates to claw back our deteriorating trade condition. That is another reason why it is almost inevitable that taxes will be increased next year in one way or another, if the Government's policies are followed.
Another constraint which makes the Government's policies unsustainable is the limit on public sector pay increases to 1·5 per cent. next year. The Government's

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figures in the autumn statement assume that public sector pay increases will be pegged to about 3 per cent. in the following two years. The Government also predict that average earnings will increase by 5 per cent. a year. That will create a massive gap of almost 10 per cent. between private and public sector earnings. That will be impossible to sustain, and will cause extra pressures and problems.
The alternative, which the Chancellor has not addressed and the Government are either unable or unwilling to address, is an entirely different strategy, which would kick-start the economy and demand by means of investment led by the public sector. At least £10 billion is required even to begin to meet the scale of the problem. We need investment in jobs, infrastructure and training and a much stronger regional policy. In Wales, regional preferential assistance has been cut by 60 per cent. since 1979.
We also need an economic policy which begins to grapple with the fundamental financial problems.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but I have to turn off the tap of the hon. Gentleman's eloquence.
7.15 pm
Mr. Robert Banks: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), because I, too, wish to make some remarks about borrowing. I understood from his speech that he was critical of the Government for their level of borrowing. Yet the shadow Chancellor gave the impression this afternoon that he would borrow much more. He would certainly have to borrow more if he spent the sums that he suggested.
The autumn statement is a brave statement. It is a Budget more than a statement. I am delighted that the Budget will be incorporated with the autumn statement next year so that we can deal with it at a better time of the year. The autumn statement is an extensive package to stimulate the economy and help to bring us out of recession. However, we have always had to rely on the economies of other countries to help us with that process. The United States has normally led the rest of the world out of recessions.
On this occasion we need to examine the international scene carefully. The summary of the world economy in the autumn statement begins:
"Recovery in the world economy has stalled again."
It is salutary to consider the state of economies other than that of the United States. The United States economy is improving. I do not denigrate that improvement. However, it is not improving with surety. We must also consider economies in Europe and other parts of the world. They are in a recession almost as bad or even worse than our recession.
The crucial factor is our ability to sell goods and services abroad, attract an inward flow of foreign currency to both the City and elsewhere and bring tourists to Britain with their foreign currency and spending power. I prefer to call the tourist industry the visitor services industry. The word tourism gives the impression of people milling around on holiday, but it covers a range of other activities in which I am particularly interested.
In order to attract tourists we must market the product. We have an extraordinarily good product. I welcome the spend on the heritage. Our heritage is one of our great attributes in attracting people to Britain. We must do a full marketing exercise. My hint of regret about the autumn
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statement is that the tourism budget will be held fractionally below this year's budget and is scheduled to fall in the following two years. Some £46 million will be spent next year.
We must have the methods necessary to market our largest industry. We need the money to ensure that our advertising overseas receives full treatment. It is a case of selling our goods and services.
The statement is a budget for industry because it helps industry in a variety of ways, some of which I particularly welcome. Lower interest rates help industry and everyone else. Lower inflation also helps industry. The 40 per cent. first year capital allowance for investment in plant and machinery is an excellent idea. I want the Government to expand the stimulus for industry to modernise.
The science budget is to be increased slightly. Nothing is more important than developing our science and technology—improving our basic and strategic research in science, engineering and the social sciences. In the coming year that budget will be about £1·170 billion, which is a modest rise.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lindsey, East (Sir P. Tapsell) referred to his connections with Japan. We can lift many examples from the Japanese economy. I should like us to follow the example set by their Government, which works with industry to pioneer research into the next generation of technology, for instance, of robotics and of certain types of machinery. Their industry has had Government assistance in the form of low-interest loans spread over many years. There could be such a partnership here to define which industries should be developed and expanded.
In this country there are many examples of phenomenal expertise, which is dissipated because industries do not have the means to develop innovations, or the experience and research which are endemic in many of our institutions. That is where the Government can have an interplay with that sector and could develop our industry so that we improve our performance in world markets. We must do so, and we must concentrate on manufacturing.
I said that tourism, which is our largest industry, is important, but we can only spend money if we sell goods and services abroad. It is important to put the greatest emphasis on manufacturing.
The statement tells us that the borrowing requirement for the present year has risen by £11 billion to £37 billion—the original estimate was £26 billion. In 1993–94, it will rise to about £44 billion. If we estimate a borrowing requirement of £31 billion for the year 1994–95, we will have spent about £110 billion to try to buy ourselves out of recession. The autumn statement is brave because that is a heck of a lot of money to borrow. To sustain such borrowing, we must achieve performance levels commensurate with the incentives given.
Industry has a lot going for it and we must engender its confidence. Our industry can tackle markets abroad, especially in Europe. I believe passionately in, and want us to be in the forefront of, Europe. With the lower value of the pound, lower interest rates and the proximity of Europe, a vast market exists there for so many of our products. I have this advice for our industrialists, "For goodness' sake, get moving, get over there, travel, go to exhibitions and exhibit your products. For heaven's sake, do not sit on your backsides and moan about the

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recession." They will pull their companies out of recession by going abroad, and that could give them the lead in some sectors of world markets.
I have always had a simple approach to economics. I am not an economist and have never pretended to be one. I have a simple formula—the "what if" formula. We must consider what would happen if the German economy went into crisis and the exchange rate mechanism had to be put in abeyance because of the devaluation of the mark and the franc. I do not wish that on anyone. I believe in the ERM, I want it to work and I want Britain to get back into it. It is the way forward. However, it is always important to ask the question: what if?
What would happen if the improvement in the United States economy failed? What if our manufacturers do not match up to our expectations that they will achieve the growth to get us out of recession? What if we have to raise interest rates to protect the recovery? Heaven knows that that is the one thing that we do not want to do. What if our privatisation proceeds do not match up to the anticipated targets?
That all sounds pessimistic, but we must take into account the scenarios that I have described, because the world is unstable and full of uncertainties. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the colossal changes in eastern Europe, where economies are struggling to get on to their feet, coupled with America's huge debts, have created an international problem which we cannot escape.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) said, we could be sitting on an inflation bomb and I echo what was said by the previous speaker—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Mr. Austin Mitchell.
7.26 pm
Mr. Austin Mitchell: Like the Chancellor, the autumn statement is clever, but pretty limited. It does not restore the damage done by the Government to the economy during the past three years of massive deflation, but merely stops the damage from getting worse. That is all that the Government have done—they are trying to alleviate their self-administered damage.
The Prime Minister told us at the Mansion house that the Government meant what they said about manufacturing—presumably, just as they meant what they said about the exchange rate mechanism and no devaluation. With this Prime Minister, one must not look at what he does, but at how he says it. Unfortunately, although he says that the Government mean what they say about manufacturing, that cannot be true, judging from the figures in the autumn statement.
Manufacturing output was down by 4·5 per cent. last year, is down by 1 per cent. this year, and is forecast to increase by only 1 per cent. next year. However, at the same time the volume of imports—most of which will be manufactures—is forecast to rise by 7 per cent. As the volume of exports is also forecast to rise by 7 per cent.—just over 30 per cent. of which will be manufactures—it follows that all of the 1 per cent. increase in production will go into exports. There will be a fall in the proportion of demand on the domestic market supplied by British manufacturing.
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On those figures, we shall sell less on the domestic market and import penetration will increase, and that is the essence of our problem. Unlike every other economy, we have not increased manufacturing production from 1973 levels. There has been a huge expansion in demand since then, but it has been supplied not by British manufacturing industry but by imports, which have quintupled during that time. That quintupling of imports—based largely on the fact that our export prices and terms of trade are 36 per cent. worse than they were in the early 1970s—was essentially due to the price mechanism, because imports were cheaper, and it has been the cause of the destruction of jobs in our economy. Since the early 1970s, we have lost 3·5 million manufacturing jobs—a greater decimation than that in any other competing economy. Since we joined the ERM, 600,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost, and so the decimation has continued. We cannot get that ground back, or widen and deepen the manufacturing base, unless we win back those markets and redress the competitive terms against imports. Those terms have gone badly wrong since the early 1970s. It is because of them that the import share of our domestic market, according to the most recent published figures of 1989, stands at 37 per cent.—double the proportion in Germany and France. Obviously, that import penetration is so bad that the Government stopped publishing the figures, because we have had none since 1989.
Imports also constitute a third of our exports; that proportion has trebled over the past 20 years. Two cars exported today make a smaller contribution to our balance of payments than did one car exported in 1970. That is the heart of our problem, but the autumn statement has done nothing to tackle it.
We must change expectations and that means that we must opt for a far greater devaluation than the current one. In fact, we have not really had a devaluation. Everyone talks about it, but we have had only a 14 per cent. change in the nominal rate, which does not take us back to the real exchange rate of 1986. We have still not returned to the level of competitiveness achieved then. We have simply cut off the peaks in the overvaluation caused by the Government's interest rate policy of the late 1980s and hardened by the terms of our ERM entry. We have not returned to a competitive exchange rate, but unless we do, we cannot regain our lost jobs and markets. It is much more difficult to win markets back once they are lost. The exchange rate needs to fall by a further 10 to 20 per cent. before we can win back the lost ground.
Since we need expansion and the autumn statement does not offer us very much, we must ask from where that expansion can come. Demand is deficient, so there is nothing else to do but expand that demand. One man's spending is another man's income. If we follow the good old Keynesian principle that dictates that when demand is deficient, one must expand it, we must expand demand and channel it to domestic production.
With so many people in debt traps, house prices still likely to fall and incomes restrained by deliberate Government policy, expansion will not be created by consumer demand. It will not be created by Keynesian stimulus, because that is not provided for in the autumn statement. I would spend much more on public works projects than on housing and when asked where that money would come from, I would answer with the question, "Why fund the debt?" Why are we not

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monetising the debt? Why not get ways and means advances for the Treasury from the Bank of England, as happened in war time, and expand demand that way?
We should remember that the banks enormously expanded the money supply and credit supply in the 1980s, but that they are now contracting those supplies. Why should the banks be able to damage the economy in that way when we could remedy the deficiency, and expand demand and the money supply by using public credit, the credit power of the state? Why should we not monetise the debt? The use of public credit would be simple compensation for the damage caused by the banks now that they have contracted the money supply.
Any expansion in demand certainly will not come from exports, given that the overseas markets are so depressed and that the rate of devaluation still has some way to go. Expansion can come only from import substitution. We must replace imports, which have taken such a large share of our market, with domestic production. That is the easiest, quickest and most effective way in which to expand the economy. To do that we must use the price mechanism, which means that the terms of trade for domestic production must be redressed in its favour and against exports. We must use the price mechanism, through greater devaluation, to make imports dearer.
It is no use the Government thinking that they can get away with just a marginal increase in import prices. After the 1967 devaluation those prices went up by 16 per cent. and they must rise substantially now. The fact that Volkswagen and Ford have increased their prices by only 2 per cent. shows that we have not yet achieved that substantial, necessary increase in the price of imports to make domestic production competitive enough to change expectations.
We must channel investment into that domestic production and we must keep it there. To attract investment, industry—capitalism—needs the prospect of profit. Therefore, we must have a competitive exchange rate and that competitiveness must be sustained for a long time so that expectations change and generate investment. In that way production will increase, which is necessary if we are to enlarge our industrial base. We cannot consume unless we produce. It is the production failure, which has continued for years but which was heightened by the Government's policies in the 1980s, that has caused all our problems.
We need a far greater devaluation than we have had and interest rates must be brought down to zero in real terms to bring the pound to a competitive level. In that way we can change expectations, stimulate investment and generate that into domestic production. In that way we can displace the imports that account for such a large share of our market. We are faced with huge problems, but the autumn statement does nothing to solve them; it simply repairs some of the damage that the Government themselves have done to the economy in the past three years through excessive, stupid, unnecessary and damaging deflation. The Government have sought to make good their own deficiencies, not to provide for the future of our economy.
We are at a turning point. Unless we begin to expand our industrial base we shall shrink into a declining, peripheral economy, increasingly dependent upon Europe. It is only by going ahead with a more competitive exchange rate and expansion of the economy that we can rebuild that economy and fight back.
7.36 pm
Mrs. Judith Chaplin: I welcome the Chancellor's autumn statement and I particularly welcome his proposals to introduce private sector funding into the public sector. We all know from our constituencies of construction projects that should be completed. We all know of the unfortunate spare capacity in the building industry and of the many unemployed building workers. It is essential that those two factors are brought together. The Opposition bring them together by suggesting a great increase in public spending on capital projects. Those of us who are worried by the scale of public spending and by the size of the PSBR welcome the attempts to increase private sector investment for public sector projects.
The proposals in the autumn statement represent the third attempt by Treasury Ministers to overthrow the famous Ryrie rules. They were formulated in 1981 following concern that nationalised industries were unable to attract private investment. Those rules effectively always put the private sector at a competitive disadvantage because it could never borrow money more cheaply than the public sector.
In 1988 there was an attempt to revise the Ryrie rules to take into account the fact that there were no longer quite so many nationalised industries and the introduction of various new forms of private sector involvement. Unfortunately, the 1988 revision retained two fundamental principles of those rules. First, that private sector finance could be introduced only where it offered gains in cost effectiveness. Secondly, privately financed projects for public sector programmes had to be taken into account in the total Government spending on public sector programmes. Once again those principles effectively deterred private sector construction companies from investing in public sector projects.
In 1989 the then Chief Secretary of the Treasury, now the Prime Minister, announced in a speech to the Institute of Directors in Glasgow that he was "retiring" the Ryrie rules. He said that he would not seek, on a scheme-by-scheme basis, to offset privately-financed projects. In other words, he allowed additionality. Shortly afterwards that policy was set out in the Green Paper, "New Roads by New Means". The Treasury officials fought back as always because it was almost immediately pointed out that the Government would take account of the total provision even though they would no longer take account of each scheme. The Ryrie rules, which had been revised and then retired, had certainly not lain down and died.
I very much welcome the Chancellor's third attempt and hope that it will succeed this time. I urge Treasury Ministers not to be deflected again from getting private sector money into public sector projects. I welcome my right hon. Friend the Chancellor saying that any privately financed project that can be operated profitably will be allowed to proceed. I also welcome the Government's active encouragement of joint ventures.
In his autumn statement, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor mentioned such schemes as the east-west crossing and the Birmingham orbital road, but I hope that schemes will not be confined to large transport schemes. For example, my constituency of Newbury needs a community hospital. Why cannot that be built by the private sector and then used by both the public and private sectors? Why cannot school facilities, such as sports and

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catering facilities, or badly needed nursery facilities, be provided privately and then used jointly? Why do we not allow grant-maintained schools to borrow against their assets to fund projects needed to improve the schools? I hope that small as well as large schemes will be allowed to go ahead.
I hope that every Government Department will now be encouraged to consider how the private sector can be involved in improving the whole of the country's infrastructure. I particularly hope that Ministers will ensure that the Treasury does not obstruct that happening. They should see how the whole process can be speeded up and the cost of tendering reduced so that many companies, not just large ones, can deal in that area. Furthermore, I hope that the Government will encourage the banks to look kindly on such schemes and support and assist the process.
The proposals in the autumn statement could be the start of utilising the private sector and using private sector funds to improve the whole nation's infrastructure.
7.42 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Hoon: I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mrs. Chaplin) but was just a little surprised not to hear her mention the exchange rate mechanism, which was, after all, the cornerstone of the Government's economic policy throughout the time when she was special adviser to successive Chancellors of the Exchequer and head of the Prime Minister's political office. That is one illustration of a series of U-turns or S-bends about which we have heard so much lately.
There have been fundamental changes in Government policy. One day, policies have been firm and unalterable, only to be abandoned the next in a series of embarrassing climbdowns and reversals.
Mrs. Chaplin: I understood that the Labour party favoured balanced exchange rates. I have certainly not moved away from hoping that we shall return to the exchange rate mechanism when there is appropriate convergence.
Mr. Hoon: I am delighted to hear that and I hope that the hon. Lady uses her influence on Treasury Ministers to encourage them to do the same—and quickly.
Those climbdowns and reversals show that the country has what I would describe as a corkscrew Chancellor, who slides around in circles that spiral ever downwards to a point where, like the fading smile on the face of the Cheshire cat, the Chancellor's credibility disappears for ever.
The autumn statement showed an economic policy that is trying to be all things to all people, facing all ways at once, boosting a bit of the economy here, battening down the hatches there, unable to decide which way it wants to go. Having previously set out on a series of different policies, the Government have abandoned them when they proved to be the wrong routes. They now seem to have returned to where they set out, drifting from one economic rock to another without a coherent guide or strategy.
The direct consequence of this deepest and longest lasting recession since the second world war is clear. Since the third quarter of 1990, we have seen 1·25 million people
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out of work, 110,000 business failures, 140,000 homes repossessed, a 4 per cent. fall in output, a 7 per cent. fall in manufacturing output and a 30 per cent. fall in manufacturing investment. It gives me no pleasure to say that the United Kingdom is firmly at the bottom of the European league for growth, job creation and investment.
The cause of that is a Government who lack a coherent economic policy. They have no idea of what they are in for. They can give us a long list of what they are against, but no clear statement of what they now believe in. For example, we know that they do not believe that they can spend their way out of the recession, because the Chancellor keeps repeating it like a mantra. I presume that we can conclude that he believes that consumers can spend the country's way out of the recession. If that is the Government's approach to growth, it is based on a fundamentally flawed perception of what is currently wrong with the British economy.
Our economy is in recession because previous Government economic policies have caused widespread redundancies and lay-offs. The fear of unemployment explains why the economy remains in recession. That threat of unemployment hangs over almost every family in the country. People have no confidence in their future—no confidence that they will be in work next week, next month or next year, that the Government's economic policies will guarantee their future, or that lower interest rates will revive their own economic circumstances.
Although everyone welcomes a reduction in interest rates, there is no evidence that it will necessarily restore the confidence that is so crucially lacking in our economy. Interest rates in the United States have been at around 3 per cent. for some time now and there is no consistent indication that it is restoring confidence in the American economy or that it has resulted in real and sustainable growth. What is happening there is a good indication of what is likely to happen here.
Mr. Jonathan Evans: Does not the hon. Gentleman's point show the fallacy of the argument put forward by the Labour Front Bench for so many months, persistently calling on the Government for just one more reduction in interest rates? Surely the example of America shows that low interest rates are not the answer.
Mr. Hoon: If the hon. Gentleman will have a little patience and if you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will allow me to continue a little longer, I shall deal with that point. It is not simply a question of reducing interest rates. Clearly, we must also have a coherent industrial strategy to accompany it.
When people in the United States were faced with lower interest rates and had a little more money in their pockets, they chose to pay off their debts—to reduce their credit card obligations and mortgage repayments and to pay off their hire purchase commitments. People lack confidence because they are frightened for their jobs so they are reducing their expenditure so that their commitments are fewer in the event of those jobs disappearing.
The extent to which house buyers are discouraged from buying property when they cannot confidently say that they will be able to meet their repayments next week, next month or next year is the primary cause of the difficulties in the present housing market and a clear indication of lack of confidence. Who will buy an asset like a house

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when they cannot be sure that they can meet the continuing repayments or, more importantly in the present atmosphere, when they can be sure that the value of that asset will go down?
In this country we are paying for the cost of unemployment, not only in increased benefit payments to the unemployed and lost tax revenues but, crucially, in the light of the autumn statement, we shall also pay through a substantially increased public sector borrowing requirement. That PSBR is estimated to rise beyond the £44 billion projection. How do the Government propose to raise the necessary £44 billion or more? All the signs are that there will be insufficient domestic institutional funds to purchase gilts made available by the Bank of England. That means that the Government will be dependent on foreign investors buying pounds.
With the Government's reluctance to return speedily to the exchange rate mechanism, will foreign investors be willing to invest in sterling on such a scale, particularly given the likely continuing devaluation of the pound? Why should foreign investors invest in pounds that are falling in value? The only way of persuading those investors to do so is to adopt the course taken by the Government in the past: to offer a premium on interest rates and offer higher interest rates than can be obtained elsewhere to offset the currency risk of investing in devaluing pounds.
Such a policy will mean higher interest rates not only for foreign investors, but for the whole of the British economy, which will force this country's economy back into the vicious circle of interest rate rises, further unemployment and repossession of homes. Is that what the Government want? Do the Government want to pursue the policies of previous Conservative Governments that depended on a sustained and persistent devaluation of the pound—allowing the pound to fall steadily on international markets—as a substitute—and here I am tackling the issues raised by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans)—for tackling the underlying problems of the British industrial economy? Those problems include the lack of investment, training and competitiveness.
Devaluation will inevitably feed inflation into the economy. There was a 2·5 per cent. rise in factory input costs between September and October. That 2·5 per cent. rise has been directly attributed to the costs of devaluation. It will be a continuing contribution to inflation in the United Kingdom, will add to and exaggerate the already chronic balance of payments deficit, and exert still more devaluation pressure on the pound.
If the Government believe that consumers can buy this country out of recession, they must put in place the sort of policies that the Opposition have been advocating: a coherent industrial and economic policy.
7.52 pm
Mr. Barry Legg: Like other hon. Members, I welcome the autumn statement and the excellent speeches that we heard from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week and today. They contained many sentiments that all Conservative Members can heartily endorse, including the commitments to firm control of public expenditure and to reducing public expenditure as a proportion of national income.
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The autumn statement also set out again some vital strategies. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that one of the Government's priorities was to make markets work better, as that will enable us to achieve a higher long-term growth rate. My right hon. Friend also restated the well-known truth that Governments cannot spend their way out of recession. There can be no stronger proof of that than what has happened to the projections of the borrowing requirement for the coming year—1993–94—and the borrowing requirement projections for this year.
The projections for the current year have risen from about £19 billion at the time of the autumn statement last November to an estimated figure in the Budget this year of £28 billion, which took away the breath of many hon. Members. Last week we were given a revised estimate of £37 billion. The borrowing requirement for the current year—the estimate of how much the Government will spend in excess of taxes—has increased by no less than £18 billion.
If Opposition Members are right in their assumption that Governments can spend their way out of recession, we should have expected growth projections to be moving forward rapidly, and should now have an overheated economy. However, the reverse has happened. The projections of growth for the current year have fallen from 2 per cent. positive at the last autumn statement to 1 per cent. negative in the current autumn statement. There can be no better proof that Governments cannot spend their way out of recession.
How are we to get out of recession? I was pleased by what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor told us. He said that the main means of ending recession were through the supply side and through monetary measures—easing monetary policy. His autumn statement contained the fact that we now have a new monetary framework, under which British interest rates will be determined by domestic conditions. That is to be heartily welcomed after our experience in recent years, when we first shadowed the deutschmark and then became a formal member of the exchange rate mechanism.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has rightly stated that monetary policy was too tight during our membership of the ERM. We now have an opportunity to set a sensible framework for the future to produce growth in the British economy and deliver the sort of economic results that all hon. Members wish to see.
Many hon. Members have spoken of the immediate measures contained in the autumn statement. I shall spend a little time looking at the medium-term prospects, and the ways in which we are to regenerate the economy in the medium term. My hon. Friend the Member for East Lindsey (Sir P. Tapsell) made many sensible comments about Britain's trading relationships, but I do not agree with his judgment that management of the economy has to be left to the day-to-day judgments of one or two individuals. One of our mistakes in the late 1980s was to run the economy in that way, and we did not put in place an established framework or the institutional changes necessary to ensure that our policies were properly implemented.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor said today that the aim for public expenditure for the coming three years is to ensure that it is less than the long-term growth rates, which are thought to be about 2·5 per cent. He has set out a strategy for growth in public expenditure over the next three years of 1·5 per cent. per annum in the Government's

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public expenditure control total. That is a tough target and promises an even tougher spending round in coming years than in recent ones.
The spending round that we have just experienced has provided for 4·5 per cent. growth in public expenditure, which is quite a high percentage. If one considers the future and the plans in the autumn statement, one sees that public expenditure growth will be considerably reduced—to about 1·5 per cent. Like many other hon. Members present, I believe that it is essential to fulfil those plans. All too often, previous autumn statements have contained tough spending plans for years two and three that have not been fulfilled. However, we must keep to our spending plans as the consequences for the British economy for not doing so would be very serious.
We are starting with a budget deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product of about 7 per cent. If public expenditure does not remain within the planned total it will create serious difficulties for our future funding requirements, for long-term interest rates—which have an important bearing on the wealth-creating sector of the economy—and it would have serious consequences for our taxation policies and the Government's commitment to low taxation. Sticking to those spending plans presents a great challenge.
The Chancellor has said that British interest rates will be set according to domestic monetary conditions. I welcome that. A letter dated 8 October from the Chancellor to the Chairman of the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service sets out the conditions for returning to the ERM. The most important of those is that British and German monetary conditions must converge. However, it would be a mistake to return to that mechanism only because of that. We should return to the ERM only when the British and German economies are totally synchronised and working in exactly the same cycles, and, given developments in the German economy over the past two or three years, I can see little possibility of that happening in the foreseeable future.
For many years the German economy was the anchor at the centre of Europe, but that is no longer the case. It has considerable difficulties that will take many years to correct. A hasty return to the ERM would damage the British economy, and fulfilling a legal commitment to return to it and making our economy converge with that of Germany could threaten to capsize the British economy.
I welcome the Chancellor's proposals for a more open approach to financial management. He announced plans for a panel of independent forecasters who will meet once a quarter to discuss the outlook for the British economy. That is welcome, but I do not think that it goes far enough. We should consider institutional change to our economic management. Countries with the best records on their economy and on maintaining low inflation have a much more open system. In the United States the minutes of the open market committee of the Federal Reserve are freely available and in Germany there is constant dialogue between the Bundesbank and the markets. That country also has a panel of independent advisers offering open advice.
Institutional change is appropriate in the fight against inflation and the battle to create sound money, which lies at the heart of the Government's economic policy, which
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I thoroughly endorse. There are two dangers to such a policy. The first is a large fiscal deficit, and some of the projected deficits are large. Such deficits will tempt future politicians to print money to bridge the gap. The second threat to sound money is over-tight monetary policy. Such a policy was followed in the early 1930s and the reaction that followed harmed the post-war British economy. We have had a period of tight monetary policy when we were in the exchange rate mechanism, but we should now pursue the appropriate monetary conditions to redress that.
We must consider not only lower interest rates but the Government's funding policy. Underfunding the deficit is supported by many monetarists and is the policy adopted by monetary institutions as strong as the Bundesbank and the Federal Reserve.
The autumn statement has many sound features, but in the years ahead we shall need to add further building blocks. If we do that, we shall recreate the spirit of enterprise.
8.5 pm
Mr. Gordon Prentice: My constituency has a greater percentage of people employed in manufacturing than that of any other hon. Member. I shall return to that. The Chancellor said that the autumn statement is all about confidence, but people in my constituency and elsewhere will see it for what it is—a confidence trick. There have been so many promises of recovery and so many false dawns that nothing that the Chancellor says will ever be believed. On 4 September my local paper, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, carried the headline:
"Ingenious step to head off a crisis."
The story below that headline read:
"Of all the options open to Chancellor Norman Lamont to defend the pound, his move yesterday to borrow £7·25 billion in foreign currency to be sold for sterling is the most innovative. Certainly the City hailed it as ingenious …Now, with Mr. Lamont's cash-pot, sterling has been provided with a buffer lasting until next March. By that time the long-delayed signs of upturn in the United Kingdom economy may have emerged to strengthen confidence in the pound."
The hundreds of thousands of people who read that major regional daily must wonder when the recovery will come. Having been once bitten, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph will be twice shy.
The Government's economic policy is all about ingenious steps, three-card confidence tricks and misrepresentations. Despite the Conservative manifesto and solemn pledges at the general election, much has been concealed from the electorate. The manifesto did not mention pit closures and the fact that 31,000 miners and 70,000 people in ancillary industries would be thrown out of work. It did not mention devaluation, the billions of pounds thrown at speculators on 16 September and the continuing slump. On the contrary, the manifesto promised recovery. The Prime Minister told people to vote Conservative on Thursday 9 April and said that the recovery would continue on Friday.
The Chancellor said in his speech that the autumn statement is all about controlling public sector pay. That means that people in the public sector are being asked to pay for the Government's mistakes. The low-paid will also suffer. My constituency is a low-wage area in a low-wage region. Today's debate comes hard on the heels of the debate yesterday on the abolition of the wages councils—an obnoxious policy but a fitting one for the

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Government and just what one would expect. The Government's message is that to help recovery people must accept lower wages. They did not bat an eyelid when Valiance in British Telecom and other captains of industry in the privatised utilities were awarding themselves stratospheric pay rises. Those salaries were supposed to signal the spirit of free enterprise. Then, on Tuesday, at the Lord Mayor's banquet, the Prime Minister had the gall to talk about fairness. When did he learn about fairness? Why did it take it him so long to discover it? That will not wash. My constituents and millions like them will be worse off and calls to sacrifice by the Prime Minister will fall on deaf ears in Lancashire, where 5 per cent. of all adults earn less than £120 per week—talk about a wages council minimum—and almost 10 per cent. of women earn less than £120 a week for a full working week.
Those are sweatshop rates of pay, and those are the people whom the Tories want to accept lower wages so as to bail out the Government. The poorest are being called on to make that sacrifice. We know what brought this about. The Government strategy is to compete on wage rates rather than to develop skills. That is why the autumn statement cuts the training and employment budget even further, with youth training and employment training facing a real cut of 3 per cent. The Government's message is "leave it to the market."
We get all these lectures about competitiveness and measures to make the economy leaner and fitter, but no one buys that. No one believes that stuff any more, not coming from them, after two recessions in a decade and one third of manufacturing industry being wiped out. In the north-west of England, where my constituency is, 37 per cent. of manufacturing industry has been wiped out by the Tories.
Despite all this, the Chancellor wants confidence. He says that that is what will pull us through. If he tells that to the people in my constituency, where bankruptcies are running at record rates, home repossessions have never been higher and high unemployment is now endemic, they will laugh. We have the highest unemployment for five and a half years. For 30 months in a row, unemployment has relentlessly risen. Unemployment in my constituency is 72 per cent. higher than it was when Major became Prime Minister in November 1990.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not the custom of the House to refer to another Member by his name. Furthermore, when the Speaker or Deputy Speaker rises, the hon. Member being called to order must resume his seat.
Mr. Prentice: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will gather that I feel strongly about this issue.
Ordinary people will pay for the mistakes of the Conservatives. I see Tories snigger. They will probably find some way to twist the issue of Government borrowing. The PSBR of £44 billion comes from a party that in April told the British people that the implementation of the Labour party's manifesto commitments would cost £35 billion. Government borrowing will be running at a rate of £1 billion a week next year with a need to finance maturing Government debt. All this borrowing is to pay for unemployment and to generate growth of 1 per cent. Where will the growth come from? It will not come from our manufacturing industry because Britain does not make things any more.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Rubbish.
Mr. Prentice: Is it rubbish? Work on civil airlines has been transferred from Hatfield to Taiwan. They should tell people in Hatfield about the transfer of technology.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: What about our balance of payments surplus in cars for the first time in 15 years? The hon. Gentleman is wrong to say that we do not make things any longer.
Mr. Prentice: I agree that there has been an improvement with cars, but that is generated by Japanese companies, not indigenous United Kingdom companies. What about consumer durables such as washing machines? What about shipbuilding? Can Tory Members find something to laugh about a shipbuilding industry that has plummeted? What about cameras? Can they laugh about the motorcycle industry, the bus industry or the textile industry, which used to be so important in my constituency, which have all been wiped out? The last pit in Lancashire, Parkside, is about to close. Are they going to laugh at that? What about British Aerospace, in which 132,000 jobs nationwide, and 40,000 in my area, are threatened? If that goes, my region faces economic annihilation and the erosion of its skill base. No doubt they will still find something funny about that.
If we lose leading technologies such as aerospace, from where will the new jobs for my constituents come? We have accelerating job losses, falling investment, empty order books and a flattened housing market. We need a programme for growth and long-term investment—something that we are not getting from the Government. The north-west needs a Government who are seriously interested in manufacturing industry, but no one believes that the autumn statement measures up to the task ahead.
8.15 pm
Mr. Rod Richards: The Chancellor's autumn statement has quite rightly been widely welcomed. I endorse what my colleagues have said about it. The welcome is quite simply because it is appropriate for the new circumstances in which we find ourselves, and because the measures it introduces are imaginative. Most of all, it is because the autumn statement is fundamental to building confidence. It describes the Chancellor's economic framework in a way that allows everyone to see clearly his targets and the indicators that he will use to ensure that he attains those targets. The Conservative party has confidence in its Chancellor.
Having heard the shadow Chancellor this afternoon, I feel that Opposition Members might want to reassess their view of his policy. It was revealing that he did not have a good grasp of economics. He drew attention to the fact that one of the measures in the autumn statement was abolishing car tax. He rightly quoted the figure, used by the Chancellor, of a cost of £750 million in the fiscal year 1993–94. That works out at approximately £400 per average family vehicle.
The shadow Chancellor then took the motor manufacturers' forecast of an increase in sales of vehicles of 70,000. Any average GCSE pupil would have told the shadow Chancellor that 70,000 vehicles costing the Exchequer £400 each would result in a cost of £28 million, less VAT. However, the hon. Gentleman did not make

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that computation. In the topsy-turvy world of Labour's "think of a number" policy, he took the Government's cost forecast for the total spend, divided it by the motor manufacturers' extra cars sold forecast, and came up with the cooked answer that every vehicle would cost the Exchequer £10,500. He forgot to mention that almost 2 million car owners will have an extra £400 each to spend, thereby creating demand and boosting the economy.
I know that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) was once employed as a temporary lecturer at Edinburgh university, and I can understand why it did not offer him a full-time job. His speech proves that Labour cannot be trusted to get its sums right with the taxpayer's money.
I particularly welcome the £6·3 billion settlement for Welsh programmes and the fact that its real value will be maintained for the next three years. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales on retaining the population-based formula for calculating public expenditure provision. Long may that practice continue.
My right hon. and hon. Friends and I recognise that the recession is global and therefore that any Government's actions are limited. However, Government policy has brought considerable success to Wales over the past 13 years, so the effects of the recession there have been less severe than in the rest of the United Kingdom. At present, 10 per cent. of the potential working population of Wales are unemployed—which reflects almost exactly the figure for the rest of the United Kingdom. In 1986, the comparable figures were 14 per cent. and 11 per cent.
Wales has caught up with the rest of the United Kingdom because its economy has been completely transformed over the past 13 years by Government policy. The basis of the Welsh economy is now much broader than in 1979, when a Conservative Government came to power, when coal and steel were virtually the Principality's only industries. That transformation occurred through the effective use of public funding of inward investment.
Since the general election, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has announced the creation of 3,000 new jobs and that 800 others would be safeguarded, reflecting investment of £78 million and a Welsh Office contribution of selective regional assistance valued at £20 million. To save the shadow Chancellor tripping his fingers over his calculator, that produces a cost of £5,260 for every job created. I am pleased, therefore, with the increase in investment capital allowances, which can do nothing but good for investment prospects for Wales.
The self-employed and small businesses account for the bulk of the Welsh economy. The autumn statement is about confidence, and that is precisely what has been lacking among small businesses in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. Inflation poses the greatest threat to confidence, and my right hon. Friend's means of achieving his inflation target are boosting confidence. However, expectations of future inflation tend to be self-fulfilling and to generate their own inflation.
The biggest boost to confidence among the self-employed and small businesses was sterling's withdrawal from the exchange rate mechanism on 16 September. Those to whom I spoke displayed unbridled joy at that development, and the subsequent lowering of interest rates
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meant that many more small businesses will survive the recession. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will lower interest rates again when it is prudent to do so.
Having raised the matter of the exchange rate mechanism, the shadow Chancellor and his right hon. and hon. Friends persist in saying that sterling should have been realigned a week or a fortnight before 16 September. I put the question to the Chancellor this afternoon, and I really would like an answer. If the Opposition really believe that the ERM should have been realigned at that time, will they kindly tell the House what, in their view, the central value of the realignment would have been, and what would have been the appropriate base interest rate for that value?
I accept the discipline that the ERM forced upon this country, but now that we are out of it, let us take full advantage of the opportunity. I congratulate the Chancellor on taking the first major step along the road to recovery.
8.25 pm
Dr. Roger Berry: Earlier, reference was made to a letter signed by several hundred economists in 1981 that was critical of the Government's economic policy. I plead guilty to being one of its signatories. I am not at all embarrassed, given that Conservative Members have spoken this afternoon as if, since 1979, the Government have not had the worst record of economic management of any postwar Government.
The Government have the worst record on growth, unemployment, interest rates, the balance of manufactured goods, and so on. The list is endless. I looked in the autumn statement for remarkable features and for something new. It makes a half-hearted and belated attempt to adopt policies that the Government ridiculed and rejected not only before and during the general election but in the seven months since. They rejected lower interest rates, tax allowances for investment, additional export credit assistance, and the release of local authority capital receipts.
In my maiden speech on 10 June, during the debate on the Finance Bill, and on a Labour amendment calling for enhancement of first-year capital allowances that was rejected out of hand, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said:
"The facts do not support the assertion that capital allowances increase the flow of investment".
He said that the amendment was aimed at generating an investment-led recovery.
"but history has shown time and time again that investment led recoveries are chimeras."—[Official Report, 10 June 1992; Vol. 209, column 357.]
The Financial Secretary followed the lead set by the Chancellor in presenting his Budget, when he also rejected enhanced capital allowances on the basis that they would not be a sensible use of available resources.
Last Thursday, the Chancellor increased allowances for first-year investment in plant and machinery. There has been much ill-informed talk about investment led recovery, and that was one change of policy. The most dramatic change followed the lengthy call for a reduction in interest rates. A Treasury press release issued last week spoke of the lowest interest rates since 1978. What happened after 1978 to give us record interest rates? The truth is that the present Chancellor and his predecessors

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have been responsible for precisely the record interest rate levels that the Chancellor now seeks to claim credit for reducing.
It must be quite easy to be a Chancellor of the Exchequer in such circumstances. You jack up the interest rate; you wait for a few months; then you bring them down, and everyone says how wonderfully you have done your job. No doubt some Conservative Members are impressed by such tactics.
In the autumn statement, the Chancellor proclaims the benefits of a devalued pound—he refers to it, of course, as a competitive pound—and the lower interest rates that that allows. There is, however, no hint or whiff of recognition of the fact that this is the same Chancellor who resisted such a policy until it was forced on him; the same Chancellor who was prepared to borrow £7 billion to throw away more than £1 billion of taxpayers' money in a vain and foolish attempt to prop up an overvalued pound. There is no recognition of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman not only raised the interest rate to 15 per cent. on 16 September, but subsequently told the House that he would have kept it at 15 per cent. if the policy had worked.
Mr. Jonathan Evans: The hon. Gentleman said that he considered the pound to be over-valued at its then rate in the exchange rate mechanism. I seem to recall that, during the general election campaign, the Leader of the Opposition suggested that the Labour party would defend that valuation. Did the hon. Gentleman say then that he considered the valuation too high?
Dr. Berry: I pointed out that it was too high on the very day that we entered the ERM; it seemed reasonably obvious. My right hon. and learned Friend will speak for himself, but I am convinced that, if he had expressed the view that I now hold in the run-up to the election, he would have been held responsible for the devaluation in the currency. Indeed, incredible though it may seem, I have heard hon. Members in the Chamber trying to blame him for precisely that—although, as the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) has said, he did not express the view about the devaluation of sterling that I am now expressing.
The point is that, if the Chancellor's policy of jacking up interest rates to 15 per cent. had succeeded in maintaining the pound at DM2·95 in the ERM, we would be debating a slightly different autumn statement. However, millions of people in the country would be seriously worried, and rightly so. On reflection, I believe that that would have been a preposterous proposition—but, according to the Chancellor, it is what he would have done.
One feature of the autumn statement is its acceptance of some of the arguments advanced by Opposition Members and others. Today, people are talking about the awarding of marks to schools, and about league tables. I would like to award marks for economic literacy to the autumn statement—I would not give it many. First, why start with a planning total of £244·5 billion when the circumstances in which that total was set last year have changed so radically? The dramatic recovery to which the Chancellor referred last year has signally failed to materialise, and there is no economic rationale for sticking to a figure when it is out of date.
Secondly, why assume that improved confidence—a phrase that is used repeatedly throughout the autumn
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statement—will miraculously follow interest rate reductions, when the private sector is debt-ridden on an unprecedented scale, and unemployment is still rising? Thirdly, why continue to assert that conquering inflation—whether that is interpreted literally as the achievement of zero inflation, or more liberally as achieving any old rate between 1 per cent. and 4 per cent.—is the key to sustainable growth? No economic theory or empirical evidence demonstrates that; indeed, a few years ago, the Financial Times pointed out—correctly—that there was no perceptible link between the inflation rate and the rate of economic growth.
Fourthly—this annoys me most—if, as the Chancellor says in the autumn statement, it would be damaging to seek to prevent the PSBR from rising in a recession owing to the loss of tax revenues and the payment of benefits—a view with which, incidentally, I agree—why is it not better to increase the PSBR to invest in economic recovery? The statement gives no answer to that question.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) has pointed out, at the last general election the Government made much of Labour's spending programmes; indeed, they assumed that all our expenditure on every conceivable programme would be incurred in 12 months. That would have required a significant increase in public sector borrowing—probably of the order of that the Government propose for the PSBR in the current year. The Government's wheeze has been to achieve a similar figure without any improvement in services, with employment accelerating to 3 million—according to their figure; on the bases of calculations made before they fiddled the statistics, the figure is nearer 4 million. It is difficult to imagine a more damning condemnation of economic incompetence.
That brings me to the most remarkable feature of the autumn statement. As many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have said, it fails to address the real issue: how we can secure economic recovery, and reduce unemployment and the record number of bankruptcies. Most significantly, it fails to appreciate that, without sufficient demand in the economy, unemployment will continue to rise and firms will continue to go bust.
As hon. Members on both sides of the House have pointed out, supply side policies are important. Our appalling balance of trade in the midst of recession is evidence of that. They are not enough, however; our economy's output will not be purchased unless there is sufficient demand in the economy. In my constituency, the owners of businesses are working every hour that God gives. They have made every conceivable supply-side improvement. The only thing that keeps newsagents, local garages and other small businesses in operation and secures jobs is the arrival of more customers spending more money. An increase in demand is not merely sufficient, but absolutely necessary, if the country is to emerge from recession.
The Government appear to believe that the private sector will somehow generate that increase in demand. They seem to think that consumers will get hold of their plastic cards—observing that interest rates have fallen by another point—shoot out into the high street and increase their expenditure, thus bringing the country out of recession. I believe that the Government hope and pray that that will happen, but the problem is that it will not happen.

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Interest rates are not particularly low at present; and in the United States, where rates are around 3 per cent., the recession continues. The private sector in this country—whether it is the corporate sector or private consumers—is more debt-ridden than that in the United States. It is inconceivable that an interest-rate reduction will be sufficient to regenerate economic recovery: as a number of hon. Members have said, what we need is an increase in public expenditure.
I have looked carefully at the figures in the autumn statement. If we accept all the Government's assumptions about a 1 per cent. growth rate next year, and their assumptions about the components of demand arising from exports, private investment and private consumption, the fact remains that there is a yawning gap in demand. There is not enough demand even to prevent rising unemployment.
Having taken account of the knock-on effects, I believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) has said, that we need an increase of £10 billion in public expenditure to make any impact on unemployment. It should be targeted at investment in industry, public works infrastructure and construction, for three obvious reasons. First, it would use unemployed resources to create productive assets; we should be investing in projects with rates of return in excess of the cost of borrowing. Secondly, public expenditure on investment would have less of an impact on imports than the equivalent increase in private consumption, even if that could be engineered. Thirdly, such a package would immediately be self-financing in part as tax revenues rose and social security payments fell.
Conservative Members are fond of chanting the dogma that the Government cannot spend their way out of recession. That is a fatuous excuse for Government inactivity. It is incontrovertible that to get out of recession requires increased expenditure on the nation's output. If the Government will not help bring that about, who will? If there is one reason why I shall be voting against the autumn statement, it is the abject failure of Government to answer that simple question. The autumn statement is not a programme for recovery; it is not the programme that my constituents and millions of others need so desperately.
8.41 pm
Mr. Richard Spring: May I add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on presenting to the House an autumn statement which has won plaudits not only in the House but amongst many independent commentators. His emphasis on capital spending, his commitment to keeping a lid on inflation and his commitment to reviving growth have been greatly welcomed.
The events of the last four months have produced a number of instructive lessons. A financial whirlwind forced us to leave the ERM but the whole country now welcomes the cuts in interest rates since our departure. However welcome the new minimum lending rate of 7 per cent. is—hopefully with more to come—it marks a stage in a volatile roller coaster ride of interest rates—7·5 per cent. to 15 per cent. and back to 7 per cent. While I greatly welcome the Chancellor's firm commitment to low inflation, the post-war swings and roundabouts of interest rate policy have bedevilled the economy. For example, the
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credit boom of the late 1980s bore great similarities to credit conditions in the early 1970s. Sadly, history has had a habit of repeating itself.
The Maastricht treaty requires during the second stage that member states should start the process leading to the independence of their own central banks. It is not clear that we would find it desirable to move towards a single currency or indeed that the convergence criteria will ever be successfully met.
I turn to the domestic argument. There is no doubt in my mind that the wave of money moving into the deutschmark this year was due to the belief of the markets that the Bundesbank would pursue policies essentially unfettered by political influence. The markets were proved right. In its policy objectives, the Bundesbank has been by and large successful.
The Bundesbank is more substantially independent than the Bank of England. That is important. The IMF working paper, "Central Bank Independence: Issues and Experience", noted that the results of most studies are that countries with independent central banks tend to deliver better inflation outcomes. Had the Bank of England been considerably more independent, over the past four decades we would have enjoyed lower inflation, a more stable currency and less volatile interest rates. Surely it is time, particularly after the turbulent experiences of the summer, to look seriously at the structure of the bank and thereby the conduct of our monetary policy.
Given the enormous and justified importance which hon. Members place upon debate and parliamentary scrutiny, there might be concern that an independent Bank of England would be unaccountable. There is clearly a difficulty, with a tension between parliamentary sovereignty and central bank independence. That needs to be addressed.
The fears of lack of democratic accountability to Parliament could be addressed if the Governor were made regularly accountable to the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service. The ingredients for that exist already. The Select Committee could have an enhanced role in monitoring the bank's performance. Basic to the independent bank's charter would be an absolute commitment to stable prices. The Select Committee could examine the conduct of the bank's monetary policy. A mix of a statutory commitment to price stability and parliamentary accountability would enhance the conduct of future monetary policy.
If ever, heaven forbid, we were beset again by the same financial whirlwind that we saw in the summer, we would be better able to withstand it. I urge my right hon. Friend to give serious consideration to that proposal.
There has been a great upsurge in concern about the future of small business. The huge increase in small businesses and entrepreneurial activity in the 1980s was welcomed and was a great triumph for the Conservative Government. As is happening tragically everywhere in the world, small businesses here are being hit very hard by the recession.
My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) very ably highlighted small business problems in the House last Friday, and in Adjournment debates my hon. Friends the Members for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates) and for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning) dealt with specific difficulties facing the small business community.
Small businesses face a liquidity crisis despite lower interest rates. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey,

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North-West (Sir M. Grylls), with all his years of distinguished commitment to small businesses, has spelt out eloquently the lack of long-term assured capital which has been so damaging and debilitating.
Has the desire of banks to repair profitability by extending margins something to do with lack of liquidity in the banking system? In the 1980s bank credit to the private sector, which is most sensitive to interest rate changes, grew by 20 per cent. per annum. The growth of money supply in the early 1980s fell to a more sustainable 12 per cent. because of Government overfunding, that is, selling more Government debt to non-banks than the PSBR and using the excess proceeds to repay Government debt held by banks. Surely now we are in exactly the reverse position, as indicated by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Mr. Legg). We need to liquefy the system by underfunding, that is, by the Government financing at least part of their PSBR from the banks. That system was in force prior to 1985 and was considered to be successful. That approach to monetary policy is practised widely in other parts of the world. The collapse of broad money growth from 18 per cent. in 1990 to 5 per cent. now suggests that greater short-term monetary expansion is called for.
May I be technical and illustrate the extent of this dire problem? In the year to the third quarter of 1988 the rise in bank deposits held by unincorporated businesses, mostly small businesses, was 28·9 per cent. In the year to the second quarter of 1992 it fell by 0·1 per cent. Small business liquidity has been severely cut at a time of recession by lack of growth in broad money. Surely, therefore, the Treasury should consider under-funding to make up for the lack of credit growth. Broad money needs to grow, to boost liquidity in the short term before levelling off in years to come. That is the real world that business—small businesses in particular—has to live in. By liquefying the banking system, the lending practices of banks would surely not be so damaging and obstructive as they clearly are at present. Therefore, I urge the Treasury to address that problem, in the face of rising business illiquidity and bankruptcy.
All that having been said, the business community in west Suffolk, in my constituency of Bury St. Edmunds and in the nation at large greatly and without reserve welcomes all the measures that the Chancellor took so boldly last week. We now have in place a strategy for new growth, which I greatly welcome and fully support.
8.50 pm
Mr. George Stevenson: The autumn statement can rightly be described as containing very small crumbs of little comfort. It should have been about reversing our industrial and economic decline and establishing a structure for long-term growth. In reality, it continues to destroy credibility and it certainly does not hold out the prospects for an improvement in confidence. The main reason is that the Government have singularly failed to recognise that unemployment is the greatest threat to a return of confidence. Unless the Government recognise that fact, confidence—which is so elusive—will not be generated. Unless the priority objective is employment, not unemployment, we shall continue to suffer.
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The Chancellor's autumn statement and his subsequent contributions contained hardly any reference to unemployment. That had to be dragged out of him by means of questions. Finally, he had to admit that unemployment would continue to rise. What a disgraceful statement to have to make after 13 years of Tory government.
The autumn statement provides official recognition of the fact that the Government's philosophy has been completely discredited. We have been asked to believe that what we have to do is to drive down pay and increase poverty, as those elements are vital to recovery.
The other element that we are asked to accept in the deadly economic cocktail with which we have been presented is chronic short-termism. We are told that increased capital allowances will be helpful to business and industry, but they are available for only one year. That is unlikely to provide an incentive to stimulate investment. What is needed is a long-term strategy, but no evidence of such a strategy can be found in the autumn statement. The Treasury's economic model makes it clear that any possible benefits from devaluation, allied to the Government's present policies and any growth, if it happens, will be short lived and quickly reversed.
The Government seem equally unable to realise that lower pay will depress much-needed domestic demand. Short-termism, incompetence and cuts in living standards will create further economic and social divisions. Apart from the damage that that does, it is irrelevant as we search for a solution to the chronic economic problems that the Government have created. As they continue to stagger from crisis to crisis, the suffering of the British people intensifies. One can detect no reasonable prospect of any reversal of the decline, let alone any prospect of the promotion of economic growth.
The Chancellor told us that he anticipates a 1 per cent. increase in growth next year. If we were to depend upon the reliability of past predictions, we should be looking at another example of an economic blind date. Any talk by this Government of growth and of an increase in jobs borders on the obscene. More than 3 million people are on the dole. The pits closure programme will lead to another 4,000 job losses in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent. South alone. Will the Chancellor come to my constituency and explain to those 4,000 people who are to lose their jobs, how the economic miracle will enhance their job prospects?
Another bombshell is lurking in the background. The British people should be given clear notice of what is going to hit them. We can predict with reasonable confidence that the Government will be forced to increase taxes, in one form or another, in the very near future. The public should not be deceived into believing that any other prospect is open to the Government.
The autumn statement was greeted with a certain amount of euphoria by Tory Members. It occurred to me that the shouting and cheering grew in intensity as the Government's credibility fell. I do not know what is going to happen in future. I think we can expect more shouting and more cheering. However, this mini-Budget has been received throughout the country with as much enthusiasm as a sun-ray lamp would be welcomed in the Sahara. It is perceived to be irrelevant and useless.
The Government have no control over the economy. They have no commitment to economic recovery. The plain fact is that they are just not believed. The Tories have cashed in all their credibility. The biggest obstacle to the

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return of confidence are the Government. They pursued dogmatic policies for so long that they caused enormous damage. The Prime Minister told us that any change in the Government's policies would be a betrayal of our future. The collapse of the Government's economic policies, however, has forced them into changing their policies.
It is impossible to believe that the country is now being asked to accept that the policies contained in the autumn statement are virtuous and that they were planned all along by the Government. That is patent nonsense.
It is clear that the only question that remains to be answered is not whether these measures will restore confidence but when—if not—there will be a further retreat by this incompetent Government. No Cabinet reshuffle, whenever that comes, will hide that fact, or con the British people.
The Government have been described as a busted flush. I do not know whether I accept that. Nevertheless, they display all the characteristics of a spare trick at a whist drive. "Trick" is the operative word. The people of this country were subjected to a tragic confidence trick at the general election.
These measures are marginal indeed. They are designed to attract more Tory cheers. They do not address the deep-seated problems that face the country. They are motivated by desperation, not by conviction, and have little chance of success. They expose the disastrous policies of a discredited Government, who have a knee-jerk philosophy that masquerades as economic policy. It is no substitute for a radical new direction based on partnership between government at central and local level, and business and industry throughout the country. We need real investment in training, real investment in business and industry, an urgent job programme and an immediate attack on mass unemployment. Only then shall we see any real prospect of a return to much-needed confidence.
My contention, which will be supported by many hon. Members in the Lobby tomorrow night, is that confidence will not return as a result of the Chancellor's package and will certainly not return while this Government are in office.
8.58 pm
Mr. Mark Wolfson: I welcome the autumn statement because it represents a change in policy. If we had not seen that change, I would have taken a different view. The Government's previous economic policy was proving inadequate because it was based on forecasting that was clearly flawed. As evidence developed that the recession was not over, a change was urgently necessary.
It was certainly no part of my own election platform, of our party's election platform or of Ministers' election platforms that we should continue to preside over a continuing recession. This necessary change in our economic policy was clearly overdue.
Before the autumn statement and black Wednesday, the emphasis that was so heavily on the control of inflation was no longer making sense to business, to home owners or to the public in my constituency and elsewhere. It was increasingly obvious to them and to many Conservative Members that growth in the economy had to become the new and central focus. That is why, as a result of the autumn statement, we have a welcome for the policy from
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the Confederation of British Industry and from the Institute of Directors. More importantly to me, the policy has got a welcome from those active in business at all levels in my constituency.
I do not recognise that there has been a gloomy response to the autumn statement, as Opposition Members have suggested. They may not like it, but my constituents and people in business who have been looking for a more hopeful and positive outlook are pleased with the results.
The measures in the autumn statement are now regarded as realistic and sensible. Those running industry and business may not have got everything that they wanted, but they did not expect to get everything. They realise that the Government cannot get the country out of recession by themselves. The Government can only take certain measures to act as a stimulus.
There is a real change in perception in the country about what the Government are now doing on the economic front. I support the Chancellor in his efforts to hold the level of public spending below the level of growth in the economy as a whole. I share the concern expressed by other speakers today about the level of borrowing. Once I had heard the Chancellor say what his borrowing forecast was for this year and for the years ahead, I no longer expected that we would get two points off interest rates at this moment. However, I hope that the downward pressure on interest rates will continue as a result of a prudent and balanced policy now.
It is entirely proper that the statement should contain a pay ceiling of 1·5 per cent. in the public sector. That leaves room for productivity arrangements and for some recognition to be given to improvements in the operational efficiency of those in the public sector. A nil increase would not have allowed that and would have been a mistake.
Clearly the emphasis on protecting capital investment and increasing capital spending is right. I welcome the emphasis on housing, on roads and on railways, and I especially welcome the commitment to build the Jubilee line extension. Concern has been expressed today about other areas of capital expenditure for London Transport. The tube strike threatened for next week is an appalling example of Luddite mentality. How can it be right to upgrade the capital investment in London's tube lines if those operating the lines are not prepared to make necessary changes to increase efficiency and, under the schemes, increase the earnings of the majority of people employed by London Regional Transport? I hope that the union will see sense and not cause unnecessary difficulties and problems for Londoners next week.
I welcome the new rules for funding public sector projects such as the joint private-public ventures. The advent of leasing arrangements will be particularly helpful for my constituents who commute to London, who are absolutely fed up with low-grade rolling stock. That proposal will provide a way forward to deal with that problem faster than before.
The ideas of charging for motorways and ultimately for electronic charging for other roads are also ways to improve Britain's infrastructure so that it can compete with the rest of the world, and particularly with Europe, without placing an unrealistic burden on public funding.
I question whether the privatisation plans for British Rail, which are very much linked to the level of PSBR and the Government's ability to fund rail infrastructure, are

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likely to be really effective in their present form. Clearly much further consideration will be given to that issue in the House.
I ask the Government Front Bench, and in particular my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, to continue to focus on the importance of manufacturing industry. There is a good story to tell here. Manufacturing accounts for 50 per cent. of consumer purchases in this country and 70 per cent. of exports. It employs 5 million people directly and another 5 million indirectly.
Manufacturing industry's record in the 1980s was one of considerable progress. Output has risen by 22 per cent. and productivity by 58 per cent. from the low point in the early 1980s. Our share of main manufacturing countries' exports recovered from a low point of 7·6 per cent. in 1985 to 8·7 per cent. in 1991. Most importantly—and this point is often missed—is the fact that business expenditure on research and development rose 6 per cent. a year in real terms in the decade 1981–91. We are all well aware of the fact that industrial relations were transformed over that period.
A gap still exists of between 20 and 40 per cent., on whatever range of measures one uses, between the United Kingdom's ability in manufacturing industry and that of our major competitors. Therefore, much remains to be done. Part of the Government's policy in future should be to ensure that we put manufacturing industry at the top of our agenda, that we recognise and promote the importance of a strong manufacturing base and that that point is taken account of in every area of Government policy.
That is not to suggest that Government can do industry's job, which is to manage, sell, achieve and be profitable. However, I believe that it is important that we learn from the lessons of the past when at one stage it was said from the Conservative Benches that manufacturing industry was not as important to the country as it had been and never would be again. I want to raise the emphasis in that respect. The policies that we are now following are sensible in terms of the future of British industry. I hope that the focus on the importance of manufacturing will remain a fundamental tenet of Government policy in future.
9.9 pm
Mrs. Helen Jackson: The Chancellor began his autumn statement by stating the three principles on which it was based. The third principle was his wish to make markets work better. However, he did not make it clear for whom he wanted markets to work better. Did he want markets to work better for the public good, for people who are working, for people who are out of work, for people who are looking for work, or for some financial institutions?
It is important to look at the fine print in documents such as the autumn statement. I was made aware of the fine print when I received a letter from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), only yesterday, spelling out the implications of the autumn statement for economic development in inner-city areas. The autumn statement does not reveal that the implications for inner-city areas will mean that urban programme funding is maintained, to use the Minister's word, at £176 million.
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That is a decrease on this year's figure of £237 million, to £91 million for 1994–95, and virtually nothing for the year after that.
In my constituency of Sheffield, Hillsborough that means that about 200 economic regeneration schemes ranging from very small schemes such as a £300 toy provision for a mother-and-toddler library to essential regeneration projects to equip the city's media centre will finish next March unless the proposals are changed.
Let us consider the benefit of urban programmes. In my experience, 90 per cent. of urban programme funding is directly felt by people, 37 per cent. of schemes are promoted by the voluntary sector, 25 per cent. of schemes have a positive action element, and a large number of schemes have European partnership funding. The autumn statement told us nothing about how to work with European funds to obtain better regeneration.
On 2 June, in an answer to me, a Minister said that he did not expect the establishment of the urban regeneration agency to have any effect on the future financial provision for the urban programme. We continued to plan excellent schemes and projects to regenerate our economy in Sheffield. After such a statement, I did not expect to find that, at a stroke in the autumn statement, the urban programme in major cities had virtually been aborted. The excuse is that it is aborted in favour of £20 million, which is a mere quarter of the money that has been cut and which has to be matched by capital receipts this year. Have Conservative Members tried to sell a house lately? There is not an enormous market. The money will not be forthcoming. The fine print in the autumn statement will be disastrous for poorer city areas.
I urge hon. Members from urban areas to consider the detailed implications of the autumn statement and put pressure on the Government to ensure that their policies work for everybody in city areas, not just for the few.
9.14 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I, too, welcome the excellent autumn statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. I also pay tribute to him for the two excellent reforms that he has introduced. First, he has planned an expenditure total and then worked out which Departments would have what proportion. Secondly, this will be the last autumn statement in its present form. That is a long overdue reform. In future the autumn statement will be made and tax-raising measures will be announced at the same time at the end of the year.
My right hon. Friend's planned expenditure total of £244·5 billion is a 7 per cent. increase over last year, on top of a 10 per cent. rise the year before. So any talk of cuts from the Opposition is absolute nonsense. That is why Opposition Members' comments were so empty last Thursday. All the wind had been taken out of their sails, because all the budgets had been maintained.
However, there is a danger in the planned expenditure total. It represents some 45 per cent. of gross domestic product and a public sector borrowing requirement of about 6·5 per cent. this year. If some of the forecasters are right, the PSBR could well rise to 9 per cent. in the next two years. The PSBR was zero in 1990–91, so this year's PSBR represents quite an increase. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will have to pay careful attention to it.

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In order to make the public expenditure round work, my right hon. Friend had to save some £1·5 billion by putting a curb on public sector wages. Approximately 5 million people are employed in the public sector. That has fallen from 5·9 million a year ago, and I hope that the trend will continue.
My right hon. Friend has direct control of about 3·5 million of those 5 million employees. The remaining 1–5 million are employed by local authorities. If the local authorities wish to hold their council tax to a reasonable amount and preserve their budgets, it would be very much in their interests to hold wage increases for their employees to about 1·5 per cent. in forthcoming wage rounds.
There is a great deal of talk about holding down wages in the public sector. However, public sector employees mostly have protected and generally well paid jobs. They have plenty of fringe benefits. Many of them have pensions linked to inflation. But, above all, they have a job, and in that they are an awful lot better off than people in the private sector who have lost their jobs. Surely it is right that a sector which has enjoyed real increases in wages in the past 10 years should at this stage of the economic cycle take part in the economic stringency which so many employees in the private sector have had to endure.
The autumn statement has put us well on the way to recovery. We have a reduction in the value of the pound against the deutschmark and the dollar of some 15 per cent. That will be of major benefit to our exporting companies. Much more importantly, we now have lower interest rates. They are down from 9 per cent. a few weeks ago to 7 per cent. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to reduce them further, to 6 per cent., before Christmas.
Even at the present rate, interest rates are at their lowest since 1978. We have lower rates than any of our major European partners. If that will not stimulate confidence and recovery in the consumer market, I do not know what will.
I and my constituents in Cirencester and Tewkesbury—especially the business men—congratulate my right hon. Friend on his measures to bring about investment in the economy next year, and on his imaginative statement.
9.18 pm
Mr. Andrew Smith: We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate, as befits an autumn statement which was dressed up as a mini-Budget. As the Chancellor spoke, it became clear that the statement had a great deal more to do with reviving his reputation and that of the Government than reviving the British economy. What is more, it failed on those counts. Had the Chancellor been here to listen to all the contributions in the debate, including those from his side, he would have heard Conservative Members on the Benches behind him voicing a sombre tone, which did not reflect the exuberant self-congratulation with which the Government tried to launch the mini-Budget.
The right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen), who is always an interesting, and frequently a sombre, contributor, set great store by devaluation. He and other devaluationists—including any Opposition
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Members—would do well to pay attention to what the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has said since black Wednesday:
"there is great uncertainty at present over the future direction of Britain's economic and European policy. Inflation is still feared, the pound is regarded as unstable at its present level (which is much too low—the industry was competitive at DM2·90-£1) and there is great concern lest the industry again be subjected to taxation to help the Government fund the PSBR. A two-speed Europe would speedily negate the purpose of the foreign investment so that new capacity would replace rather than add to existing capacity".
As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon) rightly said, devaluation cannot be a substitute for tackling the underlying weaknesses of the British economy.
The right hon. Member for Shropshire, North also alerted us to the "inflationary time bomb" which is inherent in the present situation. He should recognise that much of that inflationary time bomb can be traced to precisely the devaluation in which he seemed to have so much faith.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) made at least two judgments with which I agreed. First, he said that the debate on the statement is being held unusually quickly because, the longer that the country has to examine it, the more they will realise how shallow and inadequate it is. I also agree with him that it is a shameful abdication of the country's international responsibilities for overseas aid to the poorest third-world countries not to have increased it in real terms, and it is against the best traditions of the British people's feelings.
I endorse the powerful argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) that everything possible should be done to boost the British car industry. Welcome though the abolition of the special car tax is—like my hon. Friend, I have long argued that it should be ended—let no one be deceived: even if sales were to increase by 70,000, as the SMMT says they might, it will still leave them 29 per cent. lower than they were in 1989. Such is the depth of the recession—and, by comparison, how puny are the measures in the autumn statement.
Can the Paymaster General answer the question that he could not answer last night when we discussed the car tax? How will that £750 million be recouped from British motorists, as the Chancellor said it would be? Also, why is it £750 million, when an extra 70,000 car sales, resulting from the abolition of the tax, would bring in £122 million in additional VAT? Does that not make the net cost of abolition £628 million? If he is going to clobber the motorist by taking the money back, should it not be £628 million and not £750 million? I hope that he will answer that question.
Welcome though the measure is, the car industry needs a restoration of consumer confidence more than anything. That will not come about as long as people fear for their jobs, are fearful of outstanding debts and are uncertain as to the direction that the economy will take under the Government. As the likely effects of the autumn statement, as opposed to its promises, have sunk in, it is increasingly evident from industry, and the high streets, as well as from the House that, whatever else the autumn statement does, it will not lift the fear of unemployment that is so damaging the economy and people's lives.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) has said, even if the promised whole 1 per cent. of growth, as predicted in the autumn statement for next year, materialises, it will leave Britain in the three

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years to 1993 with an appalling cumulative cut in real GDP of no less than 2·5 per cent., as compared with an increase of 4 per cent. in the United States, 10 per cent. in Japan, 5 per cent. in Germany, 6 per cent. in France, 8 per cent. in Spain and 4·5per cent. in the European Community as a whole.
That nails the claim made by some Conservative Members that somehow Britain is muddling along all right in a recession that is also hitting everyone else. The difference is that, in the past few years, other European economies have been growing, while ours has contracted. They have built up their industries and rate of production, while our Government have run our capacity down. As my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) has said, they have run it down to the point where even our ability to sustain our future standard of living is threatened.
How much confidence can we have in the Chancellor's forecast of 1 per cent. growth next year and his pathetic 0·25 per cent. forecast growth in total investment? After all, this is the Chancellor who told us in his interview during "On The Record" on Sunday:
"The Government cannot forecast precisely whether the economy is going to grow by 1 or l¾ per cent. There are margins of error as I have constantly, constantly tried to make clear."
The Government have another chance today. Will they tell the House what are the margins of error for those pathetic forecasts of growth next year? Is the Chancellor saying that the downside of those margins of error is that there might be no growth at all? After all, he forecast growth of 2·25 per cent. this time last year, but, instead, we had a cut of 1 per cent. in GDP. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) said, that forecast is like an economic blind date—and it does not look like a very good one.
Although some of the decisions in the autumn statement may bring some limited benefit, they will he affected by the deflationary impact of others. It is all very well for the Government to boast that they now hope that the Jubilee line extension will go ahead—although they have been unable to confirm any deals that will enable that to happen—but what about transport in the rest of London? What possible sense does it make to cut £380,000 from London Transport's budget—equivalent to more than a quarter—when, as the right hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) spelt out, the underground is crying out for more investment, not less?
What about the rest of Britain? Where is the capital investment that will give our country the communications network it needs and construction workers the jobs they need? Why have the Government not announced any new capital programmes? They have told us nothing new; they have simply cited programmes that have been announced previously.
I was pleased to note that the hon. Member for Newbury (Mrs. Chaplin) welcomed public-private financing partnerships. It is a pity that her opinion was not able to prevail in her previous job as head of the Prime Minister's political office, when Conservative Members heaped ridicule on the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Dr. Berry) has said, measure after measure that we set out in our programmes before the election, and which was ridiculed by the Conservatives, is now being hesitantly implemented by the Government.
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We do not complain that the Government have taken our policies. The more of our policies they adopt the happier we shall be, and the better off Britain will be. Our complaint is that they have not accepted entire programmes—their acceptance is half-hearted. What they propose in the autumn statement totally fails to match the challenge that now confronts our country as a result of the failure of their policies.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) rightly said, the Government's industrial investment incentives are inadequate, and the cuts in training and industry budgets are particularly damaging, especially in regions with high unemployment.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) said, the Government are failing to meet the need for high quality training for the unemployed. Jobplan workshops can only be of limited value as long as six people chase every vacancy.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) asked, what good can come from cutting programmes which are desparately needed to regenerate inner city areas?
The hon. Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) rightly complained about cuts in the tourism budget, but he is too easily satisfied if he believes that the present budget for science, research and development is anywhere near adequate when many of our competitors are spending so much more and investing an increasing amount in important science, research and development for the success of industry in the future.
Several hon. Members referred to the Government's incomes policy. The obvious economic objection is that, even if it could work, it is bound to store up problems for the future. It takes demand out of the economy but will give rise to pressures in a couple of years time, precisely when inflation is likely to be taking off again. As my hon. Friends the Members for Newport, East and for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) pointed out with great passion, we also need to focus on the unfairness of that incomes policy.
Mr. Nigel Evans: Where would the hon. Gentleman get the money to pay for wage increases in the public sector? Would he get it from cutting back current spending on capital projects, on pensions or on social security?
Mr. Smith: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has asked that question, because it is a variant on a question asked by several Conservative Members, including the Chancellor, who asked what the Labour party would cut to bring down the public sector borrowing requirement. We shall bring down the public sector borrowing requirement by cutting unemployment.
On the unfairness of the Government's incomes policy, may I take the example of a real home help—a Mrs. Weston—whose take-home pay is just £100 a week. She receives that sum for the responsible job of looking after elderly people, many of whom are incontinent and confused. As well as doing their shopping, housework and 101 other things, she washes and dresses them and helps them to go to the toilet. The House will agree that it is not an easy job.
The Government are telling Mrs. Weston that she can expect, at most, an increase of £1·50 per week. That sum will be more than eaten up by the £3·75 which the Government acknowledge is likely to hit her through

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inflation. Those of her colleagues with council rents to pay will find that 5 per cent. plus the increase in the inflation rate on which the Government insist will take another £2·32 or so. Clearly the Government are piling an indefensible burden on those workers least able to bear it. The British public will know that that is wrong, and will be deeply ashamed of what the Government are doing.
In addition to the injustice and unworkability of the Government's incomes policy, another deep and potentially devastating problem is hidden in what the Government have said so far about that policy. They must say whether it includes increments, performance-related pay, overtime and so forth. Are increments to be included in the 1·5 per cent.? I shall give way to the Chancellor if he will tell us. The Chancellor does not want to answer the question—perhaps he does not know. If they are not included, we have not a 1·5 per cent. pay limit, but a 1·5 per cent. limit plus 1·5 or 2·5 or 3 or 4 per cent.—and that is not what the Government have been claiming.
If increments are to be included, do the Government believe that there will be enough money within the 1·5 per cent. to honour legally binding contracts? The increments on nurses' wages scales are legally binding and automatic. Will the Government legislate to set aside those increments, as the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) did when he operated a statutory incomes policy? If not, the increments will have to be paid and, together with performance-related pay and other supplements, will rapidly use up the available funds. If that is the case, the Government are assuming either cuts in cash terms for other public service workers or large-scale cuts in staff. The House deserves to be told which.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle reminded us with great passion, on Monday the Prime Minister appealed to the partnership and fairness of the British people. Where is the partnership and fairness in an incomes policy that gives a home help £1·50 a week and a judge £50 a week? Where is the partnership and fairness in removing wages council protection for 2·5 million low-paid workers? Where is the partnership in abolishing the National Economic Development Council—the very forum through which partnership in tackling Britain's economic problems could have been carried forward?
The reality is that, even as the Prime Minister talks partnership, he and his colleagues practise division. When the Chancellor talks of confidence, he breeds despair. How can anyone have confidence in the Chancellor after all that he has said and done? He is the Chancellor who sees little green shoots that are not there. He then protests, like a true believer in unidentified flying objects, "They were there—I saw them—yes, I did, But they have gone now." He then goes to the Treasury Select Committee and says, "Other people saw them too."
No wonder that the Chancellor's colleague, the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden), wrote in yesterday's edition of The Daily Telegraph:
"People will never quite believe what the Government tells them again."
We do not believe what the Government say in their gloss on the autumn statement. We have had not a budget for growth, but a statement for stagnation. On the Government's own admission, the statement will condemn thousands more of our fellow citizens to the despair of unemployment, bankruptcies and house repossessions.
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The statement fails because it leaves people and resources idle, not mobilised as they should be to respond to unmet needs.
The Opposition have clearly stated what is needed for Britain's recovery. The ingredients are: real partnership in place of division; a jobs programme in place of unemployment; quality training in place of cheap labour schemes; public investment in place of spending cuts; homes in place of homelessness; a Europe-wide expansion programme in place of the wasted Tory presidency; a managed exchange rate in place of free market floating; and a positive energy policy in place of pit closures.
We need active government for sustained economic success, instead of the incompetent meandering of a Government who have broken their election promises, failed the economy and deceived the British people. The autumn statement once again confirms the Conservative party as the party of economic failure and mass unemployment. The Government should be rejected in the Lobby tomorrow, as surely as they are rejected by the British people.
9.38 pm
The Paymaster General (Sir John Cope): I can agree with the first few words of the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) in which he said that we have had an interesting and wide-ranging first day's debate. Thereafter, I differ from him. The hon. Gentleman recycled some of the speech that he made yesterday on the Ways and Means motion on car tax. He again asked me about the abolition of car tax. The answer is the one that I gave the hon. Gentleman last night and the one that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor gave to the House today. We certainly do not intend to anticipate the Budget at this stage. Still less do we intend to anticipate its effects based on the forecasts of the hon. Gentleman or anybody else.
Hon. Members have expressed concern about the continuing recession. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor recently emphasised that that concern is shared by the Government. As everybody knows, the economic background is difficult not only for us but for other countries. Our hopes for recovery in the early part of this year have been disappointed. The fact that economic activity in other countries remains weak and the outlook in Europe has worsened further in recent months makes this country's task more difficult, not easier. Our task is to return to sustainable growth without renewed inflationary pressures.
Experience in this country shows only too clearly that growth cannot be sustained unless inflation is controlled, and we all want sustainable recovery. Retail price inflation has fallen rapidly over the past two years from almost 11 per cent. in autumn 1990 to 3·6 per cent. in October this year, while underlying inflation is only marginally higher at 3·8 per cent. Both those percentages are below the European Community average, and producer price inflation and underlying earnings growth are both lower than they have been for a generation. This progress was achieved during a period when our anti-inflationary policies were bolstered by sterling's membership of the exchange rate mechanism. The turbulent events that culminated in the suspension of that membership have not diminished our determination to prevent any resurgence of inflationary pressures, and we have recognised the need for clear yardsticks by which we can judge monetary

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conditions, and by which others can judge our monetary stance. As a result, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has introduced a measure that Britain has never had before—an explicit target range for underlying inflation of 1 to 4 per cent. As the House knows, we intend to be in the lower part of that range by the end of the current Parliament. We have also established a monitoring range for M4 to go alongside our target range for M0.
As well as clearly laying out our objectives and the indicators on which we intend to concentrate, we have introduced considerably greater openness into the process by which interest rate decisions are taken.
The battle against inflation is never over and we must always be on our guard if we are to ensure that we can compete effectively with the best of our competitors in Europe and beyond. The good progress that we have made and the considerable downward pressures on inflation still in the pipeline have allowed my right hon. Friend to present to the House in his autumn statement a clear, comprehensive strategy for sustainable growth which has been widely welcomed.
We have responded with a considered reduction of interest rates and an imaginative package of measures designed to restore confidence and boost sectors of industry that have been particularly hard hit by the recession. We have done so without throwing away financial discipline because that would unleash a new burst of inflation and kill the recovery that everybody wants to see. We have made the package time limited so as not to impede the reduction in the PSBR that will occur as the economy recovers. We are well aware that persistent, high PSBRs would have the effect of passing a heavy burden of public sector debt to future generations. That is why it is also vital to continue to exercise tight control over public sector spending, as we have done in this round.
Some hon. Members expressed concern about the high level of the public sector borrowing requirement this year and the forecast for next year. No one in the Treasury is in the least complacent about the PSBR, but it will fall back as the economy recovers. As we all know, it compares badly with what we were able to achieve before, but our tough attitudes to public spending over the past decade mean that the United Kingdom now has the lowest Government debt in the European Community, except for Luxembourg, as a proportion of our GDP, and one that is lower than those of the other G7 countries. That will help us to sustain a high public sector borrowing requirement to get us through the recession. In any case, as has been pointed out, the planned growth of public expenditure is well within the potential growth rate of the economy. This ensures that the ratio of general Government expenditure to gross domestic product will fall and that will, in itself, help us to deal with the PSBR.
Mr. Hain: May I draw the Minister's attention to page 53 of the autumn statement, in which it is said that unemployment will be 2·8 million not only in the next financial year, but for the two subsequent financial years? That is an incredible figure and if it were breached, it would drive a coach and horses through the Government's public finances and put extra burdens on the PSBR. Can he name one independent authoritative forecaster who agrees that unemployment will remain at that total?
Sir John Cope: I am following the usual convention in saying that I am speaking about unemployment later, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not replying to his point now.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) rightly congratulated the Chancellor on the fact that this will be the last traditional autumn statement. My right hon. Friend has instituted some profound and important reforms in the way that the Treasury organises its business and that the Government's financial decisions are made. The importance of these reforms has been under-estimated, and it is important that they are not. Merging the tax decisions of the Budget and the expenditure decisions of the autumn round into one joint process is not easy. Apart from anything else, the ancient seasonal organisation of Parliament is being totally reorganised, and we all know the difficulties involved in changing this place.
The second major change that the autumn statement embodies is the new method of settling expenditure from the top down instead of collecting departmental bids first. We can add to the reform list the new, more open methods of handling monetary policy, to which I have referred, the coming changes in the Government's accounts to distinguish between capital and revenue and the new changes in the rules for private finance of investment that is normally in the public sector. All these reforms have been introduced by my right hon. Friend and he deserves full credit for the biggest set of improvements to our financial decision-making process for many decades, if not for a century.
Mr. Barry Field: Did my hon. Friend see the parliamentary question that I tabled the other day? In it, I pointed out that only Ireland and ourselves still have a tax year that does not run with the calendar year. May I invite my hon. Friend to go a little further and bring that into line as well, because that is a much-needed reform?
Sir John Cope: We are open to suggestions, but not at the moment. We have noted my hon. Friend's point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mrs. Chaplin) referred to the changes in the rules for private finance, of which I have just spoken, and to the fact that most of the projects mentioned in this connection have to do with transport. She expressed the hope that they will go much wider. I assure my hon. Friend that they will. In some of the material that we have put out about this proposal, specific mention is made of the package of housing market measures and the lower housing association grant rates, of allowing British Rail to lease some £150 million worth of new rolling stock, provided that suitable leases are offered, and of ending the prohibition on borrowing by higher education institutions. That proposal also includes the national health service, so it goes much further than just transport.
Mr. Andrew Smith: The House deserves to know whether nurses' increments are included within the 1½ per cent. pay policy and how much money the Government are setting aside to pay for them.
Sir John Cope: Settlements are the basis of the pay policy. Existing performance pay will continue within the wages bill, but of course new performance pay arrangements and new arrangments of that kind will count against the 1½ per cent.
Mr. Andrew Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way now?
Sir John Cope: No, I have very little time. I gave up some of my time to allow other right hon. and hon. Members to comment, but I want to respond to many of the points raised during the debate. It is quite clear that the 1½ per cent. applies to settlements.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) expressed elegantly, as always, philosophic doubts about public sector borrowing and other matters, to which we shall pay careful attention.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) expressed concern about local authority capital receipts. As he knows, the capital receipts rules were introduced in 1990 as part of the new local authority capital finance scheme, with the objective of bringing capital spending under control. Local authorities were required to set aside a proportion of their capital receipts to repay their debts.
Some local authorities did so, and it would be wrong and unfair on local authorities that took the prudent course of repaying debts from their set-aside receipts to allow others that accumulated receipts to use them. That is why the new arrangements apply to future receipts, so that people know in advance what is going to happen to them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) advanced his own plan for the pay of Members of Parliament. It was ingenious, but built more on the measures in the autumn statement than was intended. In any case, that matter is for the House.
Mr. Andrew Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way now?
Sir John Cope: No. I made it clear that I will not give way because I have little time left.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking raised also the question of interest charged by banks, as did other right hon. and hon. Members. The Government take very seriously complaints that banks are not passing on base rate cuts, particularly to small firms. It is not for the Government to intervene in individual negotiations, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is taking the matter up again with the clearing banks and plans to meet their chairmen in the near future. He has also asked the Bank of England to review the latest position as quickly as possible. When a review was undertaken last year, it was shown that small firms had benefited from base rate cuts—but clearly it is time to check the position again.
The hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) referred to road building and the Severn bridge. The second Severn crossing, which is being built between the hon. Gentleman's constituency and mine, is an example of private finance being used in a particularly imaginative way to assist the road building programme. The hon. Gentleman welcomed the ending of car tax, on which the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) poured scorn earlier. In this instance, the hon. Member for Newport, East is in the majority, both in the House and elsewhere, in welcoming that development.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) drew attention to some supply-side measures involving the property market, and we shall certainly ponder those. The hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) raised a series of issues, some of which I have
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already touched on; one however, was the cost of security. I have personal reason to remember what terrorism costs, in terms not only of cash but of confidence—as well as the tremendous personal cost paid by people in Northern Ireland. I shall draw the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to the two road projects in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
A number of hon. Members—including the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson)—mentioned unemployment. I think that the hon. Member for Hartlepool misread the position slightly, but I have discovered that he is usually fairly accurate, and it may turn out when I read Hansard that I did not hear him correctly. The point is, however, that despite the increase in unemployment over recent quarters—which we all regret—long-term unemployment is still about one third lower than its peak six years ago. The object of sustained growth is to bring down unemployment; as has been pointed out by a number of hon. Members—including the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson), it will not be quick or easy, but there is no quick or easy way to do it.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Lindsey (Sir P. Tapsell) made some important points about Japanese investment, which has been very valuable.
Mr. Hain: Will the Paymaster General give way?
Sir John Cope: I would rather not. I am within about four minutes of the end of my speech.
I was about to say that Japanese investment has been extremely valuable in providing jobs, and in other ways.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) was, as usual, well out of line with his party. That is no surprise, of course. Far from thinking devaluation a bad thing, as some people appear to, the hon. Gentleman appeared to consider 16 per cent. devaluation no more than marginal, and to believe that a much more substantial devaluation was required. Everyone is entitled to his opinion, but if massive devaluation were the sole answer to the United Kingdom's problems, a glance at the exchange rates over the past 30 to 40 years would lead us to suppose that the economy was very strong. I am not prepared to accept the hon. Gentleman's recipe for sustained recovery, or any sort of recovery, and I doubt whether any Opposition Members accept it either.
The hon. Gentleman presented an ingenious method of spending money without having to raise it. I confess that I did not quite follow it, but it seemed to amount to printing money and bringing about inflation. It was all very interesting, but not very relevant to what the rest of us want.
The hon. Member for Hillsborough spoke of urban programmes. She said, correctly, that £176 million would be available in 1993–94. She many not have noticed the extra spending on city challenge, which is being introduced as part of the package. Including that money, a total of £408 million will be available for urban-priority authorities, compared with £319 million this year. That is not counting the additional spending power from capital receipts—more than £500 million—that will result from the relaxations announced last week. Moreover, the resources for the urban programme in 1993–94 allow £20 million for new projects, over and above existing

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commitments. That money would be allocated through capital partnership to work alongside the capital receipts money that I have mentioned.
All in all, the debate has been interesting but the Labour party, having spent the summer arguing about whether its economic policy or its presentational skills had lost it the election, has not altered its economic policy since, so far as I can see, although the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East shouts about it louder than we are used to, which is a particular punishment for those of us who sit on the Government Front Bench.
Opposition Members seem to have a new dilemma. In facing the autumn statement, they cannot decide whether to attack our policies or to claim the credit for them. The result is that they do both. It has been impossible to tell—
It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Oil Exploration (Compensation to Fishermen)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
10 pm
Mr. Barry Field: I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker and, through you, Madam Speaker for granting me the Adjournment debate. I was asked by the fishermen of the Isle of Wight to inquire discreetly whether Madam Speaker enjoys lobster or crab from time to time, because they wish to make a donation to her for granting me the debate. No doubt I can make discreet inquiries to that end via Hansard.
I apologise to the Minister for Energy for bringing him to the Dispatch Box on the issue, because he has been extremely helpful. There was a stage when I thought that the whole matter was settled.
To recap, on 4 June in the House of Commons I met Mr. Romieu, the chairman and managing director of Elf Enterprise. I told him how concerned I was that there was not a proper compensation scheme in place for the inshore fishermen who were affected by the oil exploration that was taking place off the Isle of Wight. He wrote to me on 10 June and accepted that there was a need for an ex gratia payment. On page 2 of his letter he said:
"With the list complete, we will also agree with the fishermen concerned, not all of whom belong to associations"—
I underline that point—
"a fair and equitable system of ex gratia payment from Elf Enterprise to secure their co-operation."
In the final paragraph he said:
"It is deeply disappointing to me that you have been angered as a result of the representations made to you by fishermen in your constituency concerning our activity. As a responsible company, it is clearly our intention to deal with their concerns, and in so doing achieve the same level of co-operation established during the 98/13 exploration programme."
That exploration was carried out by Occidental Oil which was taken over by Elf Enterprise.
On 22 June I wrote to my hon. Friend in the Department of Trade and Industry and told him that we were becoming increasingly disillusioned with Elf as it had not set out the terms of its compensation scheme. I enclosed with my letter a copy of the latest letter that I had received from the fishermen's association. I told my hon. Friend that we felt that Elf was being deliberately obstructive, particularly as the same individuals were involved in the Elf compensation scheme for fishermen as had been concerned with the Occidental scheme, because they were taken over when Elf took over Occidental. That was of great concern because effectively they had been through the exercise once before with island fishermen.
However, everything looked much brighter after a while—thanks, I am sure, to my hon. Friend's intervention. On 10 July, therefore, I was able to write the following letter to him:
"Dear Tim, You have won first prize in the 'most helpful' Minister competition for this session and the fishermen and the Member for the Isle of Wight are pleased to acknowledge this by awarding you one week's holiday at the Field hovel during the coming recess … Thank you and a thousand crustacea owe their lives to you!"
Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was a little premature. I could not possibly read into the record the Minister's

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reply. He is already under a great deal of pressure from the energy world, and I feel certain that the population lobby would be immediately on his back, were they to see the contents of his reply.
As for the contents of the correspondence with one of my fishermen, I can assure my hon. Friend that I have prepared for him copies of all the correspondence with just one fisherman who now finds himself without full compensation. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that, having carefully scrutinised all the documents the fishermen brought to me, I found that they were all the same.
This particular fisherman received a letter on 6 July from Elf Enterprise. It was a "Dear Sir" letter and it set out the way in which the compensation scheme would operate. It worked like this. There was to be a £4,000 lump sum payment on an ex gratia basis to bona fide fishermen or chartered skippers who regularly worked in the area and who were certified to do so by the local fishermen's association. There was to be £2,000 up front straight away on signing the agreement and £2,000 at the end of the survey, providing there had been no further disruption—the point being that both I and certain others had encouraged the fishermen in their blockade of the seismic survey because we had been unable to obtain a proper compensation scheme from Elf. Therefore, Elf said that it would make half the payment available as a sign of its good will straight away, as soon as all the fishermen had signed up, and that it would pay the balance at the end, provided that there was no more disruption to the work during the rest of the survey—which proved to be the case.
Elf produced the agreement on the same day, 6 July. There are a number of points in the agreement, but the real point concerns item 5 which says:
"The Company may be requested by the Inland Revenue to supply details of any such cooperation payment. Such details will only be supplied on request."
Item 6 says:
"Payment will be made on the basis of information disclosed to the Company by the Skipper or Owner or his representative organisation and set forth below."
The information required relates to details of the skipper-owner, the address, the name of the vessel, the type of fishing, full or part-time, the average days fished in the survey area per month and the association to which he belongs.
The agreement contains a number of other points, including the fact that it is governed by English law. Nowhere in the agreement, however, which is absolutely standard and which was used for all the fishermen, is there any suggestion that the fisherman has to provide certified accounts, and the like, in order to obtain these payments—one of the points in contention.
My hon. Friend will have noted carefully the point that I made at the beginning: that the managing director of Elf was certain that a compensation scheme would be provided that would be available not just to members of the fishermen's association but to other fishermen. However, a number of fishermen have had no compensation. An attempt is being made by the oil company to suggest that those fishermen have not been certified, so to speak, by the fishermen's association.
I have a letter of 30 September from the Isle of Wight Commercial Fisherman's Association which says:
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"I have been requested to contact you to confirm that the people named below are members of the above association. They attended a meeting with representatives from the Elf Enterprise Company when they were told that ALL persons whose name appeared on the list that was prepared that evening would receive co-operation payments.
The persons named below have been greatly inconvenienced by the survey resulting in a significant decrease in their earnings."
When I first asked for the Adjournment debate this evening, I thought that I might produce a list of all the people who have been affected, or who have either not been paid or not been fully paid. I then realised that that was a treacherous course to follow because the list might not be exhaustive. I do not intend to go down that path this evening. However, I know the principal players in the problem.
We must bear it in mind that a number of fishermen have received no compensation despite the fact that they signed the agreement, the fact that they are members of the association and the fact that they went along to meetings. Their request for compensation has been refused point blank.
Joy of joys, those fishermen then received a letter from Elf Enterprise thanking them for their great co-operation during the survey and for all the assistance they had given. I wrote a rather strong letter to Elf Enterprise and received a letter back from Mr. Jackson, the marine operations manager, who is one of the serious problems in this matter. He replied to me on 14 October as follows:
"The purpose of our letters dated the 1, 5 and 12 of October, sent out to all 207 individuals on our contact list was to keep people informed of the progress of the survey, which has been repeatedly delayed by inclement weather. Any misunderstanding that might have arisen as a result of receipt of these letters by fishermen who have not been made an offer of payment is regretted."
One does not have to be a genius or to know much about inshore fishermen or fishermen the world over to know that having refused them compensation payments and then to write to thank them for their co-operation is to invite a fairly robust retort. The fishermen were pretty irritated, to say the least, and so was I. By then, I had come to expect a rather lackadaisical attitude from Elf.
There were then letters dated 14 October. I do not know whether they were all sent on the same date, but they were all of the same nature. The company, under the heading
"Block 98/12 Seismic Survey—Co-Operation Payments",
pointed out where the meeting was to take place, the venue, the time and all the information that the fishermen had to produce to get paid. The company asked about the local authority licence for the carriage of passengers—charter only—the record of charter bookings, vessel logbooks and diaries. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that none of that information was required in the original agreement.
By then, the Isle of Wight Commercial Fisherman's Association was pretty angry with Elf. It sent me a copy of its letter to Elf which was dated 24 October. The association quite rightly makes the point as follows:
"The agreement that you made with the fishermen was for non-interruption of the survey and as you already know, our members have given you their fullest support in this. We would expect you to honour your side of the agreement as expediently as possible and not put further matters of contention in the way of this final settlement."
By then, the list had become extensive and there was great concern among the fishermen—I also felt great concern

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—that the company was asking for more and more information which was not contained in the original agreement.
The piece de resistance was served on 30 October, with the same heading. The simple, one-paragraph letter, said:
"I refer to our meeting … and confirm that we will be unable to pay the second instalment of Cooperation Payment due under the terms of our Agreement dated 6 July until you provide certified accounts and fish sales notes, as requested in my letter … to substantiate the information originally provided by you and which forms part of the Agreement between us."
None of that information was mentioned in the original agreement.
On 21 October, I wrote to Mr. Jackson in Aberdeen and I said that I did not think that the correspondence would bear public scrutiny. I thought that it was rather perverse to say the least that letters had been sent to fishermen who had not been offered payment. That showed abominable administration and something that I had come to expect from Elf after my dealings with the company. I felt that if I could not get a more positive answer from him or from the managing director Mr. Romieu I would have no alternative but to raise the matter in Parliament.
I did not want to trouble my hon. Friend the Minister yet again because he had been very helpful. An hon. Member should not have to come to Parliament to try to negotiate on behalf of his constituents if an oil company is a reputable organisation. Clearly the company is involved in serious matters in respect of North sea safety and one hopes that one deals with reputable people when one deals with big public companies.
I eventually received a reply from the managing director dated 12 November and I want to quote two paragraphs from that letter. I apologise to the House for quoting at such length from documents, but they are clearly germane to the problem. The managing director wrote:
"It should not be forgotten that we had as much right to carry out our survey as they had to fish, and there was no obligation on us to make any payments at all."
I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister to that point because I think that he and I might disagree with the managing director of Elf about that—at least, I hope so. The managing director continued:
"Nevertheless, we recognised that some disruption would be inevitable and we therefore proposed a scheme to make co-operation payments to bona fide mobile gear fishermen nominated by their associations."
In almost the last paragraph he wrote:
"Having said all of the above, I accept that, during the course of such a large and complex scheme it is entirely possible that some individual cases have not been dealt with as fairly as we should have wished. If this is so I can only express my regret, and assure you that we have made every effort to deal in good faith with all the claims which we have received."
I enjoy watching free enterprise flourish in our nation and there is no reason why we should have come to this dreadful impasse. I do not believe that Elf has made a serious endeavour to accommodate the fishermen.
The managing director says in his letter, quite rightly, that the company has paid out nearly £ 1 million in compensation to fishermen. I doubt whether, absolutely top whack tonight, we are talking about more than £30,000. The figure has been very exaggerated.
I understand that the company's parting shot to my constituents was that it intended to come back. It hoped to win licences for further exploration and perhaps my hon.
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Friend the Minister has some information about that. It is extraordinary that the company did not want to leave the sweet smell of a nice bunch of violets behind instead of the great problems and difficulty which are ongoing and have caused upset and real aggravation to me and to my constituents.
The gnomes of Zurich were rather troublesome to the Government in the past. However, Elf Aquitaine is clearly the mafia cousin of the gnomes of Zurich in respect of the inshore fishing industry off the Isle of Wight. I believe that the company has turned out to be a piker because it has not honoured its agreement in the way that the managing director assured me that it would when representatives met me in the House on 4 June.
As I represent the numerically largest constituency in the House, I must be very careful how I ration my applications for Adjournment debates. There are many pressing issues facing the Isle of Wight. Endeavouring to wring out the last few coppers of a compensation scheme from a large multinational oil company is not in my view a justified use of my time or that of my ministerial colleague tonight. I am very sad that this debate has been necessary.
10.18 pm
The Minister for Energy (Mr. Tim Eggar): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) for not reading out my reply to his kind invitation to join him in what he termed his hovel. I am not sure whether the size of my family would have borne the scrutiny that the House would apply. I must thank my hon. Friend for his very kind personal remarks about my small role in this affair and in turn pay tribute to him for the way in which he has fought on behalf of the fishermen and his constituents.
This is an interesting matter and, before this debate, it had not received much attention or time in the House. It might be useful if I briefly explain exactly how the licensing system works with regard to fishermen's interests.
The standard conditions which are incorporated in seaward petroleum licences are published before the blocks are offered for licensing. Those standard conditions do not include any requirement for the licensees to make payments, either as compensation or otherwise, to commercial fishermen, or indeed to any other marine interests.
As a matter of policy, the Department does not regard it as appropriate to place requirements on petroleum licensees to pay compensation to fishermen for loss of access to fishing grounds. Oil and gas licensees are no less entitled than fishermen to pursue their activities on the open seas. If the licensees and fishing organisations agree in certain circumstances that some form of payment would be helpful, that is essentially a commercial matter for them.
However, fishing interests are taken account of in the planning of licensing rounds and when licences are awarded. The licences include a standard clause to the effect that the licensee shall not carry out operations in such manner as to interfere unjustifiably with fishing or with the conservation of the living resources of the sea. To help to give substance to that provision, my Department consults the fishing departments and the principal fishing organisations to identify fishing sensitivities before

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deciding which blocks are to be offered for licensing. It also consults other organisations about other sensitivities, for example, environmental matters.
Where the fisheries departments advise that special conditions should be attached to licences, tailor made to the particular sensitivities in certain blocks, that advice is followed. For instance, where blocks lie in herring spawning grounds, for example off the east coast, the licensees are required to carry out seabed surveys within a prescribed distance of any proposed drilling location to ensure that drilling will not disturb the spawning grounds. In the spawning season in such areas, conditions are imposed as to the time of year in which they can undertake seismic work or drill, and the use of certain drilling muds may be required in the case of drilling.
Licence-specific conditions, where applied, touch on compensation in one limited respect. If oil-related debris is located on the routes taken by supply vessels to and from rigs, and it results in damage to fishing gear, the licensees are required to deal promptly with claims in respect of that damage.
A further indication of the recognition in the licensing arrangements of fishing interests is that we require licensees to nominate a fishing liaison officer to maintain contact with those interests.
So care is taken to ensure that fishing interests are properly taken into account in our licensing arrangements. What we seek to achieve by our consultations and by provisions tailor made to particular blocks is a situation where there is mutual accommodation between those two groups of sea users.
Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to reflect whether his fishing constituents would really wish for formal compensation arrangements. I understand that that is not the position or an aim of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations. The federation has been developing an understanding with the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association on the subject of compensation.
I have received from the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations a fax, which states that the organisation
"has its reservations with regard to the adjournment debate since it has established a clear working relationship with UKOOA on the subject of compensation which takes account of lost earnings in the given area and the likely effects of restrictions to access. The NFFO is, therefore, prepared to liaise directly with the Isle of Wight Commercial Fisherman's Association in order to attempt to reconcile the various difficulties."
Mr. Field: The NFFO telephoned me this week and said that it had attempted to negotiate on behalf of my fishermen. I pointed out that it had been nowhere near the scene. The matter had been in all the national papers and every television channel in the south, yet we did not hear a dicky bird from the association. Indeed, we did not hear from it in the initial stages when we had exactly the same problem with Occidental. The NFFO's association with UKOOA is laughable. The fishermen with whom it said that it had been in contact were not affected by the most recent licence.
Mr. Eggar: My point was simply that over the years the NFFO has had experience of similar disruption caused by seismic surveys. It has developed a relationship with the oil
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companies. Not invariably, but in general, that relationship has worked reasonably well and has proved satisfactory to both parties.
Mr. Elliot Morley: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Eggar: I will give way, but I have many matters to cover in a short time.
Mr. Morley: The Minister has been fair. The NFFO and, in the first instance, the local association negotiates. The federation offers its services to bring the matter to a conclusion. So the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) was a little unfair.
Mr. Field: I must object. This is my Adjournment debate and the hon. Gentleman did not ask my permission to intervene. The organisation to which he refers and seeks to defend—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. The person who has the Floor decides whether to allow an intervention.
Mr. Eggar: I apologise to my hon. Friend for giving way to the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley). It is a difficult matter and I do not want to upset anyone. None the less, there is a national organisation and it has evolved a system. It could have a role in the final resolution of the matter to which my hon. Friend refers. I do not seek to impose that, or anything else. I hear what my hon. Friend has to say about the role that the national organisation has played.
The petroleum licence given to the company includes not only a right but an obligation to undertake seismic surveys. Surveys are necessary under the terms of the licence. The company must undertake a seismic survey in order properly to appreciate the potential of the block. In this case, the company chose to pursue a 3-D seismic survey, which takes rather a long time but is believed by the industry to give a fairer and more accurate picture of the potential of that block. That perhaps accounts for the fact that the time taken has been rather longer in this instance than might otherwise have been the case.
I emphasise to my hon. Friend that, although I have been in contact with the company about the matter, it is the company's responsibility to decide how to respond to the application and the representations made by my hon. Friend and the fishing organisation. I am told that the company had more than 30 meetings with fishermen's organisations. I am aware that my hon. Friend took the view that the consultation was not sufficiently wide.
My hon. Friend may be aware that Elf Enterprise has undertaken, in addition to reaching agreement in principle with the organisations on compensation, to fund research into the migratory patterns of sea bass in the area. That might be of some help to the local fishermen. I understand that payments made by the company to the fishermen have totalled more than £1 million. That is not an inconsiderable sum. I am told that the company has spent a total of about £3 million on the entire seismic operation. So the payments to fishermen represent 30-odd per cent. of the total cost of the seismic operation.
The company has no obligation under the terms of the licence or in law to pay any compensation. Like my hon. Friend, I take the view that, where there is proven disruption, it is appropriate for the company to

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compensate. However, it is not unreasonable for the company to seek to satisfy itself that the money that it pays over is justified in terms of the fishermen's activities. I do not say that to defend the company, but because it can offset some 80 per cent. of the cost of compensation against tax payable to Her Majesty's Government. So we all have an interest as taxpayers in ensuring that the company pays a fair sum.
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I listened carefully to my hon. Friend and I shall ensure that the Hansard report of the debate is passed on to the company. I hope that some satisfactory conclusions will be reached by all parties.
The motion having been made at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992
  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will now set an early date to bring into force the Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor hopes to be in a position to bring the Act into force by 1 February 1993.

  Agencies
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will place in the Library a copy of the health and safety policy of the Land Registry and the Public Record Office.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  I have done so today.

  Primary Legislation
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, what proportion of primary legislation is readily available(a) to hon. Members and (b) to the general public in its current amended form.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The proportion of primary legislation readily available, in its current amended form, to both hon. Members and to the general public is around 30 per cent.

  Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct
  Mr. Hawkins
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct intends to publish its annual report.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct has today published its first annual report, and copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Electoral Registration Officers
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what reports he has received from electoral registration officers about physical attacks on staff during the recent registration process; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  We have received no reports from electoral registration officers about physical attacks on staff during the year's electoral registration canvass.

  Gambling
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the most recent annual figures for gross consumer expenditure on gambling, on on-course and off-course betting, gaming machines, casinos, bingo, football pools and small lotteries.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Estimated figures for gross consumer expenditure on gambling—amount staked—in the financial year 1991–92 are tabulated. Those for off-course betting, pool betting and bingo are based on returns to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise. Those for casinos and lotteries are based on returns to the Gaming Board for Great Britain, although the latter includes only those lotteries registered with the board.

  The estimates for on-course betting and gaming machines cannot be calculated directly and should be treated with extreme caution.

  Estimated gross consumer expenditure 1991–92

  £ million

  Off-course betting

  6,026

  On-course betting

  764

  Gaming machines

  3,092

  Casinos

  14,680

  Bingo

  913

  Pools

  823

  Lotteries

  56

  These figures should be read with those for net consumer spend—amount staked less winnings—given in reply to an earlier question from the hon. Member on 9 November, Official Report, columns 632–33, which provide a more reliable indicator of gambling expenditure.

  Wolds Prison
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list all the disturbances that have taken place at the Wolds private prison since it opened in April.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  For disturbances up to and including 27 June 1992, I refer the hon. Member to my reply to him on 6 July 1992, at column 38. Since that time, there have been two disturbances at Wolds remand prison.

  On 13 July at about 2200 hours some 50 prisoners on B wing refused to return to their cells. Within a short time, all but 11 prisoners had returned to their cells. It was decided at 0310 hours on 14 July to enter the unit with control and restraint teams. By this time, two further prisoners had locked themselves away. By 0325 hours the remaining nine had been removed to the segregation unit without injury to staff or prisoners. No damage was caused to property and buildings. The Home Office controller was present throughout the incident. The removals to the segregation unit were observed by a member of the board of visitors and the prison doctor was present.

  On 17 October, 31 prisoners on F unit refused to go to their cells at 10 pm. They barricaded themselves into a television room to watch a boxing match involving Frank Bruno. At the end of the fight 20 minutes later the prisoners returned to their cells. No force was used as the incident was of short duration and peaceful at all times.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what guidelines exist for the engagement of private detective agencies by the Government for the purpose of investigating the activities of British citizens;

  (2) on how many occasions since 1979 his Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if he will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what use his Department has made of private detectives in each of the last five years; at what cost; and if he will list the firms involved.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  The engagement of private detectives is a matter for individual Departments and no central guidance has been issued. My Department has made no such engagements.

  Voting
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many different types of electoral registration form are currently available in England and Wales; and what proposals he has to standardise them.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Electoral registration officers may choose whether to conduct a postal or personal canvass and so different versions of the electoral registration form, form A, are available. An English and Welsh bilingual version is also available. Some electoral registration officers produce their own forms, adapted to suit local requirements. However, the content of all these forms is broadly the same. Information on the number of locally produced registration forms is not held centrally. Separate forms are used for the registration of service electors, overseas electors and voluntary mental patients. A working group will be looking at electoral registration forms as part of the post-election review.

  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will bring forward proposals to increase the time scale for returning completed postal or proxy voting forms for elections.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a question from the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) on 29 October, at column 768.

  Debt Collectors
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce proposals to amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 to require the disclosure of previous convictions by persons seeking work in the debt-collecting industry.

  Mr. Jack
  We have no present plans to amend the Act. But, as I explained on 10 November in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) at column 697, we intend to re-examine the number and range of exceptions to the Act as part of the review of the arrangements for the disclosure of information from criminal records which will be undertaken in advance of the computerisation of the national collection of criminal records.

  Riot Duty
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which police authorities have substantially reduced the number of officers trained for riot duty; why such action was taken in each case; and if he will make it his policy that no officer will be required to undertake riot duties untrained and inadequately equipped.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Training within individual police forces is a matter for the chief officer concerned. I understand that all officers engaged in policing public disorder are now trained to common minimum standards.

  Market Testing
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff have so far been seconded to work in the market-testing unit in his Department; and how many more secondments are planned.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  There are presently 27 members of staff in the Home Office market-testing unit and three in the prison service market-testing section. It is planned to increase staff numbers to 54·5 in the market-testing unit and seven in the prison service.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which of his Department's operations will be subjected to market testing during financial years 1992–93 and 1993–94.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Market testing within the Home Office will be taking place in the following areas with a view to a decision by September 1993:

  Accommodation and office services

  Computer services

  Internal audit

  Pay services

  Police National Computer (Hendon datacentre)

  Prison service:

  College, training and facilities management

  Computing services

  Court escorts

  Dog service

  Education

  Prison establishments

  Warehousing, distribution and fleet management

  The future programme is under consideration.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the budget for the market-testing unit in his Department for the financial years 1992–93 and 1993–94.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  The budget for the Home Office market-testing unit is £1,143,000 in 1992–93 and £1,260,000 in 1993–94. That for the prison service market testing section is £70,000 in 1992–93 and £190,000 in 1993–94.

  Female Prisoners
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the female remand and sentenced population in England and Wales for the latest date available; and what is his best estimate of the number of these prisoners who have dependent children.
  201
  Mr. Jack
  On 30 September 1992, the latest date for which information is readily available, 383 untried or convicted unsentenced and 1,244 sentenced females were held in prison service establishments or police cells in England and Wales. Our best estimate is that 47 per cent. of the females interviewed1 said they had children or step-children under the age of 18 living with them at the time they came into prison.

  1 National prison survey. Information collected in January and February 1991.

  Remand Prisoners (Psychiatric Reports)
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many remand prisoners in England and Wales were referred for psychiatric reports in 1991 and for the first six months of 1992.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The information available centrally is based on annual returns by prison medical officers and relates to financial years. In the year ended 31 March 1992, 4,732 psychiatric reports were prepared at the request of courts on persons remanded in custody.

  Muslim Organisations
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what meetings he has had with representatives of Muslim organisations in the United Kingdom; if he will list the organisations which have been invited to attend such meetings; what matters were discussed; if it is his intention that meetings attended by Ministers or officials will be convened on a regular basis; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has had no such meetings, but he met a number of representatives from Muslim organisations when they attended a reception given by him for members of the ethnic minority communities at the Home Office on 21 October. Among those invited were representatives from the United Kingdom action committee on Islamic affairs, the Union of Muslim Organisations, the Bradford Council of Mosques, Regents Park Mosque, Brixton Mosque and the Islamic Forum of Europe. I have visited the Golden Hillock Language Job Club, run by Dar-Ul-Uloom Islamia in Small Heath, Birmingham on 17 September. I have also met representatives from the Union of Muslim organisations on 29 October to discuss a range of issues and will be attending their dinner party on 19 November to celebrate the Prophet's birthday. Such meetings reflect the high frequency of contacts at ministerial and official level.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from(a) organisations representing Muslims in the United Kingdom and (b) others about difficulties concerning the investigation of deaths by coroners where a doctor's certificate cannot be given at weekends or otherwise; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  No recent representations have been received from Muslim organisations or individuals about difficulties over the investigation of deaths by coroners. From time to time we receive correspondence from or on behalf of Muslims about coroners post-mortem examinations; the most recent letter was received in March.

  Miscarriages of Justice
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received this year on miscarriages of justice; and what plans he has to speed up his Department's investigations into such cases.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: The Home Office regularly receives a large number of letters which raise the general subject of miscarriages of justice; but no count is kept of this correspondence. Departmental workload statistics show that between 1 January and 30 September 1992, 589 pieces of correspondence were received alleging wrongful conviction in particular cases. This figure may include some further representations by the same correspondent about the same case. This figure does not include representations received about individual cases which have become the subject of concerted campaigns. All representations are considered carefully and as quickly as their complexity and available resources will allow. The number of staff allocated to this work has been increased this year from 16 to 20—an increase of 25 per cent. Staffing is kept under regular review.

  Crimes Against Women
  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many women were victims of(a) sexual assault, (b) domestic violence and (c) murder from 1979 to the latest date where figures are available; and what proportion were ethnic minority women.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 9 November 1992]: The regular annual statistics of notifiable offences recorded by the police are not routinely broken down by gender or ethnic grouping of victims, or by relationship of victim to offender. The annual publications "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales" contain figures for 1979 to 1990 for rape, indecent assault on a female, and unlawful intercourse with a female—chapter 2—and for homicide with a female victim—chapter 4. Corresponding figures for sexual offences in 1991 are published in Home Office "Statistical Bulletin" 14/92. Copies of these publications are available in the Library.

ENVIRONMENT

  Council Tax
  Ms. Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will issue guidance to local authorities for the collection of the council tax for households where the liable person or persons are in receipt of income support, but where other members of that household are wage earners.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  In the case described by the hon. Member, council tax benefit will meet the full council tax liability except for a deduction in respect of any of the wage earners who are classed as non-dependents. This has been made clear to local authorities in guidance issued to them by my Department and the Department of Social Security. I have sent a copy to the hon. Member.

  Ms. Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he proposes to announce the transitional relief arrangements for the council tax; and if he will make a statement.
  203
  Mr. Robin Squire
  We will be announcing the details of the council tax transitional reduction scheme as part of the local government finance settlement proposals later this month.

  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has for the recovery of(a) community charge arrears and (b) council tax arrears following the introduction of the council tax from people who are (1) unemployed, (2) in receipt of sickness benefit or (3) in receipt of income support.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The existing range of enforcement methods, including deductions from income support and distress, will be available to enable authorities to recover community charge and council tax owed to them. It is open to authorities to come to voluntary arrangements with debtors to pay off their arrears.

  Ms. Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish details of the relief available in each band under the council tax regulations for disabled persons.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The intention of the scheme of council tax reductions for people with disabilities is that no-one should be required to pay more council tax as a result of extra accommodation required because of a disability. Accordingly, where a dwelling in bands B to H includes a qualifying feature the council tax bill will be reduced to that for the valuation band immediately below that to which the dwelling was allocated in the valuation list. If a dwelling is in band A, any additional accommodation cannot have resulted in a higher council tax banding, and so no reduction is appropriate.

  Ms. Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for. the Environment what guidance he has issued to local authorities in respect of the disregard of certain persons for the purposes of council tax liability assessment.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Extensive guidance on this matter was included in council tax practice note No. 2, "Liability, Discounts and Exemptions", which has been sent to all local authorities. I have sent a copy of the practice note to the hon. Member.

  Community Charge Arrears
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what guidance he has issued to local authorities following the decision in Rv. Wolverhampton Justices ex parte Mould concerning the deduction from income support for the payment of community charge arrears; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  It is clearly sensible that authorities should consider all methods of recovery, including deductions from income support, before applying for a committal warrant. Community charge practice note 15 on enforcement of the community charge, (which was sent to all charging authorities, advises authorities to consider other available recovery options before seeking a warrant of commitment.

  Self-government Charter
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to sign the European charter of local self-government.
  204
  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Government do not intend to sign the charter. The Government support the broad principles underlying the charter, but do not consider local government to be a suitable subject for regulation by an international convention.

  Rents
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will review the requirement imposed on housing associations to maximise rents, as awarded by rent officers and rent assessment committees, in order to enable them to receive a Government grant.

  Mr. Baldry
  There are a number of grant-related regimes that are affected by the level of housing associations' rents and I am afraid that it is not clear which of these the hon. Member has in mind. If she would care to write to me with further particulars, I shall gladly look into the matter.

  Water Disconnections
  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give the number of disconnections of domestic water supply during the current year broken down into(a) standard region, (b) utility region and (c) local authority district.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Director General of Water Services published on 16 November, data on disconnections for the six-month period from 1 April to 30 September 1992. The table shows domestic disconnections broken down by reference to OFWAT customer service committee regions, which correspond to the areas of the water and sewerage undertakers, and by water company area. Data on disconnections by local authority district are not available.

  (a) Disconnections by CSC area (Domestic)

  Region

  Central

  1,397

  Eastern

  453

  North West

  354

  Northumbria

  219

  South West

  180

  Southern

  2,252

  Thames

  1,217

  Wales

  1,072

  Wessex

  135

  Yorkshire

  1,005

  (b) Disconnections by Water Company area (Domestic)

  Company

  Anglian

  87

  Bournemouth and West Hampshire

  23

  Bristol

  16

  Cambridge

  153

  Chester

  71

  Cholderton

  0

  Dwr Cymru

  995

  East Surrey

  40

  East Worcestershire

  3

  Essex

  115

  Folkestone and Dover

  92

  Hatlepools

  37

  Mid Kent

  0

  Mid Southern

  56

  North East

  2

  North Surrey

  2

  North West

  354

  205

  Company

  Northumbrian

  180

  Portsmouth

  85

  Severn Trent

  567

  South East

  120

  South Staffordshire

  827

  South West

  180

  Southern

  1,955

  Suffolk

  36

  Sutton

  26

  Tendring Hundred

  62

  Thames

  423

  Three Valleys

  670

  Wessex

  96

  Wrexham and East Denbighshire

  6

  York

  62

  Yorkshire

  943

  All Companies

  8,284

  Source: OFWAT News Release 31/92.

  Housing
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will bring forward proposals for a housing programme that is affordable for low-income tenants; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  Local authorities already own and manage more than 3·8 million dwellings. The Government's focus for the provision of new affordable housing is housing associations. The Government plan to allocate around £6 billion to the Housing Corporation over the three years from 1992–93. We have recently announced that an extra £600 million will be spent this year to enable housing associations to purchase new, empty and repossessed properties for rent and to allow housing association tenants to buy homes in the private sector. Over the three years from 1992–93 housing associations will be able to provide considerably more than the 153,000 new social homes forecast in the Government's election manifesto.

  We have increased funds for the Housing Corporation from £936 million in 1989–90 to £2·3 billion this year. In total, £7·5 billion is being made available by the Government to support the corporation's capital expenditure over the four years from 1992–93. The Government hope to be able to increase the private finance levered in by these public funds in order to attract a further £3 billion from the private sector over the period to support the provision of new social housing.

  Ministers have also encouraged local authorities to work with others to assist the provision of social housing in their areas, for example through the use of their planning powers and other enabling functions.

  Opencast Mining
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many hectares of land were approved for opencast coal mining through planning decisions in 1991–92, both in volume terms and as a percentage of the land applied for; and what was the percentage for land approved in relation to land applied for each year since 1983–84.

  Mr. Baldry
  According to statistics published by the County Planning Officers' Society, the volume of land approved for opencast coal mining through planning 206
  decisions in 1991–92 was 2,333 hectares which was 71·26 per cent. of the land applied for. The percentage figures for each year since 1983–84 are as follows:

  per cent.

  1983–84

  75·40

  1984–85

  42·10

  1985–86

  48·98

  1986–87

  69·14

  1987–88

  42·06

  1988–89

  57·87

  1989–90

  63·33

  1990–91

  47·64

  Green Issues
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment who in his Department has been appointed to oversee and develop green issues; how many civil servants have been allocated new or additional responsibilities to deal with the management and development of green issues; and what additional allocation of resources has been made to support programmes related to green issues in his Department.

  Mr. Howard
  I take the lead in overseeing and developing green issues in my Department and my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Environment and Countryside has day-to-day responsibility. Staff and expenditure programmes throughout the Department are concerned with environmental issues. In the specific areas of environmental protection, countryside and water, staff posts will have increased by 12 during the current financial year—figures for next year have yet to be determined—and public expenditure provision for 1993–94 is £21 million higher than that for 1992–93.

  Ordnance Survey
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will establish a regional Ordnance Survey office in Wales.

  Mr. Maclean
  No.

  Office of Water Regulation
  Mr. Betts
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the cost of the Office of Water Regulation in 1991–92; and how many staff were employed.

  Mr. Maclean
  Details of the running costs and staffing of the Office of Water Services during 1991–92 are contained in the director general's "Annual Report 1991", a copy of which is in the Library. The report records that running costs for 1991–92 were £5·44 million and that at 31 March 1992 the Office of Water Services employed 132 staff.

  Inner Cities Religious Council
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when the Inner Cities Religious Council was established; what is the relationship between the council and his Department; what organisations have been invited to be represented on the council, to date; how many meetings of the council have been convened; which
  207
  Ministers and or officials are represented on the council; what matters have been discussed at meetings with the council; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  I refer the hon. Member to my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field), on 1 July,Official Report, column 560. The Government have set up the Inner Cities Religious Council as part of its "Action for Cities" initiative; I chair the council, and Rev. Chris Beales has been seconded to my Department from the Church of England, to act as its secretary.

  The council first met on July 20, and will do so again on December 8. The main items discussed at the first meeting were:

  the Government's Action for Cities programmes:

  the future work of the Inner Cities Religious Council;

  the Council's Terms of Reference;

  Proposals for a regional Multi-Faith Conference on Inner Cities. (This was held on 27 October 1992, at Kirklees).

  The director of the Inter-Faith Network attends meetings as an observer, and officials from my Department and the Home Office are also in attendance. Ministers or officials from other "Action for Cities" departments will attend as necessary.

  Membership of the council is currently as follows:

  Dr. Mughram A1-Ghamdi

  Director, Islamic Cultural Centre, Regent's Park Mosque. (MUSLIM)

  Rt. Reverend Tom Butler

  Bishop of Leicester. Chair of the 'Faith in the City' Advisory Group (1986–90). (CHURCH OF ENGLAND)

  His Hon. Israel Finestein QC

  President, Board of Deputies of British Jews. (JEWISH)

  Ms. Anne Forbes

  Project Leader, "Faith in Elderly People", Leeds; Member of Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference Committee for Community Affairs. (ROMAN CATHOLIC)

  Reverend Alan Greenbat

  Consultant, Office of the Chief Rabbi. (JEWISH)

  Mr. Surjit Singh Kalra

  Former teacher and co-ordinator, South Asian languages. (SIKH)

  Mr. Deepak Naik

  Public Relations Officer for the National Council of Hindu Temples UK. (HINDU)

  Reverend Bryan Rippin

  Chairman, Sheffield District of the Methodist Church. (FREE CHURCH FEDERAL COUNCIL)

  Mr. Iqbal Sacranie

  Joint Convenor of UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs. Member of the Home Secretary's Advisory Council on Race Relations. (MUSLIM)

  Mr. Om Parkash Sharma

  President, National Council of Hindu Temples. (HINDU)

  208

  Mr. Indarjit Singh, JP

  Chairman, Sikh Council for Inter-Faith Relations. Member of Home Secretary's Advisory Committee on Race Relations. (SIKH)

  Rt. Reverend Ossie Williams

  Director of Ministerial Leadership Development, Church of God of Prophecy. Until October 1992, National Overseer. (BLACK-LED CHURCHES)

  Bathing Water
  Mr. Dunn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will announce the results of this year's bathing water quality monitoring; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  Results of the monitoring during the 1992 bathing session show that 79 per cent. of the 455 identified bathing waters in the United Kingdom met the mandatory coliform bacteria standards of the EC bathing water directive. This compares with 76 per cent. in 1991, and 77 per cent. in 1990.

  Most waters now consistently meet the required standards and it is encouraging to note that of 18,000 samples taken this season 96 per cent. were satisfactory. Schemes in the £2 billion clean-up programme coming into operation in the next few years are designed to bring the minority of non-compliant bathing waters up to standard.

  The main results for the United Kingdom are summarised in the table. A report with detailed results will be placed in the Library in due course.

  Bathing Waters survey—1992 results for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—(Compliance with Bathing Water Directive (76/160/EEC): Coliform Standards)

  Pass

  Fail

  Total

  England and Wales

  NRA Regions

  Northumbrian

  20(21)

  14(12)

  34(33)

  Yorkshire

  20(19)

  2(3)

  22(22)

  Anglian

  31(29)

  2(4)

  33(33)

  Thames

  3(2)

  0(1)

  3(3)

  Southern

  51(45)

  16(22)

  67(67)

  Wessex

  36(36)

  3(3)

  39(39)

  South West

  117(105)

  17(28)

  134(133)

  North West

  11(10)

  22(23)

  33(33)

  Welsh

  39(45)

  12(6)

  51(51)

  Total

  328(312)

  88(102)

  416(414)

  Scotland

  15(15)

  8(8)

  23(23)

  Northern Ireland

  15(16)

  1(0)

  16(16)

  Grand Total

  358(343)

  97(110)

  455(453)

  Note: Results for 1991 are in brackets.

  Voluntary Transfers
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to publish the consultation paper setting out his proposals for possible changes to the arrangements for large-scale voluntary transfers.

  Sir George Young
  I am issuing the consultation today and I have arranged for copies to be placed in the House Library. The paper contains, among other things, proposals to limit the number of properties transferred in
  209
  a single batch and for redressing the financial imbalance between central and local government which has arisen in the past as a result of the housing benefit costs to the Exchequer of transfers. These proposals will facilitate a continuing programme of transfers consistent with our manifesto commitment.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will also be issuing a consultation paper shortly.

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many sites of special scientific interest have been damaged or destroyed in each of the last three years and to date in the current year.

  Mr. Maclean
  [holding answer 11 November 1992]: The latest available information on damage to SSSIs is contained in the 17th and final report of the former Nature Conservancy Council, a copy of which is in the Library. Information in respect of the year ending 31 March 1992 is currently being gathered by English Nature and will be published in its first anniversary report to be presented to Parliament later in the year.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what further proposals he has to deal with the problem of street homelessness; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 13 November 1992]: Under the Government's rough sleepers initiative, we have made £96 million available over three years to provide 850 new places in hostels for people sleeping rough in central London, and to provide a total of 2,900 places in more permanent accommodation for people in hostels to move on to.

  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 12 November that further resources of £86 million would be made available over the next three years to build on the success of the rough sleepers initiative in assisting people who sleep rough in central London. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning will announce details shortly.

  Nationally, my Department makes grants under section 73 of the Housing Act 1985 to support the national homelessness advice service and some 150 projects run by voluntary organisations throughout the country that provide direct, practical help to homeless people. Resources in 1993–94 will be increased to £6·5 million from £6·1 million this year.

  Urban Priority Areas
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government in respect of sustaining in real terms the value of funding for urban priority areas in England.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]: Urban priority areas benefit from a range of programmes within my Department's urban group including city challenge, and also derelict land grant and city grant which will transfer to the Urban Regeneration Agency. My right hon. and learned Friend announced last week an increase of £93 million in the resources planned for the urban group
  210
  in 1993–94. Urban priority areas will also benefit from their new freedom to spend capital receipts, augmented by the new urban partnership fund which we have established as part of capital partnership.

  Old Foleshill Gas Works, Coventry
  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will announce a decision on the application for derelict land grant for the development of the Old Foleshill gas works site in the Coventry, North-East constituency.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: No application has been made for derelict land grant or for city grant for this project. The developers have presented what they have called a preliminary application for city grant, but are still working up their ideas. I understand that they may soon be in a position to put firm proposals to the Department.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Dover
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if the mid-1991 population figures from the 1991 census will be used in setting the standard spending assessments for 1993–94 for local authorities.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: My right hon. and learned Friend, the Secretary of State for the Environment will be announcing his detailed proposals for standard spending assessments for 1993–94 shortly.

  Mr. Clelland
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total revenue expenditure, excluding revenue support grant to local authorities, by his Department in each of the English regions for the years 1990–91 and 1991–92.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The following table shows a breakdown of the main areas of spending which are allocated on a regional basis.

  £ million

  Programme

  Housing revenue account subsidy 1

  Urban programme

  Administration expenditure

  Northern

  1990–91

  261·4

  10·1

  3·2

  1991–92

  253·3

  10·3

  3·7

  North West

  1990–91

  383·4

  14·6

  5·5

  1991–92

  404·7

  9·5

  6·4

  Merseyside

  1990–91

  155·0

  7·3

  3·7

  1991–92

  152·6

  8·4

  2·1

  West Midland

  1990–91

  346·0

  11·3

  3·4

  1991–92

  343·6

  12·4

  4·0

  East Midland

  1990–91

  190·1

  4·2

  2·9

  1991·92

  191·4

  3·5

  3·3

  Yorkshire/Humberside

  1990–91

  320·7

  9·1

  3·6

  1991–92

  328·4

  7·8

  4·4

  London

  1990–91

  1,440·0

  11·3

  3·9

  1991–92

  1,499·0

  11·6

  4·2

  211

  Programme

  Housing revenue account subsidy1

  Urban programme

  Administration expenditure

  Eastern

  1990–91

  177·1

  —

  2·2

  1991–92

  177·0

  —

  2·6

  South East

  1990–91

  232·5

  —

  2·9

  1991–92

  243·2

  —

  3·3

  South West

  1990–91

  155·0

  1·0

  2·1

  1991–92

  156·9

  1·0

  2·5

  1 Figures show sums actually paid (including former housing subsidy). Due to the subsidy mechanism they will not equate to entitlement in year.

  Local Government Staff
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his proposals for limiting pay rises for local government staff.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Local government is responsible for determining the pay of its own APT and C—white collar —chief executive and chief officer, manual and crafts staff. Ministers have no power to limit pay settlements for these groups. I expect local government to conclude settlements within the 0 to 1·5 per cent. range announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his autumn statement and the chairmen of the local authority associations have undertaken to do their very best to produce settlements within this range.

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what impact has been made on the environment figures in the tables annexed to the "Autumn Statement" from the transfer of energy efficiency responsibility from the former Department of Energy to his own Department.

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: The baseline provision for the programmes operated by the Energy Efficiency Office—EEO—was transferred to the Department of the Environment following the general election in April 1992. The revised provision for the EEO for the three years covered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's autumn statement is as follows, to the nearest £ million:

  £ million

  1993–94

  69

  1994–95

  71

  1995–96

  71

  The expenditure is included within the Department's "other environmental services" block.

  Energy Conservation
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the various schemes under which his Department supports the introduction of energy 212
  conservation measures in domestic homes, whether owned or tenanted: and if he will indicate the amounts spent by his Department or the former Department of Energy in each of the last three years in each category, and the amounts projected to be spent in the current year and in the next two financial years.

  Mr. Maclean
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: Estimates based on information reported by local authorities on the HIP2 form submitted with their 1990 and 1991 housing investment programme bids show capital spending on improved insulation and other energy conservation measures of:

  £ million

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  Local authorities own housing stock

  280

  230

  210

  Non local authority dwellings

  10

  30

  30

  The figures for local authorities' own housing stock include expenditure under estate action and the general maintenance and improvement programme for local authority housing stock and, in the case of 1991–92, the green house programme in its first year of operation. Expenditure under the latter was £ 10·4 million in that year. Those for non local authority dwellings cover house renovation grants and minor works assistance. Estimates of expenditure for estate action and the general maintenance and improvement programmes for the current year will not be available until the HIP2 forms for 1992 have been processed. No forecasts for the energy efficiency elements of those programmes are available for future years. In addition to those programmes, separate provision is available for the green house programme of £45 million this year, and £5 million in 1993–94.

  There is also expenditure on energy efficiency by the Housing Corporation under its programmes for the refurbishment of housing associations' stock, but this is not separately identified.

  The home energy efficiency scheme—HEES—came into operation on 1 January 1991. In the three months to the end of the financial year, some £1·3 million was paid out in grants under the scheme. In 1991–92 the figure was some £23 million. The amount available for grant in the current financial year is some £35 million and it is likely that a similar amount will be available next year. No forecast is available for future years.

  Prior to the introduction of HEES, expenditure on grants for draughtproofing materials under the energy grant scheme operated under the employment training programme, was £10·8 million in 1989–90 and £9·31 million in 1990–91.

  My Department also supports the introduction of energy efficiency measures in domestic properties through information programmes such as "Helping the Earth Begins at Home".

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Green Issues
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs who in his Department has been appointed to oversee and develop green issues; how many civil servants have been allocated new or additional
  213
  responsibilities to deal with the management and development of green issues; and what additional allocation of resources has been made to support programmes related to green issues in his Department.

  Mr. Goodlad
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State oversees FCO involvement in developing international environmental policies and instigating policies for energy saving on the FCO estates. The FCO does not have major spending programmes, but some £160,000 has been allocated to 26 environmental projects throughout the world in financial year 1992–93. Within the FCO, green issues are primarily the responsibility of the Environment, science and energy department, where 10 officials work on these issues—one DS Grade 4, one DS5s, one DS5, one DS6, two DS7s, two DS9s, and two DS 10s.

  During the run up to the Earth summit in Rio in June, 5 additional staff were attached to the Department. At overseas posts, staff resources from economic and science sections are deployed on green issues, responding flexibly to changing needs, so it is not possible to identify the precise resource cost.

  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State gave him on 11 November, at column 213, relating to the similar question he asked about the Overseas Development Administration.

  Pakistan
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations have been made to the Pakistan Government in respect of the death sentence passed on Mr. Gul Pervaiz Masih.

  Mr. Goodlad
  We have been carefully monitoring the case of Mr. Gul Masih in consultation with EC partners and other like-minded countries. We are taking suitable opportunities to express our concern to the Pakistani authorities. We understand that the case has now gone to appeal.

  Third World
  Lady Olga Maitland
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proposals the Government have for halting missile proliferation in the third world.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Kingdom was a founder member, in 1987, of the missile technology control regime and has taken a leading role in promoting a wider membership and in the recent decision to extend controls to missiles capable of delivering chemical and biological, as well as nuclear, weapons. We also regularly raise our proliferation concerns with those countries which either seek to procure missile systems or are major suppliers, to urge them not to go ahead with such transactions.

  Kurdish People
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Forcign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the Turkish involvement in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq; and if he will make representations to the Turkish Government to withdraw.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We ackowledge the difficult situation faced by the Turkish Government in dealing with 214
  terrorism by the PKK. The Turkish Government have given assurances that their operations in northern Iraq were temporary and are aimed solely at destroying PKK capability to mount attacks against Turkey from northern Iraq, and that they do not intend to hold on to Iraqi territory. We look to Turkey to complete its withdrawal as soon as possible.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on how many occasions since 1979 his Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if he will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Mr. Goodlad
  None.

  Iraq
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Iraq has been complying with United Nations resolution 688; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The imposition of "no-fly zones" and patrols by coalition aircraft have helped to deter attacks by Iraqi forces on Iraqi civilians in both northern and southern Iraq. But the Iraqi regime continues to maintain an economic blockade of northern Iraq and we remain concerned about reports of military action by Iraqi ground forces in the marshes of southern Iraq.

  Iraq refuses to implement Security Council resolutions 706 and 712 which provide for limited exports of Iraqi oil to pay for humanitarian operations. On 22 October Iraq and the United Nations signed a memorandum of understanding which provides for a programme of humanitarian relief and the deployment of United Nations guards in Iraq until 31 March 1993. We look to the Iraqi Government to allow the United Nations and relief agencies to operate throughout Iraq.

PRIME MINISTER

  "Britain in Europe"
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Prime Minister what are his reasons for omitting from the booklet "Britain in Europe-a reference to the provisions contained in article K.3 of the treaty on European union on qualified majority voting on certain decisions relating to foreign policy on security.

  The Prime Minister
  Article J.3 provides for the use of qualified majority voting for certain implementing decisions in areas of the common foreign and security policy subject to joint action. Majority voting would, however, apply only where member states have explicitly and unanimously so decided. It is not possible to cover all the provisions of the treaty in a 24-page booklet.

  British-German Meeting
  Mr. George Robertson
  To ask the Prime Minister what were the costs to the Exchequer of the bilateral British-German meeting at Ditchley park on Wednesday 11 November.

  The Prime Minister
  The estimated cost to the Exchequer is £57,000.

  Iraq
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Prime Minister when Her Majesty's Government were informed that Iraq's military capabilities were potentially directed against a country or countries other than Iran.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]: Prior to the invasion of Kuwait, the assessment made by the United Kingdom, and other countries, including Iraq's neighbours was that Iraq would use her military strength to bolster her position as a dominant power in the region, but that she would not risk world hostility by aggressive action. That assessment changed

  Name

  Minister(s) served

  Previous Occupation

  K. Adams

  Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

  Special Adviser

  E. Bickham

  Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

  Special Adviser

  Sir R. Braithwaite

  Prime Minister

  British Ambassador, Moscow

  T. Burke

  Secretary of State for the Environment

  Special Adviser

  J. Caine

  Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

  Special Adviser

  D. Cameron

  Financial Secretary to the Treasury

  Conservative Central Office

  Dr. E. Cottrell

  Secretary of State for Employment

  Conservative Central Office

  Sir C. Foster

  Secretary of State for Transport

  Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte

  M. Fraser

  Minister of State for Overseas Development

  Special Adviser

  C. Grantham

  Secretary of State for Education

  Special Adviser

  J. Gray

  Jointly to the Ministers for Local Government and Inner Cities; Environment and Countryside; and Housing and Planning

  GNI Ltd.

  D. Green

  Prime Minister

  Journalist

  Professor P. Hall

  Secretary of State for the Environment

  Special Adviser

  Ms. S. Hole

  Chief Whip

  Special Adviser

  Mrs. S. Hogg

  Prime Minister

  Special Adviser

  A. Kemp

  President of the Board of Trade

  Special Adviser

  Mrs. T. Keswick

  Home Secretary

  Special Adviser

  Mrs. E. Laing

  Secretary of State for Transport

  Special Adviser

  G. Mackay

  Secretary of State for Scotland

  Special Adviser

  R. Marsh

  Secretary of State for Health

  Special Adviser

  J. Mayhew

  Secretary of State for Social Security

  Special Adviser

  Miss S. McEwen

  Chief Whip (House of Lords)

  Special Adviser

  M. McManus

  Secretary of State for Wales

  Conservative Central Office

  P. Miller

  Secretary of State for Defence

  Special Adviser

  Dr. J. Nicholson

  Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

  John Nicholson Associates

  Sir I. Pearce

  Secretary of State for Transport

  Richard Ellis and English Estates

  D. Poole

  Prime Minister

  James Capel

  Mrs. K. Ramsey

  Prime Minister

  Special Adviser

  Dr. W. Robinson

  Chancellor of the Exchequer

  Special Adviser

  P. Rock

  Secretary of State for the Environment

  Conservative Central Office

  A. Rosling

  Prime Minister

  Special Adviser

  D. Ruffley

  Jointly to the three Ministers of State and the Under Secretary of State in the Home Office

  Special Adviser

  I. Stewart

  Lord President

  Special Adviser

  Lady Strathnaver

  President of the Board of Trade

  Special Adviser

  N. True

  Prime Minister

  Special Adviser

  I. Wilton

  Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

  Special Adviser

  A. Young

  Secretary of State for Scotland

  Special Adviser

  216
  when Iraq started to make threats against Kuwait, but it was still thought that Iraq would use the threats to extract concessions from Kuwait, not launch an invasion.

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will publish the current list of special advisers attached to Ministers stating the Minister they work for and their previous occupations.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: There are currently 37 special advisers attached to Ministers. The names of the advisers, the Ministers they work for and their previous occupations before the last general election are as follows:

  Matrix Churchill
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will arrange for the papers supplied to defence counsel in the Matrix Churchill case to be placed in the Library; and if he will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: No. The papers were supplied to the defence for the purposes of the trial. Lord Justice Scott will have access to them.

EDUCATION

  Inspectors' Reports
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what person or body he proposes to appoint to examine inspectors' reports on a school to determine whether any weaknesses in aspects of teaching are such as to cause him to require the governing body of that school to draw up an action plan under the proposals in the Education Bill.

  Mr. Forth
  The Education (Schools) Act 1992 requires all schools to draw up action plans following inspections under section 9 of that Act.

  The proposals in the Education Bill relate to the particular circumstnaces where an inspection identifies a school as failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education.

  Trainee Teachers
  Lady Olga Maitland
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what decisions have been taken regarding the time primary school trainee teachers should spend in the classroom.

  Mr. Forth
  We are determined that the training of primary school teachers should be more school-based and more closely related to the needs of schools and to the requirements of the national curriculum. We wish however to take into account the advice we shall be receiving from the National Curriculum Council and the Office for Standards in Education about primary education more generally. We have therefore set September 1994 as the date for the introduction of new criteria for primary phase initial teacher training.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education on how many occasions since 1979 his Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if he will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Mr. Forman
  The Department has not engaged any private detective agencies.

  Examination Results
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will place in the Library copies of the comparative tables of GCSE and A/AS level performance in 1992.

  Mr. Patten
  I have today placed copies of all 108 tables in the Library. Copies of their local tables are being sent 218
  to all parents now choosing secondary schools for their children, and all tables are also freely available on request. As promised in the parents charter, we are opening up information about schools to the widest possible audience, and helping parents to make fully informed choices about their children's education.

WALES

  Adult Illiteracy
  Mr. Richards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what measures are being taken to combat adult illiteracy in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  During the last four financial years, the Department has approved expenditure by local education authorities of £668,800 under the grants for education support and training arrangements for the provision of open learning centres for adults with literacy and numeracy problems. In the same period, the Department has contributed approximately £733,000 to the adult literacy and basic skills unit for its basic skills work with adults.

  Training and enterprise councils are able to help those adults whose literacy needs seriously impair their ability to compete in the labour market. For example, normal entry conditions to employment training are waived. Training programmes can be individually designed to give adults with literacy needs the support and help they require to progress towards general and vocational competencies.

  From 1 April 1993, the Further Education Funding Council for Wales will become responsible for courses of basic literacy in English, literacy in Welsh and communication skills for people with learning difficulties so as to prepare them for further education.

  European Youth Initiative
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will provide a funding contribution towards the European youth initiative.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The possibility of funding a youth conference in Wales as part of the Marco Polo Cathay challenge initiative has been discussed with the promoter who has been asked to provide further information.

  Photovoltaic Solar Energy
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will develop a demonstration project involving the development of photovoltaic solar energy in up to 1,000 houses in Wales.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The question of pilot projects would be for consideration in the light of the current programme of assessment studies which the Department of Trade and Industry has commissioned.

  Green Issues
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how the Departmental Green Minister has promoted protection of the ozone layer with specific policy measures; which possible measures have been considered and rejected; and on what grounds.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The Government's policy on, and associated measures for the protection of the ozone layer
  219
  are set out in the environment White Paper "This Common Inheritance", Cm 1200. Details of progress to date and of further action planned are given in the first and second progress reports, Cm. 1655 and 2068. Copies of all three publications are held in the Library of the House.

  As the Green Minister for the Welsh Office, I have played an active part in the formulation of this policy. Within the Welsh Office, as part of the Department's purchasing policy, environmental concerns are factors taken into account in all purchasing decisions. In addition a "green housekeeping" strategy for the Department is being prepared which will cover the use of ozone-depleting substances as well as other relevant environmental issues.

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many projects were selected to qualify for the portion of the non-fossil fuel obligation granted to renewables in Wales in 1990 and 1991; how many such projects were(a) new, (b) involved with landfill gas generation and (c) wind projects; and how many of each of those categories of project (i) still await planning permission, (ii) have been withdrawn and (iii) are on line.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Twenty-two projects in Wales qualified under the non-fossil fuel obligation granted to renewable energy schemes in 1990 and 1991.

  Of these 22 projects:

  (a) 16 are new projects

  (b) There are no landfill gas projects

  (c) 14 are wind projects

  Of these categories:

  (a) New Projects

  (i) Four are awaiting planning permission

  (ii) One project has been withdrawn

  (iii) Three are on line

  (b) Not applicable

  (c) Wind Projects1

  (i) Four are awaiting planning permission

  (ii) One has been withdrawn

  (iii) Two are on line

  1In addition seven wind farms have planning permission; six of these are under construction.

  Opencast Mines

  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the opencast sites within the south Wales coalfield area that are currently monitored for coal dust levels in the atmosphere.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The information requested is not held by the Department. The main responsibility for monitoring air pollution around opencast sites rests with the environmental health departments of local authorities.

  Family Planning Services
  Ms. Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list those health authorities which provided domiciliary family planning services in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  District health authorities that reported making at least one family planning domiciliary visit in each of the years requested is listed as follows. It is possible that authorities not listed make provision for a service, but it is not taken up.

  1985 Gwent and Mid Glamorgan

  1986 Gwent, Mid Glamorgan and West Glamorgan

  220

  1987 Gwent and West Glamorgan

  1988 Gwent

  1989–90 Mid Glamorgan and South Glamorgan

  1990–91 Mid Glamorgan and South Glamorgan

  1991–92 Mid Glamorgan and South Glamorgan

  Wind Energy
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to develop an offshore wind power generation demonstration project.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  None.

  Family Health Services Authorities
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to change the functions of family health services authorities in Wales to make them into bodies with no providing role, but exclusively into purchasers.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  There are no such plans.

  Child Psychotherapists
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what funds his Department makes available to enable child psychotherapists to undertake the required four-year postgraduate training.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  None. Postgraduate training for child psychotherapists and other staff groups is a matter for employers.

  Contaminated Land
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will delay the requirement on local authorities to draw up contaminated land registers until his Department has issued guidance to those local authorities.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  There is no requirement on local authorities to draw up such registers until Parliament approves regulations under section 143 of the Environmental Protection Act, 1990. Some guidance has already been made available to local authorities via consultation papers issued by the Government on this subject and a final version will be provided when regulations come to be made.

  A465
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if construction of the A465 between Aberdulais and Glynneath will now proceed, following capital allocations in the autumn statement; and if he will announce a start date.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Nearly £3 million is being spent on this scheme in 1992–93. My right hon. Friend will shortly decide the allocation of resources to individual programmes for future years under the normal block arrangements.

  Royal Armament Depot, Trecwn
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he will respond to the fifth report of the Welsh Affairs Committee, Session 1991–92, House of Commons paper No. 316, on the social and economic consequences of the closure of the royal armament depot, Trecwn.
  221
  Mr. David Hunt
  I am pleased to announce that the response has been published today as Command Paper 2093.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Agencies
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will place in the Library a copy of the health and safety policy of each of the agencies within his Department.

  Mr. Mates
  Yes. Copies have been placed in the Library.

  Teachers Pay
  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assurances have been given by the Department of Education to the education and library boards that the funding of the 1992 teachers pay award would be fully met by DENI.

  Mr. Hanley
  When initial financial allocations for 1992–93 were made by DENI to education and library boards, they were informed that their budgets assumed an increase of 5 per cent. in teachers costs from 1 April 1992. Boards were also advised that should the pay settlement be greater than 5 per cent. the Department would seek to ensure that the increase would be covered by additional resources, but no guarantee could be given at that stage.

  Curriculum Council
  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what are the staff costs for running the Northern Ireland Curriculum Council; and how much the council spends on research.

  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the remuneration of the chair of the Northern Ireland Curriculum Council.

  Mr. Hanley
  The accounts of the Northern Ireland Curriculum Council for the 1990–91 and 1991–92 financial years show the following figures:

  1990–91 £

  1991–92£

  Staff Costs

  730,130

  962,574

  Research and Development Projects

  46,809

  160,198

  The 1991–92 figures are unaudited.

  The chairman of the Northern Ireland Curriculum Council is paid an honorarium which is currently £6,448 per annum.

  Further Education
  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the cost of setting up the computer information system for the management of further education in Northern Ireland; and how much the Government are spending maintaining this system.

  Mr. Hanley
  The total cost of the project, which was completed on 30 September 1992, was £3,704,000. The 222
  Department of Education is making available £125,000 during the period 1 October 1992 to 31 March 1993 for ongoing support for the project, including hardware and software maintenance costs. From 1 April 1993, support costs amounting to some £250,000 per annum will be met by the education and library boards.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Employment Contracts
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Lord President of the Council how many right hon. and hon. Members have deposited contracts of employment for staff paid via the Fees Office.

  Mr. Newton
  [holding answer 5 November 1992]: Six hundred and forty right hon. and hon. Members have authorised payment of their staff salaries direct by the Fees Office and are therefore required to lodge a statement of the main terms and conditions of employment of such staff. To date, 573 Members have lodged statements relating to 1,052 members of staff.

LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what use his Department has made of private detectives in each of the last five years; at what cost; and if he will list the firms involved.

  Mr. Newton
  The Privy Council Office has not used any private detectives.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Plutonium
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he will make representations to the Government of Japan to ensure that all sea shipments of plutonium between the United Kingdom and Japan meet the requirements recommended in the applicable provisions of the international maritime dangerous goods code and the International Atomic Energy Agency transport guidelines;

  (2) if he will make representations to the Government of Japan to ensure that all casks involved in the shipment of plutonium between the United Kingdom and Japan have been adequately tested as withstanding fire, collision and immersion conditions associated with maximum credible accidents; and what representations he has made to Japan on the security of the casks;

  (3) if he will make representations to the Government of Japan to ensure that emergency port of call arrangements are fully agreed prior to the commencement of the shipment of plutonium between the United Kingdom and Japan.

  Mr. Eggar
  No such representations are necessary. The detailed arrangements are a matter for the Japanese authorities. The carriage of plutonium is only allowed subject to compliance with stringent international standards which meet in full the applicable provisions of the international maritime dangerous goods code and the International Atomic Energy Agency transport guidelines,
  223
  to both of which Japan subscribes. In accordance with these reqirements, plutonium is transported in extremely robust special containers which are subject to rigorous fire, impact and immersion conditions. Appropriate measures are taken to ensure the security of these movements.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will provide in separate tabulated form figures for the total annual amount of(a) civil separated plutonium exported, (b) civil separated plutonium imported, (c) civil plutonium in spent fuel exported, (d) civil plutonium in spent fuel imported, (e) civil plutonium in fresh nuclear fuel pins imported and (f) civil plutonium in fresh nuclear fuel pins exported, since April 1988.

  Mr. Eggar
  (holding answer 26 October 1992): Details of the United Kingdom's imports and exports of civil plutonium from April 1988 to March 1991 were given in the annual plutonium figures published by the former Department of Energy and placed in the Library of the House. The corresponding figures for 1991–92 are being compiled and will be published by my Department shortly.

  Furniture Regulations
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list those organisations and other bodies which will be subject to the regulations relating to foam and second-hand furniture.

  Mr. Leigh
  The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988, as amended in 1989, apply to all persons who supply domestic upholstered furniture in the course of business within the meaning of section 46 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. In this context supply includes the provision of goods by sale, hiring out, loan or gift.

  The regulations require that from 1 March 1990 new furniture must meet all the fire resistance requirements, and that from 1 March 1993 second-hand furniture—except furniture which was made before 1950—must also meet those requirements.

  Ms. Walley
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what advice he has given to county councils trading standards officers concerning the recycling of furniture which does not comply with the foam regulations relating to second-hand furniture.

  Mr. Leigh
  No advice has been given by my Department to local authority trading standards officers about the application of the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988—as amended in 1989—to organisations which recycle or redistribute second-hand furniture.

  Consumer Advice
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will amend the Consumer Credit Act 1974 to introduce a statutory duty for the provision of consumer advice; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Leigh
  No. The Consumer Credit Act 1974 regulates the way that credit is offered to consumers and requires those giving credit or hire facilities or debt advice to be licensed by the Director General of Fair Trading. There are no plans for the provision of consumer advice to be made a statutory duty.

  Burn Injuries (Garments)
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many incidents of burning have been reported in respect of garments carrying the "keep away from fire" label in the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Leigh
  My Department's home, including leisure, accident surveillance system statistics for 1990 record 43 accidents in which persons required hospital treatment for burn injuries as a result of any garment being worn catching fire.

  The records do not show whether or not the garments carried a "keep away from fire" label.

  Mr. Miller
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps are being taken to strengthen the Nightwear (Safety) Regulations 1985.

  Mr. Leigh
  There are no present plans to revise the Nightwear (Safety) Regulations 1985.

  Mr. Miller
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the causes of reported accidents resulting from the burning of nightwear worn by children in the last year.

  Mr. Leigh
  In 1990, the latest year for which statistics are available my Department's home accident surveillance system (HASS) data on home accidents records three accidents resulting from the burning of nightwear worn by children under 14 years. The details given are:

  Item

  Subject

  Source of Fire

  Nightshirt

  Boy aged 12 years

  Gas fire

  Nightdress

  Girl aged three years

  Matches

  Nightdress

  Girl aged seven years

  Unknown

  Small Businesses
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many small firms have gone out of business in each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Leigh
  The number of businesses registered and deregistered for VAT in the past 10 years is given in the table.

  Registrations and deregistrations: 1981–1991

  Year

  Registrations 000's

  Deregistrations 000's

  1981

  152

  120

  1982

  166

  145

  1983

  180

  145

  1984

  182

  152

  1985

  183

  163

  1986

  192

  165

  1987

  210

  169

  1988

  240

  172

  1989

  256

  176

  1990

  239

  184

  1991

  206

  203

  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what new proposals his Department has to help small businesses collect outstanding debts; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 3 November 1992]: Late payment debt is an issue which we are actively addressing. Following from the 1992 Budget, the President of the Board of Trade is, with colleagues:

  (a) introducing new contracting terms requiring companies awarded Government contracts to pay their subcontractors promptly, normally within 30 days;

  (b) consulting on proposals to require large companies to state in their reports and accounts how quickly they pay;

  (c) Promoting improvements to court procedures for debt recovery.

  Furthermore, the Department of Trade and Industry is providing financial support for three trade associations to operate pilot prompt payment initiatives. Many training and enterprise councils and other bodies also provide training for businesses on credit management and debt collection.

  My noble Friend Baroness Denton of Wakefield, as Under-Secretary of State for Consumer Affairs and Small Firms, has given her personal commitment to hell) small firms experiencing late payment by large companies of public bodies and supports the initiative of the CBI and other bodies in relation to prompt payment.

  Postal Services
  Mr. French
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received concerning the EC paper on the development of a single market for postal services; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Leigh
  I have received a wide range of written and oral representations from users of the postal services, private sector competitors, Post Office employees, the Post Office itself and other interested parties both individual and corporate. I expect to receive additional representations over the coming weeks. All these representations will 226
  be carefully analysed and taken fully into account by the Government before we prepare our formal response to the European Commission towards the end of this year.

  Mr. French
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) what representations he has received concerning the possible privatisation of the Post Office;

  (2) which organisations, which sources and which individuals are being consulted in connection with the Government's review of the structure and organisation of the Post Office;

  (3) with which companies he has had meetings to discuss the possible privatisation of the Post Office.

  Mr. Leigh
  I have received a number of representations from interested parties and the general public concerning the Post Office review.

  I have held meetings, or am due to hold meetings, with the following in connection with the review of the structure and organisation of the Post Office: the Post Office, the Post Office Users National Council, Union of Communication Workers, National Communications Union, Communications Managers Association, National Union of Civil and Public Servants, Post Office Unions Council, the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, the Association of International Courier and Express Services, TNT Express (UK), DHL International (UK) Ltd, Securicor Omega Express, Britdoc, Mail Users Association, Direct Marketing Association, Periodical Publishers' Association, British Printing Industries Federation, European Mail and Express Services Users Association.

  In addition, my officials and the consultants appointed to advise the Government have met Business Post, Electronic Equipment Association, Mail Order Traders Association, BT, Girobank and other Government Departments.

  A variety of published sources have been used as well as information provided by the Post Office and the Government.

  Mr. French
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he intends to publish the results of the review of the structure and organisation of the Post Office.

  Mr. Leigh
  The review is not yet complete. We will announce its conclusions in due course.

  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the limit he has announced on public sector pay increases for the current year is applicable to employees of(a) Parcelforce, (b) the Royal Mail and (c) Post Office Counters; and what account will be taken of offers already made to representatives of staff.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: The pay policy announced by my right hon. Friend will apply to all public sector pay settlements over the next 12 months including those employed by public corporations such as the Post Office.

  The recent formal pay offer made to Royal Mail employees with effect from 1 October this year will be honoured since negotiatiions have already been completed, but their October 1993 pay settlement will be constrained by the pay policy.

  Ms. Estelle Morris
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what financial benefit accrued to Post Office
  227
  Letters, Post Office Counters and Parcelforce as a result of their holiday from paying contributions as employer to the superannuation funds of their respective employees during each year since 1987.

  £ million

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  Royal Mail

  Nil

  13

  29

  106

  105

  Post Office Counters

  Nil

  2

  5

  16

  15

  Parcelforce

  Nil

  1

  2

  9

  8

  There have been no reductions during this period to the employer's contribution to the Post Office pension scheme.

  Ms. Estelle Morris
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what financial subventions other than a contributions holiday Post Office letters, Post Office Counters and Parcelforce have received from the superannuation funds of their respective employees.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: None.

  Refuse-to-energy Incinerator, Belvedere
  Mr. Evennett
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to receive the inspector's report from the public inquiry into the proposed refuse-to-energy incinerator in Belvedere.

  Mr. Eggar
  The inquiry is still sitting. The timing of his report is a matter for the inquiry inspector.

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what progress has been made towards achieving the Government's objective of working towards a figure of 1000 MW of electricity generating capacity from renewable energy sources by the year 2000; whether he expects that target to be met; and what impact the non-fossil fuel obligation will have on its achievement.

  Mr. Eggar
  Contracts in England and Wales for more than 500 MW of new renewables-based generation capacity were signed in the first two rounds of the non-fossil fuel obligation, of which 185 MW should be operational by the end of the current financial year, with a further 350 MW scheduled for further years. Seven MW of that NFFO capacity have been withdrawn. Some 6 MW of new capacity were also contracted in Scotland under transitional arrangements. Further new NFFO capacity in England and Wales, capacity which might be expected under NFFO-type arangements in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, and some non-grid-connected capacity, will help the United Kingdom in working towards 1000 MW of new renewables-based capacity in the United Kingdom by the year 2000, as specified in the 1990 White Paper on the environment.

  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects the renewable energy advisory group to submit its report; and whether he will publish it.

  Mr. Eggar
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) on 2 November 1992,Official Report, column 60.

  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment his Department has made of the
  228
  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: The financial benefits accruing from reductions in the employer's contribution to the Post Office staff superannuation scheme for each year since 1987 are as follows:

  availability beyond 1998 in other EC member states of financial support equivalent to the non-fossil fuel obligation.

  Mr. Eggar
  The energy technology support unit, on behalf of the DTI, will be conducting a detailed assessment in the coming year of arrangements in other EC member states for the development of the market for electricity from renewable sources of energy. The assessment, which will cover any termination date for such support, will be published when completed.

  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will consider decoupling incentives for renewable energy sources from support given to nuclear energy.

  Mr. Eggar
  Proceeds from the levy on almost all sales of electricity to final customers in England and Wales are used to fund the supply of electricity from both nuclear and renewable sources. However, this support for nuclear is not given at the expense of that for renewables. My Department is in discussion with the European Commission about support for renewables after 1998.

  Environmental Auditing
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to prepare British enterprises for the introduction of EC environmental auditing standards.

  Mr. Eggar
  A proposal for an EC regulation which would introduce a voluntary environmental management and auditing scheme is presently under discussion by the EC Environment Council. The proposal, which has been the subject of extensive consultation with United Kingdom business, would permit appropriate industry standards for environmental management to be used as a basis for the scheme.

  In the United Kingdom, the British Standards Institution is currently piloting such a standard, BS7750, among some 150 businesses including a number of small firms. My Department has also initiated or participated in a number of seminars to alert businesses to the provisions of the EC scheme and the existence of BS7750.

  Disconnections
  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will give the number of disconnections of domestic(a) gas and (b) electricity supply during 1991 broken down into (i) standard region, (ii) utility region and (iii) local authority district.

  Mr. Eggar
  Disconnection figures are kept by the Office of Gas Supply, the Gas Consumers Council and the office
  229
  of Electricity Regulation. However, I can confirm that 18,631 gas and 38,720 electricity customers were disconnected during 1991.

  Opencast Coal
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the annual level of production of opencast coal in England, Wales and Scotland in each year since 1983–84.

  Mr. Eggar
  The annual production of opencast coal in England, Wales and Scotland between 1983–84 and 1991–92 was as follows:

  Thousand tonnes

  Year

  England

  Wales

  Scotland

  Total production

  1983–84

  10,221

  1,547

  3,031

  14,799

  1984–85

  10,127

  1,738

  2,640

  14,550

  1985–86

  10,009

  2,174

  3,081

  15,264

  1986–87

  10,093

  1,523

  2,970

  14,586

  1987–88

  11,352

  1,677

  3,347

  16,376

  1988–89

  12,104

  1,748

  4,151

  18,003

  1989–90

  12,413

  2,088

  4,115

  18,616

  1990–91

  12,034

  1,865

  4,372

  18,271

  1991–92

  11,605

  2,402

  5,012

  19,019

  Department of Energy Staff
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what reduction in former Department of Energy personnel(a) has taken place and (b) is envisaged as a consequence of the incorporation of the former Department of Energy into his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  The merger enabled the Department to reduce immediately the overhead costs of common functions and services and further rationalisations and savings continue to be made. These savings have been used to strengthen the Department's sponsorship of British industry through the creation of a number of sectoral divisions. No staff have been made redundant, although many are now doing different jobs within the Department and in response to the new priorities which Ministers have set.

  Property Misdescriptions Act 1991
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he intends to implement the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991.

  Mr. Leigh
  My hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Consumer Affairs and Small Firms has laid before Parliament today an order which will give effect to the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991.

  Finding the right property is never easy, and people need to be able to rely on what they are told about property offered for sale. Nobody wants to waste time travelling to view properties which, had the particulars been accurate, he or she would have ruled out as unsuitable.

  The Property Misdescriptions (Specified Matters) Order 1992 lists those characteristics of property which it will be an offence to misdescribe. These "specified matters" cover most characteristics of property commonly included in estate agents' particulars of sale.
  230
  The Act does not require information to be supplied in respect of these matters, but if an agent chooses to provide information then it must not be false or misleading.

  Offences under the Act will attract a maximum fine of £5,000 on conviction before a magistrates court and an unlimited fine on conviction before a Crown court. The Act will be enforced by local authority trading standards officers—in Northern Ireland, by officers of the Department of Economic Development trading standards branch.

  My hon. and noble Friend has also laid before Parliament today a further order under the Estate Agents Act 1979.

  The Estate Agents (Specified Offences) (No. 2) (Amendment) Order 1992 adds offences under the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 to those offences which can give rise to the issue of prohibition or warning notices against estate agents by the Director General of Fair Trading.

  Both orders will come into force on 4 April 1993.

  Cosmetics (Animal Tests)
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the United Kingdom Government's position on proposals put forward by the European Parliament and Commission to phase out the use of animals to test cosmetics by 1 January 1998 when they were discussed by COREPER—the Committee of Permanent Representatives in September.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 3 November 1992]: The United Kingdom position at the COREPER meeting on 16 September to discuss the proposed sixth council amendment to the directive on cosmetics was that tests on live animals for testing the safety of cosmetic ingredients should be phased out as soon as there are suitable validated alternatives. The Council has now reached a political agreement on a common position which includes a ban on the use of ingredients tested on animals after 1 January 1998, with a provision for the Commission to propose the postponement of the ban, in respect of the continuing need for particular tests, if alternative testing methods are not available by then.

  Assisted Areas
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many of the representations he received to his consultation paper on assisted areas advocated(a) the creation of further development areas, (b) the creation of intermediate areas, (c) the maintenance of the status quo, (d) the reduction of development areas and (e) the reduction of intermediate areas.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]:My ministerial colleagues and I have received a number of representations relating to particular areas. All have advocated either development or intermediate area status for their respective areas; which may involve upgrading from non-assisted area status, upgrading of existing assisted areas status, or the maintenance of the status quo. No representations have advocated reduced coverage.

  British Coal
  Mr. Churchill
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish details of the current level of public subsidy to British Coal, together with a schedule of payments made in each of the last 12 months, specifying on which vote these payments are borne.

  Mr. Eggar
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: The current provision for assistance to the coal industry is contained in class V, vote 1 of the Supply estimates 1992–93. Section B of this vote provides for grant payments to British Coal in 1992–93 of £571·8 million. Grant payments since October 1991 have been as follows:

  £ million

  October 1991

  33·6

  November 1991

  42·8

  December 1991

  39·2

  January 1992

  51·3

  February 1992

  35·8

  March 1992

  133·2

  April 1992

  203·2

  May 1992

  95·9

  June 1992

  14·2

  July 1992

  30·9

  August 1992

  46·4

  September 1992

  53·2

  In addition to Government financial support, British Coal has been benefiting from the high margins, over and above world market prices, that the electricity generators pay for their coal supplies from the corporation. Under present contracts, which have been operating since April 1990, this assistance amounts to about £1 billion annually.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Sheep Dip
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cases of adverse human reactions to organophosphorus sheep dip have been reported in the last two years.

  Mr. Soames
  During 1991, a total of 135 reports involving suspected human adverse reactions to organophosphorus sheep dips were received. For 1992, a total of 121 reports have been received up to 9 November. A significant proportion of the reports received since 1990 are historical cases where a suspected adverse reaction had occurred more than one year previously.

  Diet
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the figures of consumption of essential foods for a healthy diet, for families with children under five years in(a) the richest income groups and (b) the poorest income groups; and if he will subdivide these figures by region.

  Mr. Soames
  All foods can be components of a healthy diet. No single food is essential. It is the overall balance of foods—and so of nutrients—which is important. The Ministry's national food survey does not separate families with children under five from families with older children, but the results do indicate that in general the diets of 232
  families in all income groups and regions contain adequate levels of minerals and vitamins, but rather more fat and less fibre than that recommended by the Chief Medical Officer's Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food Policy in its report on dietary reference values published in 1991. As part of a separate study, the Government are currently measuring the diets and health status of children under five years in all regions and income groups. It is planned to publish the results from this in 1994.

  Pesticides
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what advice he gives on the use of chemicals to control aphis gossypii; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The melon and cotton aphid—Aphis gossypii—has become a significant problem in some edible and ornamental glasshouse crops because of its ability to develop resistance to certain chemical pesticides. The Agricultural Development Advisory Service advises growers that effective chemical control is possible by the approved use of nicotine aphicides. Non-chemical controls, such as the controlled use of predatory and parasitic organisms, have also proved to be effective for some crops. The Ministry and the Horticultural Development Council are currently funding a number of research projects aimed at improving and developing such biological controls.

  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make representations to the pesticide industry to ensure that compensation is paid to victims of drinking water contaminated with atrazine and simazine.

  Mr. Soames
  The independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides concluded in May that levels of atrazine and simazine found in water do not endanger the health of consumers at the concentrations found in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the chief inspector of the drinking water inspectorate, in his report for 1991, concluded that the amounts of pesticides ingested in drinking water were far smaller than the amounts which are known to be harmful or likely to cause harm. There is, therefore, no justification for representations of the kind suggested.

  Foxes
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many complaints his Department has received in each of the last five years on fox predation.

  Mr. Soames
  There is no requirement to notify the Department of instances of fox predation. Those suffering losses of livestock, poultry of game, are free to exercise control as long as they do not use a prohibited method.

  Abattoirs
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he has to offer grant aid to abattoirs to meet latest EC standards; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The Department has no plans to offer grant aid to abattoirs which need to upgrade to meet the new EC standards.

  Compliance with statutory requirements has never brought with it any guarantee of help to defray the costs

  233
  involved. The provision of grant aid would be quite unfair on those who have already made the commitment of their own funds to come up to standard.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on how many occasions since 1979 his Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if he will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Mr. Curry
  None. The only use of such agencies by the Department since 1979 has been for the purpose of tracing debtors. Such use ceased in 1987. Information as to the dates and cases is not available centrally and its extraction from the files would be disproportionate in time and resources.

  Agriculture Council
  Mr. John Greenway
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Agriculture Council held on 16 and 17 November.

  Mr. Gummer
  I chaired this meeting of the Council at which my hon. Friend the Minister of State in my Department represented the United Kingdom.

  The Council discussed the general agreement on tariffs and trade Uruguay round and the EC/US oilseeds dispute in the light of well-publicised, negative comments from some parts of the Community. Following a vigorous discussion, I was able to record unanimous agreement in the Council that the Commissioner should negotiate with the United States consistently within the conclusions of the recent Birmingham summit. These provide for the Commission to be instructed actively to pursue a settlement. I understand negotiations will in fact resume later today.

  The Council agreed a 7 per cent. devaluation of the green pound to take effect immediately. This is a necessary step since charges on intra-community trade, like monetary compensatory amounts, will not be possible in the single market from 1 January 1993, and the knowledge that green and market rates will be aligned by that date was acting as an incentive to speculation. The move will be widely welcomed by British farmers; when fully worked through it will add less than 1 per cent. to the food price index.

  The Council also agreed the principal regulation on the control of payments under the reformed common agricultural policy. This is a major step toward combating the possibility of fraud in the new system.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Exchange Rate
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what details he has of the exchange controls in force in other EC countries.

  Mr. Nelson
  The 1988 capital liberalisation directive (88/361/EEC) prohibits exchange controls between member states, except in certain limited circumstances. However, four member states—Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain—enjoy a derogation which allows them to 234
  retain certain restrictions. In the case of Ireland and Spain, the remaining restrictions are due to be lifted by the end of this year. In the case of Portugal and Greece, the restrictions may be retained up to the end of 1995 if the Council agrees an extension to their derogations.

  Deputy Secretaries
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many officials at deputy secretary level in the Treasury(a) have a degree in economics (b) were educated at state schools and (c) went to Oxbridge, as a percentage of all deputy secretaries in the Treasury.

  Mr. Nelson
  Of the Treasury officials at grade 2—deputy secretary—level, 50 per cent. have a degree in economics, 50 per cent. were educated at state schools and 33 per cent. went to Oxbridge.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what use his Department has made of private detectives in each of the last five years; at what cost; and if he will list the firms involved.

  Mr. Nelson
  None.

  Bank of England
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the job specification of the Governor of the Bank of England; and if he will make a statement of his previous experience and professional qualifications.

  Mr. Nelson
  The Bank of England Act 1946 and the Bank's charter provide for the office of Governor. The charter requires the Governor to render his exclusive services to the bank.

  The present Governor is a qualified lawyer and has served as a director and chairman of a number of industrial, commercial and financial companies.

  VAT
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the amount of value added tax which will be paid in respect of community care.

  Sir John Cope
  No such estimate has been made, but no change in the tax on domiciliary care is anticipated as a result of the transfer of resourcing from DSS to local authorities.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much VAT was collected in 1991–92 on domiciliary care charges.

  Sir John Cope
  No estimates have been made of the VAT collected on domiciliary care charges.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the criteria for exemption from VAT.

  Sir John Cope
  VAT is a wide-ranging tax on consumer expenditure with strictly limited reliefs. Exemptions from VAT are provided for under schedule 6 to the Value Added Tax Act 1983. They refelct the United Kingdom's obligations under article 13 of the EC sixth VAT directive, subject to the transitional derogations in article 28. Article 13 specifies two categories:
  235

  A. Exemptions for certain activities in the public interest, for example health, education, postal services.

  B. Other exemptions.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will seek an amendment to the EC sixth directive in order to remove all domiciliary care costs from VAT.

  Sir John Cope
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to seek such an amendment.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what research has been done to identify and quantify the effect on the level of VAT and excise revenue resulting from the introduction of the single market on 1 January 1993.

  Sir John Cope
  The Cecchini report assessed the benefits of introducing a single European market. It did not specifically address the impact on VAT and excise revenues. It estimated that, in the medium-term, the single market could boost gross domestic product growth across the European Community by an average of 4·5 per cent. Growth of this order would provide a significant boost to VAT and excise receipts.

  The introduction of the single market may give rise to some revenue loss in the United Kingdom. We estimate that the increase in cross-border shopping resulting from the abolition of intra-EC travellers' allowances will give rise to a revenue loss of around £250 million.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans Customs and Excise have to issue a VAT payers charter setting out standards of service to VAT payers.

  Sir John Cope
  The taxpayers charter, which was launched jointly by Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue, initially in 1986, and updated in 1991, sets out standards that taxpayers, including payers of VAT, can expect. In addition, Customs and Excise launched its VAT charter standard document on 22 September 1992. It sets out in more detail service standards for VAT.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many additional VAT inspectors' posts were identified by the Customs and Excise 1991–92 management plan as being necessary to deal with increased potential for VAT fraud under the single market; how many will actually be appointed; and if he will make a statement:

  (2) how far Customs and Excise will be able to give extra attention to those businesses involved in intra-EC trade without reducing the number of visits and controls to those traders not involved in inter-EC trade.

  Sir John Cope
  The 1991–92 management plan did not quantify the additional posts to be allocated for reinforcing controls on intra-Community traders. Some 200 new posts will be created for control visiting in 1993–94. It will be for local managers to determine how best to deploy these relative to all revenue risks, whether flowing from the single market or not. Overall, Customs and Excise expects that control of the new arrangements for intra-EC trade, together with closer attention to the interpretation of VAT liability law, will increase the move towards longer and more thorough visits, and reduce to some extent the coverage of less risky traders.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what action is being taken to ensure that 236
  companies do not supply false information to the new VAT information exchange system, in collusion with trading partners in Europe in order to evade VAT.

  Sir John Cope
  The information supplied to the VAT information exchange system will be tested on visits to traders. Collusion frauds will be combated through greater use of mutual assistance arrangements between member states and the development of Community-wide intelligence systems.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how far the risk analysis system used by Customs and Excise for VAT control visiting is restricted to determining the relative risk of different traders rather than the overall risk to the revenue.

  Sir John Cope
  In deploying the resources available for control visiting, Customs and Excise analyses the relative risk to the revenue presented by different traders. This includes allocating resources to those traders with the greatest tax throughput to protect the overall risk to the revenue.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 2 November,Official Report, column 38, what assessment was made of the effect of a 40 per cent. cut in the number of planned VAT inspections on deterrence, tax compliance and overall tax yield in the longer term before departing from the 1991–92 management plan.

  Sir John Cope
  In reducing to about 300,000 the planned number of control visits for 1993–94, Customs and Excise estimated that there could be a drop in the additional liability readily identifiable on visits, but that the move towards longer and more thorough visits would have a strong preventive effect and provide good protection of the overall tax yield.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the targets applied by Customs and Excise in the last five financial years for the length of time after registration for all traders to be visited.

  Sir John Cope
  In 1988–89 and 1989–90 Customs and Excise's target was to visit each trader within 15 to 18 months of VAT registration. In 1990–91 the Department improved the target to 12 to 15 months for high-risk traders while relaxing the deadline for the remainder to 21 to 24 months. In 1991–92 it introduced more fine-tuning into the risk analysis of the newly registered trader population, and now visits traders at three intervals of no more than 12 to 15, 21 to 24 and 33 to 36 months.

  Illicit Trade
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Customs and Excise officers are to be trained to act as verification officers to deal with illicit trade in duty free and duty paid goods after 1 January 1993.

  Sir John Cope
  Customs and Excise staff currently employed on excise control work are already experienced in detecting illicit trade in excise goods. This sector is being reinforced, initially by 120 staff, who have been specially selected for further specific training in countering the new revenue risks following completion of the single market. The ongoing training programme, which will be made
  237
  available to further selected staff as necessary, will also be continuously reviewed and adapted in the light of developments.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer on how many occasions since 1979 his Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if he will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Mr. Nelson
  None.

  Home Income Plans
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the oral statement of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, of 8 July,Official Report, column 367, what progress has been made in paying compensation to those who suffered loss through the purchase of home income plans; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nelson
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]: Ten members of the Financial Intermediaries, Managers and Brokers Regulatory Association who were involved in marketing home income plans have been declared in default by the investors compensation scheme. The ICS has made firm offers to some 250 investors in home income plans and in a further 400 cases has confirmed to investors that they are eligible for compensation. In addition, payments have been made to some 800 investors by members of the Life Assurance and Unit Trust Regulatory Organisation.

EMPLOYMENT

  Health and Safety
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many(a) company directors and (b) employees were prosecuted, and what was the average fine imposed on those convicted in each case, under the Health and Safety at Work et. Act 1974, in each year since 1974.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  It is not possible to specify the number of prosecutions against company directors alone. However, section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 permits the prosecution of any director, manager, secretary or other corporate official for offences committed by the company. Section 7 of the 1974 Act provides for prosecutions of employees. Tables showing the number of prosecutions since 1 January 1981 under these two sections follow. The information requested is not readily available for the years before 1981.

  Information Laid by HSE's Factory and Agricultural Inspectorates, 1981 to 1990–91

  Section 37 of HSW Act

  Year (a)

  Number of Informations Laid

  Number of Convictions

  Average fine per Conviction (£)

  1981

  7

  7

  179

  1982

  16

  11

  293

  1983

  7

  6

  221

  1984

  9

  6

  208

  1985

  15

  11

  218

  1986–87

  45

  5

  400

  1987–88

  6

  4

  188

  238

  Year (a)

  Number of Informations Laid

  Number of Convictions

  Average fine per Conviction (£)

  1988–89

  8

  6

  617

  1989–90

  23

  18

  1,731

  1990–91(b)

  6

  4

  250

  Section 7 of HSW Act

  Year (a)

  Number of Informations Laid

  Number of Convictions

  Average fine per Conviction (£)

  1981

  24

  19

  81

  1982

  23

  21

  112

  1983

  38

  29

  104

  1984

  30

  24

  116

  1985

  34

  30

  209

  1986–87

  32

  21

  132

  1987–88

  35

  27

  183

  1988–89

  32

  28

  156

  1989–90

  46

  38

  148

  1990–91(b)

  26

  19

  291

  (a) 1975 to 1985 calendar years commencing 1st January 1986–87 to1990–91 financial years commencing 1st April.

  (b) Includes informations laid by HSE's Quarries Inspectorate.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the capital cost estimate for the FOCUS installation in the Health and Safety Executive; and how many fewer people will be employed as a result of this installation.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The capital cost estimate for the FOCUS installation is £2·62 million.

  The Health and Safety Executive has no current plans to employ fewer people as a result of the introduction of FOCUS.

  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will deposit copies of the Health and Safety Commission's advisory committee on toxic substances' and working group on the assessment of toxic chemicals minutes for each year since 1974 in the Library.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  No. For reasons of commercial confidentiality and for other reasons such minutes may not be suitable for disclosure and members of these bodies participate in discussions on that understanding. However, the Health and Safety Executive, which provides the secretariat for both bodies, publishes their forward work programme and related issues in the "Toxic Substances Bulletin" consultation papers on proposals for occupational exposure limits and synopses of the data used. From January 1993 the executive will publish the full scientific data used for the substance reviews carried out by the working group.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many staff in the Health and Safely Executive currently in the executive officer and higher executive officer grades have not been through a formal promotion board for that grade as in other parts of the Department of Employment group.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Four administrative officers were substantively promoted in 1991 to executive officer in the ADP specialism without appearing before an Employment Department group promotions panel. These arrangements were made under the provisions of Treasury circular GEN 89/23.
  239
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many of the Health and Safety Executive staff are planned to be surplus to requirements in fiscal year 1994–95 in area offices as a result of the introduction of the FOCUS computer system.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has no plans to consider any staff as surplus to requirements in the fiscal year 1994–95 in HSE area offices as a result of the introduction of the FOCUS computer system.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when the lease expires on the Health and Safety Executive London headquarters at Baynards House, London and what discussions the executive has had on the relocation of the headquarters to(a) London Docklands or (b) Bootle.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The lease on Baynards house expires on 24 March 1994. The executive has had a number of discussions to consider the options for the housing of its London headquarter after March 1994. These include London docklands but not Bootle.

  Mr. Galbriath
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many offences, and how many(a) custodial and (b) suspended sentences for offences, were recorded under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, in each year since 1974.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The following table shows the number of convictions obtained by the enforcing authorities for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation for each year since 1 January 1975, when the Act came into force.

  In 1985, a director received a suspended custodial sentence for a health and safety offence. The same penalty was imposed on another director in 1987.

  Enforcement action by all enforcing authorities taken under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation

  Year

  Convictions

  1975

  12,732

  1976

  12,010

  1977

  12,546

  1978

  12,364

  1979

  22,227

  1980

  22,416

  1981

  32,100

  1982

  32,467

  1983

  2,362

  1984

  2,469

  1985

  2,332

  1986–87

  2,301

  1987–88

  2,682

  1988–89

  2,687

  1989–90

  2,953

  1990–91

  2,542

  1 Convictions obtained following proceedings by HSE's Factory Inspectorate only.

  2 Convictions obtained following proceedings by HSE's Factory and Agricultural Inspectorates only.

  3 Convictions obtained following proceedings by HSE's Factory, Agricultural, Mines and Quarries Inspectorates and by local authorities only.

  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many(a) fines and (b) fines on indictment were imposed under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 in each year since 1974; and what was the average amount of fine in each case.
  240
  Mr. McLoughlin
  Although most convictions for a health and safety offence result in a fine, it is not possible to identify the precise number. However, in calculating the average it has been assumed that all convictions result in a fine. A following table shows the average fine imposed by all courts for health and safety offences following proceedings by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectorates for each year since 1975. Information about fines imposed as a result of proceedings brought by local authorities is not available. However, the number of convictions obtained by all enforcing authorities is available and I refer the hon. Member to my earlier reply to him.

  A further table provides details of average fines on indictment since April 1988. It is not possible to provide a reliable analysis of proceedings in the higher courts for earlier years.

  Average fine in all courts for health and safety offences following proceedings by HSE inspectorates

  Year1

  Average fine per conviction £

  19752

  81

  19762

  94

  19772

  105

  19782

  134

  19793

  184

  19803

  180

  19814

  189

  19824

  233

  1983

  252

  1984

  313

  1985

  436

  1986–87

  410

  1987–88

  5792

  1988–89

  541

  1989–90

  6783

  1990–91

  7903

  Notes:

  1975–1985 calendar years commencing 1 January 1986–87–1990–91 financial years commencing 1 April

  2 Proceedings by HSE's Factory Inspectorate only.

  3 Proceedings by HSE's Factory and Agricultural Inspectorates only.

  4 Proceedings by HSE's Factory, Agricultural, Mines and Quarries Inspectorates only.

  5Includes fines totalling £750,000 imposed against BP> If these convictions are excluded the average fine for 1987–88 would be £427.

  6 Includes a fine of £100,000 imposed against Nobels Explosives. If this conviction were excluded the average fine for 1989-90 would be £739.

  7Includes fines of £250,000 against Nobels Explosives and £100,000 against Tate and Lyle. If these convictions were excluded the average fine for 1990–91 would be £728.

  Proceedings instituted at higher courts1 by HSE's Factory, Agricultural and Quarry Inspectorates, 1988–89–1990–91

  Year2

  Informations laid

  Convictions

  Average fine per Conviction (£)

  1988–893

  69

  62

  1,965

  1989–903

  87

  77

  5,387

  1990–91

  106

  77

  45,125

  Notes:

  1 Higher courts refers to Crown Courts and solemn proceedings in Sheriff's Courts in Scotland.

  2 Years commencing 1 April.

  3 Factory and Agricultural Inspectorates only.

  4 Includes a fine of £100,000 imposed on Tate and Lyle. If this fine were excluded the average fine for 1990–91 would be £3,877.
  241
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many(a) fines, (b) prohibition notices and (c) improvement notices were issued under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 in each year since 1974.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The following table shows the number of improvement and prohibition notices issued under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation since 1 January 1975 when the 1974 Act came into force. The Health and Safety Executive is not responsible for the penalties imposed by the courts. For the information concerning fines I refer the hon. Member to my earlier reply to him today.

  Prohibition and improvement notices issued by all enforcing authorities under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation

  Year1

  Prohibition notices

  Improvement notices

  1975

  2,450

  5,149

  1976

  2,534

  7,499

  1977

  3,130

  9,253

  1978

  3,434

  12,217

  1979

  3,674

  13,517

  1980

  3,238

  12,625

  1981

  3,187

  12,315

  1982

  3,266

  13,030

  1983

  3,805

  12,265

  1984

  3,738

  12,238

  1985

  3,478

  11,051

  1986–87

  4,263

  13,31''

  1987–88

  6,490

  14,191

  1988–89

  6,633

  14,983

  1989–90

  6,572

  15,790

  1990–91

  6,689

  19,079

  11975–1985 calendar years commencing 1st January 1986–87— 1990–91 financial years commencing 1st April.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many of the staff, and at what grades, are in receipt of performance pay in the Health and Safety Executive; and what is the cost of these payments.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The number of staff in the Health and Safety Executive in receipt of performance pay is shown in the following table. The information is not readily available in the form requested. The cost of performance pay points vary slightly, an average cost, by grade, is shown.

  Grade (listed according to scheme)

  Number of staff in receipt of performance pay

  Cost (Pa) £s1

  CPSA Performance Pay Scheme

  Administrative Assistant

  16

  5,088

  Administrative Officer

  214

  80,678

  Chief Typing Manager

  1

  648

  Personal Secretary

  95

  37,050

  Senior Personal Secretary

  9

  4,446

  Typing Manager

  8

  4,088

  Typist

  109

  34,662

  NUCPS Performance Pay Scheme

  Executive Officer

  116

  72,616

  Higher Executive Officer

  116

  90,828

  Senior Executive Officer

  32

  30,688

  IPMS Performance Pay Scheme

  Agricultural Inspector

  45

  48,735

  Assistant Librarian

  2

  1,286

  Employment Nursing Adviser

  9

  8,667

  Graphics Officer

  1

  690

  242

  Grade (listed according to scheme)

  Number of staff in receipt of performance pay

  Cost (pa) £s1

  Higher Graphics Officer

  1

  807

  Higher Photographic Officer

  1

  807

  Higher Professional and Technology Officer

  2

  1,614

  Higher Scientific Officer

  16

  12,416

  Inspector 1B

  77

  83,391

  Inspector of Quarries

  1

  1,083

  Librarian

  2

  1,552

  Photographic Officer

  3

  1,980

  Professional and Technology Officer

  1

  690

  Scientific Officer

  12

  7,716

  Senior Professional and Technology Officer

  3

  3,003

  Senior Scientific Officer

  35

  33,705

  Specialist Inspector

  10

  11,040

  Senior Information Officer

  4

  3,852

  Grades 4–7 Performance Pay Scheme

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Agriculture

  2

  3,468

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Factories

  3

  5,400

  Deputy Director of Medical Services

  1

  1,870

  Deputy Superintending Inspector (Factories)

  23

  37,858

  Deputy Superintending Inspector of Agriculture

  1

  1,646

  Employment Medical Adviser

  9

  15,444

  Grade 4

  1

  2,052

  Grade 5

  18

  31,608

  Grade 6

  17

  28,696

  Grade 7

  59

  83,898

  Inspector 1A

  110

  162,690

  Principal Agricultural Inspector

  27

  38,394

  Principal Inspecting Officer

  2

  3,066

  Principal Specialist Inspector

  65

  99,645

  Senior Area Director

  5

  8,780

  Senior Employment Medical Adviser

  15

  26,340

  Superintending Inspector of Factories

  13

  22,542

  Superintending Specialist Inspector B

  6

  10,404

  Superintending Specialist Inspector C

  5

  8,440

  Offshore Safely Specialists Performance Pay Scheme

  Petroleum Specialist I

  1

  1,042

  Petroleum Specialist II

  4

  3,852

  Petroleum Specialist III

  6

  5,100

  Petroleum Specialist IV

  7

  5,992

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist III

  1

  962

  1 Average cost of performance pay point multiplied by the number of staff in receipt.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many redundancies are expected arising from the market testing privatisation of the electrical equipment certification service at Buxton, the graphics messenger, catering, security and any other internal services currently carried out at the Bootle or Baynards house headquarters of the Health and Safety Executive.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) catering services in Bootle and London are already contracted out.

  No decision has been taken on the future status of HSE's electrical equipment certification service nor have planned market tests in any of the other areas of work mentioned progressed so far as to make it possible to assess whether redundancies might result.

  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will give(a) the total number, (b) the subject area, (c) the reference number and (d) the results of the cases taken to an industrial tribunal under the Safety Representative and Safety Committee Regulations 1977 for each year since 1974.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 came into force on
  243
  1 October 1978. Central statistics are available only for applications registered, and before 1983 these were not broken down by subject. The following table dealing with

  Year1

  Applications registered

  Applications dealt with2

  Outcomes and case numbers2

  Failure to permit time off

  Failure to pay for time off

  19783

  2

  0

  1979

  30

  5

  2 upheld (18410/79, other ref. no. un-known) 3 dismissed (4328/79, S/2134/ 79, 2206/79)

  1980

  12

  5

  3 upheld (30764/79, 24773/79, 2821/80), 2 dismissed (34330/79, 1812/80)

  1981

  7

  4

  1 dismissed (22636/80) 3 withdrawn (18211-3/80)

  1982

  28

  11

  10 upheld (38773/81, 1101-9/82), 1 dismissed (5218/82)

  1983

  7

  13

  6

  5 upheld but overturned4 (16511-5/83) 1 withdrawn (24705/83)

  1984

  6

  4

  8

  1 upheld (27568/83), 1 dismissed (4476/84) 6 withdrawn (2503/84, 12362/84, 17036/84, 13902/84, 3955/84, 21797/ 84)

  1985

  4

  3

  6

  3 dismissed (972/85, 9250-1/85), 3 withdrawn (8984/85, 13947-8/85)

  1986

  4

  1

  1

  agreement reached (1398/86)

  1987

  3

  1

  4

  1 upheld (13805/87), 1 no award (36051/ 86), 2 withdrawn (205/87, 18960/87)

  1988

  4

  2

  3

  withdrawn (17958/88, 18177/88, 17090/88)

  1989

  9

  3

  14

  4 upheld (3901/89, 8887/89, 13301/89, 16897/89), 2 dismissed (732-3/89) 6 withdrawn (24688/88, 22896/88, 5513/ 89, S/1551/89, 4126/89, 7167/89), 2 agreement reached (1847/88, 15877/89)

  1990

  5

  6

  5

  3 dismissed (23523/89, 10462/90, 21213/ 90), 2 withdrawn (1190/90, 8398/90)

  1991

  7

  7

  4

  2 withdrawn (33497/90, 17831/91), 1 agreement reached (26692/90), 1 dismissed (26784/91)

  19925

  4

  1

  4

  withdrawn (43283/91, 48365/91, 34584/91, 34593/91)

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether she will establish an inquiry into the recruitment and promotion activities within the Health and Safety Executive.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Employment, has no plans to establish an inquiry into the recruitment and promotion activities within the Health and Safety Executive.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will place in the Library copies of the Health and Safety Executive's field operations division plan of work for 1993–94 and beyond.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Divisional plans of work are internal documents which are discussed with the executive and are used to prepare the Health and Safety Commission's plan of work.

  The commission's plan of work for 1993-94 will be submitted to the Secretary of State for approval and published in spring. A copy will as usual be placed in the Library.
  244
  industrial tribunal cases in England, Scotland and Wales under these regulations gives information on the outcome of applications which is readily available.

  Training and Enterprise Councils
  Ms. Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans she has to allow the TECs more flexibility within their training budgets so that they can pay higher unit placement rates to the providers of quality engineering training.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  TECs have the flexibility to allocate funds to their training providers in the light of local labour market conditions and needs. A TEC is free to take into consideration the differing costs of training in the various occupational categories when determining the payment arrangements for each of its training providers.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment on how many occasions since 1979 her Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if she will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Employment Department group has not engaged private detective agencies since 1979.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Citizens Charter
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to publish new citizens charters; and if he will list the areas to be covered.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The citizens charter is a programme of continuous improvement. As targets are set and met, they will be reviewed and improved upon. We will also Look to extend service standards into new areas of public service. We plan in the next year to publish a courts charter for England and Wales; a further and higher education charter; a revised parents charter, including improved standards of service; a revised Customs and Excise travellers charter; and heritage charters, to be issued by Cadw, Welsh Historic Monuments and Historic Scotland.

  The patients charter will be extended to cover primary health care.

  In addition, the following charters will be published in Northern Ireland: a bus passengers charter; Royal Ulster Constabulary charter; and a Northern Ireland courts service charter.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list all those public bodies that have published charters as part of the citizens charter initiative.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The following public bodies have published charters as part of the citizens charter initiative:

  British Rail

  Passengers charter

  Her Majesty's Customs and Excise

  Taxpayers charter Travellers charter

  Department for Education

  Parents charter

  Employment Department

  Redundancy payments service charter

  Employment Service

  Jobseekers charter

  Department of the Environment

  Tenants charter

  Department of Health

  Patients charter

  Inland Revenue

  Taxpayers charter

  London Underground

  London Underground customers charter

  Social Security Benefits Agency

  Benefits Agency customer charter

  Social Security Contributions Agency

  Contributors charter Employers charter

  Northern Ireland

  Department of Finance and Personnel, Northern Ireland

  Northern Ireland charter

  Department of Education for Northern Ireland

  Northern Ireland parents charter

  Department of Health and Social Services, Northern Ireland

  Northern Ireland charter for patients and clients

  Northern Ireland Housing Executive

  Northern Ireland tenants charter

  Northern Ireland Railways

  Northern Ireland railways passengers charter

  Northern Ireland Social Security Agency

  Northern Ireland charter for Social Security Agency clients

  Training and Employment Agency Northern Ireland

  Northern Ireland Training and Employment Agency customers charter

  246

  Scotland

  Scottish Office

  Justice charter for Scotland

  Parents charter for Scotland

  Patients charter for Scotland

  Tenants charter for Scotland

  Wales

  Welsh Office

  Parents charter for Wales

  Patients charter for Wales

  Tenants charter for Wales

  Charter Marks
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what account is taken of whether local authorities have had their community charge capped in deciding on their eligibility to apply for a charter mark award.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The charter mark scheme is open to public sector organisations. The only criteria for eligibility are that the organisation provides a direct service to the public, and is managerially and financially autonomous.

  Competitive Tendering
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government in respect of requiring there to be an in-house bid against which private sector bids will have to compete in any market test of central Government functions or services.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  In-house staff are encouraged to put forward bids for market tested functions on the same basis and in the same time scale as private sector contractors. Managers are given as much flexibility as possible to propose value for money improvements in service delivery. Internal and external bids are assessed against the same criteria.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list those agencies in his Department which are being considered for privatisation or contractorisation.

  Agencies
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, if he will place in the Library a copy of the health and safety policy of each of the agencies within his Department.

  Mr. Robert Jackson
  The chief executives of the Central Office of Information, the Civil Service College, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, the Occupational Health Service and the Recruitment and Assessment Services Agency are responsible for health and safety policy within their agencies.

  I am placing in the Library copies of the health and safety policies applying in the Central Office of Information and Her Majesty's Stationery Office. I am also placing in the Library a copy of volumn IV of the Cabinet Office staff handbook, which contains the Cabinet Office's health and safety policy. This will continue to apply in the Civil Service College, the Occupational Health Service and the Recruitment and Assessment Services Agency until separate health and safety policies have been developed and put in place.

  Mr. Robert Jackson
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire,
  247
  South-East (Mr. Paice) on 17 November Official Report, column 104. The procedures I outlined there will apply to the five executive agencies for which I am responsible—the Central Office of Information, the Civil Service College, HMSO, the Occupational Health Service and Recruitment and Assessment Services. An announcement about the future status of each agency will be made at the appropriate time.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list those executive agencies that have amended their original framework documents since their establishment.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 19 June 1992,Official Report, column 685. While this is primarily a matter for departmental Ministers and chief executives of the agencies for which they are responsible, I understand that the following agencies have had their original framework documents amended: Companies House; the Patent Office; the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre; and the Vehicle Inspectorate.

DEFENCE

  Chemical Weapons Convention
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what will be the function of the Porton Down chemical defence establishment once the chemical weapons convention has been signed and ratified; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  After ratification of the chemical weapons convention the chemical and biological defence establishment, Porton Down will still need to carry out research and development in order to provide effective protection measures for the United Kingdom armed forces against the threat of chemical or biological weapons. This defensive capability will complement the deterrent effect of the convention. In this field as well as in its continuing activities in support of chemical and biological arms control, the establishment will contribute to our security in a period when large quantities of chemical weapons will be awaiting destruction and some countries of concern may still be outside the regime.

  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which facility will be chosen as the United Kingdom's single small-scale facility under the terms of the chemical weapons convention.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  We expect this to be a specialist laboratory and associated storage buildings at the chemical and biological defence establishment at Porton Down.

  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which chemicals or chemical precursors that are subject to export controls exercised by the Australia Group are not covered by the present text of the chemical weapons convention.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The text of the chemical weapons convention prohibits chemical weapons. This includes all toxic chemicals and their precursors unless intended, and in appropriate types and quantities, for permitted purposes. The convention therefore covers all the toxic 248
  chemical precursors subject to Australia group controls, although 18 of these chemicals are not subject to the declaration requirements and monitoring regime of the chemical weapons convention.

  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the entire site of the United Kingdom's chosen single small-scale facility will be subject to safeguards under the terms of the chemical weapons convention.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  This is a matter delegated to the chemical and biological defence establishment under its framework document. I have therefore asked the chief executive to reply direct to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Dr. Graham S. Pearson to Mr. Calum Macdonald, dated 18 November 1992.
  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking if the entire site of the United Kingdom's chosen single small-scale facility will be subject to safeguards under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention (Question 20, Order Paper 10 November 1992) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.
  2. The single small-scale facility to be declared under the Chemical Weapons Convention is likely to be a small area within the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment in which small quantities of Schedule 1 chemicals are prepared and stored. These small amounts of Schedule 1 chemicals are required to enable the United Kingdom to carry out its programme to provide effective protective measure for members of the United Kingdom Armed Forces against the threat that they may be exposed to chemical or biological weapons.
  3. The area within the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment declared as the United Kingdom's small-scale facility will be subject to inspection and monitoring in accordance with the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention concerning such small-scale facilities.
  4. The remainder of the site of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, as for any other site within the United Kingdom, will be liable to inspection under other provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

  Royal Naval Reserve
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will make a statement on the future viability of the Royal Naval Reserve;

  (2) if he will make it his policy that the Royal Naval Reserve will continue to have a seagoing role.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) on 13 November 1992 at column 1007–08.

  Reserve Forces
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library a copy of his Department's tri-service study of the reserves which was completed in February.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The main conclusions and proposals of the Regular/Reserve Force mix study were published in March 1992 in the open government document "The Future of Britain's Reserve Forces", a copy of which is in the Library of the House. Only those elements of the study that are classified on security grounds were not included in the open government document.

  Agencies
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library a copy of the health and safety policy of each of the agencies within his Department.

  Mr. Aitken
  My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence will write to the hon. Gentleman.

  RAF Welford
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what proportion of the munitions currently stored at RAF Welford are now unstable;

  (2) what studies have been undertaken regarding the safe disposal of unstable munitions at RAF Welford.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  There are no unstable munitions at RAF Welford. The need for studies into their safe disposal does not therefore arise.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future use of RAF Welford.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The United States Department of Defense has already announced plans for the partial return of RAF Welford to MOD control in December 1992. The MOD is considering whether there is a continuing defence requirement for that part of the site which is being returned. No decisions have yet been taken.

  RNSD Eaglescliffe
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will set out the differences between budget and outturn figures in each of the last five years for MEE and MES expenditure mentioned in annex A, paragraph 17, page A2 of the consultation paper on the future of RNSD Eaglescliffe;

  (2) if he will specify the tasks to be undertaken by the 15 additional managerial staff grade liaison posts mentioned in annex A, paragraph 16, page A4 of the consultation document on the future of RNSD Eaglescliffe.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I will write to the hon. Member.

  Bosnia
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many British helicopter gunships have been deployed to protect United Kingdom forces escorting those supplying humanitarian relief, by road or air, in Bosnia; and how many British fighter aircraft have been deployed to Bosnia to monitor air exclusion zones and other duties.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No helicopter gunships or fighter aircraft have been deployed to Bosnia in support of the United Kingdom contingent or any other element of the UN protection force. The United Kingdom is taking part in surveillance and monitoring activity by the NATO airborne early warning force which is supporting the naval monitoring operation in the Adriatic and is monitoring compliance with Security Council resolution 781.

  Iraq
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the information available to him from aircraft surveillance about the deployment and operations of Iraqi ground forces in southern Iraq.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  RAF Tornado operations, in association with those of our coalition partners, confirm that the Iraqi army is deployed in considerable strength in southern Iraq. There is some indication of small-scale activity around the periphery of the marshlands but no evidence of any renewal of major offensive operations.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what has been the cost to the United Kingdom so far of monitoring Iraqi compliance with United Nations resolution 688; and whether the United Kingdom will receive any financial assistance to cover the costs of monitoring Iraqi compliance with United Nations resolution 688.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  So far the United Kingdom has committed additional expenditure of some £11 million on operations to ensure Iraqi compliance with United Nations resolution 688. At present the United Kingdom has not received any financial assistance with these costs.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if there have been any occasions when Iraqi anti-aircraft radar has locked on to RAF flights operating over southern Iraq under United Nations resolutions.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  It is not our practice to release operational details of this sort.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his assessment of the source of the technology used by the Iraqi defence industry to manufacture artillery shells.

  Mr. Aitken
  On the evidence available over 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, provided Iraq with dual-use technology which could have been used in the manufacture of artillery or other weapons systems.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many sorties have been flown by RAF(a) Tornado GR1, (b) Tornado GR1a and (c) VC-10 aircraft monitoring Iraqi compliance with United Nations resolution 688 since 27 August.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Between 27 August 1992 and 16 November 1992 the RAF has flown the following numbers of sorties in respect of the no-fly zone over Iraq south of 32 degrees:

  Sorties

  (a) Tornado GR1

  87

  (b) Tornado GR1a

  47

  (c) VC-10

  85

  Matrix Churchill
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessments have been made by his Department of the effect that the activities of the Matrix Churchill company have had on the development of the Iraqi defence industry.
  251
  Mr. Aitken
  My Department has studied the Iraqi defence industry and its military procurement activity. No specific study, however, has been undertaken on the effect of the activities of individual United Kingdom companies on the development of the Iraqi defence industry.

  Helicopters
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 26 October,Official Report, column 510, if he expects to place further orders for (a) EH101, (b) Lynx and (c) Sea King helicopters; when he expects those orders to be placed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  The EH101 is being considered as an option for the support helicopter role, though we will not be in a position to take a procurement decision for some time. We have no plans to place further orders for Lynx. I announced the award of a contract for six new Sea King SAR helicopters on 28 October 1992,Official Report, column 710. The delivery date for these is 1995. There are no current plans for further Sea King orders.

  Overseas Operations
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answers of 28 October,Official Report, columns 711–12, if he will explain the circumstances under which the Foreign Office subsequently refunds the costs of overseas operations incurred by his Department; and how this related to the costs of Operation Granby.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  In accordance with established inter-departmental arrangements, MOD seeks the reimbursement of costs from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for overseas military operations which support United Nations peacekeeping activities. Where operational assistance is provided to friendly countries, as in the case of Operation Granby, the cost falls to MOD.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what use his Department has made of private detectives in each of the last five years; at what cost; and if he will list the firms involved.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Department uses one firm of process servers, who are also private detectives, but only in connection with the serving of legal documents. These documents are statutory demands and bankruptcy petitions for unpaid national insurance contributions and overpayments of benefit. The name of the firm used is being withheld for reasons of commercial confidence. Such information as is available is in the table.

  Times used

  Cost £

  1991

  2,289

  111,837·69

  1990

  1,555

  68,002·97

  1989

  920

  45,115·24

  Domiciliary Care
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will uprate benefits made available to purchase domiciliary care, to take VAT into account.

  Mr. Burt
  There are no benefits that are specifically to cover the cost of domiciliary care: it is up to the individual to decide how best to spend any benefit he receives. However, attendance allowance and the care components of disability living allowance are available to people who need personal care. Similarly, the severe disability premium in income support, housing benefit and community charge benefit is available to severely disabled people who live alone and who are, therefore, likely to need to buy in care. These benefits are uprated regularly and the indices used reflect the movement in prices, inclusive of VAT.

  Invalid Care Allowance
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the cost of(a) raising the level of invalid care allowance to that of (i) retirement pension, (ii) unemployment benefit and (iii) two thirds national average earnings, (b)(i) increasing the earnings limit for invalid care allowance to the lower earnings limit for paying national insurance contributions and (ii) abolishing the earnings limit for invalid care allowance altogether and (c) continuing payment of invalid care allowance to carers for a period of (i) eight weeks and (ii) six months after they have finished caring.

  Mr. Scott
  The information requested is in the tables.

  £ million

  a. The estimated cost of raising the level of invalid care allowance in 1992–93 to that of

  i. Retirement pension

  156

  ii. Unemployment benefit

  79

  iii. two thirds national average earnings

  1,284

  c. The estimated cost of paying invalid care allowance after caring ceases for

  i. eight weeks

  8·2

  ii. six months

  26·5

  Note: Data are not available on the number of potential claimants with earnings above the current earnings limit.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the cost of(a) extending entitlement to the carer premium in income support to carers over 65 years who could establish underlying entitlement to invalid care allowance, (b) extending entitlement to invalid care allowance to those caring for a person who receives the lower rate care component of the disability living allowance and (c) restoring credits for short-term national insurance benefits through invalid care allowance.

  Mr. Scott
  Entitlement to the carer premium in income support depends upon entitlement to invalid care allowance which cannot be established after age 65. Data are not available to estimate the cost of extending the carer premium in this way.

  The estimated cost of extending entitlement to invalid care allowance to those caring for a person who receives the lower rate component of disability living allowance

  253
  would depend on the number of such beneficiaries who receive at least 35 hours care per week. The estimated maximum cost of this measure would be around £130 million in 1992–93.

  Depending on eligibility criteria, credits already available to invalid care allowance recipients enable them to qualify for certain short-term national insurance benefits.

  War Pensions
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when, following the judgment on 10 July in Regina v Secretary of State ex parte Edwards, he will revise the entitlement of those qualified by virtue of a diagnosis similar to or the same as in that case; how many claimants will be entitled to arrears of pension as a result of this revision and at what total cost; what steps his Department will take to inform claimants or potential claimants of their revised entitlement; and how soon arrears will be paid to those entitled to receive them.

  Miss Widdecombe
  A letter is to be sent to members of the CENTRAL Advisory Committee on War Pensions asking them to advise ex-service men and women that arrears may be payable to those awarded a war pension as a result of schizophrenia. Cases will he reviewed and any arrears paid once the War Pensions Directorate is made aware of appropriate cases. Information on the number of claimants who will benefit is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security on how many occasions since 1979 his Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if he will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Department has not since 1979 engaged any private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens.

  Benefits Agency, Lancashire
  Ms. Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to re-establish a Benefits Agency service in Darwen, Lancashire.

  Mr. Burt
  The provision of service outlets is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member and a copy will be placed in the Library.

  Letter from Michael Bichard to Ms. Janet Anderson, dated 17 November 1992:

  As Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency, it is my responsibility to answer questions about relevant operational matters. I am therefore replying to the points raised in your recent Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security concerning plans to re-establish a Benefits Agency service in Darwen, Lancashire.
  Surveys show that, increasingly, many of our customers prefer not to visit offices for advice or information but to telephone or write instead. However, a significant number of customers still feel happier conducting their business in
  254
  person. In Districts covering large geographical areas travelling to the relevant main office may be difficult. For this reason some Districts offer limited caller facilities at outstations, giving customers in more remote parts easier access to face to face advice and information.
  Darwen falls in the area covered by the Benefits Agency's. Blackburn and Accrington District. I should explain that a DHSS (as it then was) caller outstation existed in Darwen up to 1985, when lack of demand for the facility led to its closure.
  Recent planning exercises by the Blackburn and Accrington District, which involved consulting customers and other interested parties, showed that customer service could be improved by the re-establishment of an outstation in Darwen. Proposals for this have now been incorporated in the District's strategic plan for the next three years. There are., as you will appreciate, competing calls on a limited capital expenditure budget, and regrettably there can be no guarantee that the proposal will come to fruition in the next year or two. An alternative may be to use space in the Employment Services' office in Darwen, and this option is being looked at.
  What I can say is that management and staff within the District are fully committed to the Agency's core value of Customer Service, and are determined to provide the service their customers want wherever possible. I hope you find this reply helpful. A copy of this reply will appear in the Official Report. Copies are also being placed in the Library.

  Community Care
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 11 November,Official Report, columns 815–16, how much community care grant aid for child support remains available at (a) Sheffield West and (b) Sheffield East local offices at the latest available date.

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

  Letter from Michael Bichard to Mrs. Helen Jackson, dated 17 November 1992:
  As Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency, it is my responsibility to answer questions about relevant operational matters. I am therefore replying to the points raised in your recent Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about community care grant (CCG) funds in Sheffield West and Sheffield East Districts.
  CCGs are available to people who are receiving Income Support and people who are likely to receive Income Support on discharge from care, to help promote care in the community. This can include help for people to remain in the community rather than to enter institutional or residential care, help for people leaving such care and entering the community, and for families under exceptional pressure.
  Allocations are made annually to each District for CCGs. District allocations are not divided between different categories of applicant. Details of allocations outstanding at the end of each month, for each Benefit Agency District, are placed in the Library.
  I hope you find this reply helpful. A copy of this letter will appear in the Official Report. Copies of this letter are also being placed in the Library.

SCOTLAND

  Electricity Generation
  Mr. Eric Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the electricity generating regime for Scotland.
  255
  Mr. Stewart
  The electricity industry in Scotland has access to electricity generated from diverse sources-coal, nuclear, oil, gas and hydro. In terms of the nuclear energy agreement, Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro-Electric purchase for 15 years all the output from Scottish Nuclear Ltd., which remains in the public sector.

  Radioactive Waste
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the long-term storage of waste radioactive material from sites in Scotland.

  Sir Hector Monro
  There is no long-term storage of radioactive waste material in Scotland from sites in Scotland. Some Scottish generated radioactive waste is transported to England for interim storage and final disposal. Quantities of such waste are also stored at various Scottish nuclear sites on an interim basis pending ultimate disposal.

  Water
  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he has taken to consult the general public with regard to water privatisation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lang
  I refer the hon. Member to the statement on the future of the water and sewerage services in Scotland I made yesterday.

  Mr. Chisholm
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on his reasons for considering water privatisation in Scotland.

  Mr. Lang
  I refer the hon. Member to the statement I made yesterday.

  (a) Capital expenditure on water supply

  £ thousand

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  1,147

  1,285

  879

  966

  1,618

  2,089

  1991–92 prices

  1,653

  1,792

  1,163

  1,192

  1,873

  2,235

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  2,335

  2,531

  1,902

  2,347

  3,307

  2,377

  1991–92 prices

  3,364

  3,531

  2,516

  2,896

  3,828

  2,543

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  1,477

  2,167

  1,896

  1,662

  3,426

  3,612

  1991–92 prices

  2,128

  3,023

  2,508

  2,051

  3,966

  3,865

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  3,067

  2,803

  3,286

  3,417

  3,266

  3,449

  1991–92 prices

  4,419

  3,910

  4,347

  4,216

  3,781

  3,690

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  6,754

  6,651

  6,643

  8,974

  8,393

  11,528

  1991–92 prices

  9,731

  9,278

  8,789

  11,072

  12,335

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  1,896

  1,515

  2,657

  3,364

  2,880

  3,633

  1991–92 prices

  2,732

  2,113

  3,515

  4,151

  3,334

  3,887

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  5,246

  6,079

  7,205

  7,722

  7,269

  6,656

  1991–92 prices

  7,558

  8,480

  9,532

  9,528

  8,415

  7,122

  256
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the most recent estimate of the total level of capital investment required to meet the EC municipal waste water treatment directive by each water authority.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]The estimated cost of capital investment required to meet the EC urban waste water treatment directive in each regional and islands council area is given in the table:

  Authority

  Estimated expenditure1 (£ thousand)

  Borders

  31,410

  Central

  13,299

  Dumfries and Galloway

  52,140

  FIFE

  102,872

  Grampian

  219,330

  Highland

  81,053

  Lothian

  153,748

  Strathclyde

  421,704

  Tayside

  211,566

  Orkney

  17,550

  Shetland

  7,771

  Western Isles

  12,000

  Scotland Total

  1,324,443

  1 Figures based on authorities' estimates, August 1992.

  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the level of capital expenditure on(a) water supply, (b) sewerage and sewerage treatment and (c) total water and sewerage at (i) current prices and (ii) constant 1991–92 prices—using the GDP deflator—for each year since 1980–81 by each water authority and in total for Scotland.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]Capital expenditure for water and sewerage services by regional councils for the period 1980–81 to 1991–92 is given in the tables. Separate water and sewerage figures by authority prior to 1985–86 are not available.
  257

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  12,220

  13,534

  15,781

  17,311

  21,147

  23,371

  1991–92 prices

  17,606

  18,879

  20,878

  21,359

  24,480

  25,007

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  3,817

  4,544

  2,462

  3,949

  6,627

  4,520

  1991–92 prices

  5,499

  6,339

  3,257

  4,872

  7,672

  4,836

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  391

  842

  675

  1,042

  804

  1,118

  1991–92 prices

  563

  1,175

  893

  1,286

  931

  1,196

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  338

  285

  125

  540

  596

  228

  1991–92 prices

  487

  398

  165

  666

  690

  244

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  267

  178

  330

  760

  297

  576

  1991–92 prices

  385

  248

  437

  938

  344

  616

  SCOTLAND ToTAL1

  Cash prices

  40,230

  43,920

  45,951

  54,072

  61,991

  66,037

  1991–92 prices

  57,963

  61,265

  60,793

  66,716

  71,763

  70,660

  1 Totals include expenditure by Central Scotland Water Development Board.

  (b) Capital expenditure on sewerage

  £ thousand

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–897

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  1,033

  826

  1,206

  1,453

  1,073

  1,899

  1991–92 prices

  1,488

  1,152

  1,596

  1,793

  1,242

  2,032

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  2,565

  2,838

  2,918

  2,886

  2,254

  5,968

  1991–92 prices

  3,696

  3,959

  3,861

  3,561

  2,609

  6,386

  DUMFRLES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  1,542

  1,338

  1,419

  1,995

  2,063

  2,821

  1991–92 prices

  2,222

  1,866

  1,877

  2,462

  2,388

  3,018

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  2,776

  3,568

  3,823

  4,905

  5,488

  6,724

  1991–92 prices

  4,000

  4,977

  5,058

  6,052

  6,353

  7,195

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  9,815

  10,503

  9,095

  7,772

  5,484

  8,429

  1991–92 prices

  14,141

  14,651

  12,033

  9,589

  6,348

  9,019

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  2,181

  3,346

  2,744

  3,612

  4,424

  5,578

  1991–92 prices

  3,142

  4,667

  3,630

  4,457

  5,121

  5,968

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  7,466

  7,474

  5,727

  6,652

  10,112

  11,110

  1991–92 prices

  10,757

  10,426

  7,577

  8,208

  11,706

  11,888

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  19,955

  21,455

  19,639

  20,563

  27,094

  27,060

  1991–92 prices

  28,751

  29,928

  25,982

  25,371

  31,365

  28,954

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  5,094

  6,003

  4,224

  5,764

  5,485

  7,257

  1991–92 prices

  7,339

  8,374

  5,588

  7,112

  6,350

  7,765

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  75

  49

  371

  213

  329

  354

  1991–92 prices

  108

  68

  491

  263

  381

  379

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  331

  486

  571

  130

  471

  203

  1991–92 prices

  477

  678

  755

  160

  545

  217

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  481

  1,021

  878

  583

  1,140

  1,096

  1991–92 prices

  693

  1,424

  1,162

  719

  1,320

  1,173

  258 259

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–897

  1989–90

  1990–91

  SCOTLAND

  Cash prices

  53,314

  58,907

  52,615

  56,528

  65,417

  78,499

  1991–92 prices

  76,814

  82,170

  69,609

  69,747

  75,729

  83,994

  (c) Capital expenditure on water and sewerage

  £ thousand

  1980–81

  1981–82

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  1,491

  1,588

  1,809

  1,903

  2,058

  2,180

  2,111

  2,085

  2,418

  2,691

  3,988

  1991-92 prices

  2,925

  2,841

  3,022

  3,038

  3,129

  3,141

  2,945

  2,758

  2,983

  3,115

  4,267

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  3,479

  4,612

  4,666

  5,444

  4,887

  4,900

  5,369

  4,820

  5,233

  5,561

  8,345

  1991–92 prices

  6,826

  8,252

  7,794

  8,691

  7,430

  7,060

  7,489

  6,377

  6,457

  6,438

  8,929

  DUMFRINS AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  1,900

  2,220

  2,212

  2,610

  2,526

  3,019

  3,505

  3,315

  3,657

  5,489

  6,433

  1991–92 prices

  3,728

  3,972

  3,695

  4,166

  3,840

  4,350

  4,889

  4,386

  4,512

  6,354

  6,883

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  5,354

  6,585

  6,691

  5,976

  5,588

  5,843

  6,371

  7,109

  8,322

  8,754

  10,173

  1991–92 prices

  10,505

  11,783

  11,176

  9,540

  8,495

  8,419

  8,887

  9,405

  10,268

  10,134

  10,885

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  10,809

  14,812

  12,802

  15,996

  18,216

  16,569

  17,154

  15,738

  16,746

  13,877

  19,957

  1991–92 prices

  21,208

  26,504

  21,384

  25,535

  27,694

  23,872

  23,928

  20,821

  20,662

  16,064

  21,354

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  4,061

  4,919

  5,229

  6,213

  5,491

  4,077

  4,861

  5,401

  6,976

  7,304

  9,211

  1991–92 prices

  7,968

  8,802

  8,734

  9,918

  8,348

  5,874

  6,781

  7,146

  8,607

  8,455

  9,856

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  17,489

  13,661

  12,104

  13,132

  12,676

  12,712

  13,553

  12,932

  14,374

  17,381

  17,766

  1991–92 prices

  34,315

  24,444

  20,218

  20,963

  19,271

  18,315

  18,905

  17,109

  17,735

  20,121

  19,010

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  32,976

  34,274

  27,238

  33,620

  30,350

  32,175

  34,989

  35,B0

  37,874

  48,241

  50,431

  1991–92 prices

  64,702

  61,327

  45,497

  53,669

  46,141

  46,357

  48,807

  46,861

  46,731

  55,845

  53,961

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  7,078

  6,924

  7,317

  8,104

  10,841

  8,911

  10,547

  6,686

  9,713

  12,111

  11,777

  1991–92 prices

  13,888

  12,389

  12,222

  12,937

  16,482

  12,839

  14,712

  8,846

  11,984

  14,021

  12,601

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  503

  458

  969

  1,041

  1,050

  466

  891

  1,046

  1,255

  1,133

  1,472

  1991–92 prices

  987

  820

  1,619

  1,662

  1,596

  671

  1,243

  1,384

  1,548

  1,312

  1,575

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  1,523

  640

  710

  421

  822

  669

  771

  696

  670

  1,067

  431

  1991–92 prices

  2,988

  1,145

  1,186

  672

  1,250

  964

  1,075

  921

  827

  1,235

  461

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  683

  1,165

  707

  893

  823

  748

  1,199

  1,208

  1,343

  1,437

  1,672

  1991–92 prices

  1,340

  2,085

  1,181

  1,426

  1,251

  1,078

  1,673

  1,598

  1,657

  1,664

  1,789

  SCOTLAND1

  Cash prices

  87,804

  92,104

  83,511

  95,353

  96,242

  93,544

  102,827

  98,566

  110,599

  127,408

  144,536

  1991–92 prices

  172,278

  164,804

  139,491

  152,217

  146,316

  134,777

  143,435

  130,402

  136,462

  147,492

  154,654

  1 Totals include expenditure by CENTRAL SCOTLAND Water Development Board.

  1Totals include expenditure by CENTRAL SCOTLAND water Development Board.

  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for SCOTLAND what was the level of(a) capital debt outstanding and (b) total loan charges for (i) water supply, (ii) sewerage and sewerage treatment and (iii) water and sewerage in each year since 1988 in each water authority in Scotland, and in total for Scotland.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]Details of capital debt and loan charges for water and 260
  sewerage services by regional council and for SCOTLAND from 1988–89 to 1990–91, the lastest figures available, are given in the tables.

  (a) Level of Debt and Loan Charges for Water

  £ thousand

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Level of debt (£ million)

  9·14

  10·10

  11·54

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  1,379

  1,569

  1,804

  261

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  CENTRAL

  Level of debt (£ million)

  21·60

  23·30

  24·31

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  3,064

  3,290

  3,743

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Level of debt (£ million)

  12·73

  15·50

  17·50

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  1,766

  1,933

  2,386

  FIFE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  32·02

  33·50

  35·29

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  4,278

  4,683

  5·011

  GRAMPIAN

  Level of debt (£ million)

  63·00

  67·80

  75·31

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  8,502

  9,099

  9,860

  HIGHLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  16·94

  17·60

  18·36

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  2,579

  2,811

  3,027

  LOTHIAN

  Level of debt (£ million)

  88·81

  93·60

  124·81

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  9,872

  10,446

  12,094

  STRATHCLYDE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  129·49

  142·90

  149·73

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  18,735

  20,352

  22,959

  TAYSIDE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  27·78

  32·80

  34·16

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  4,040

  5,128

  5,827

  ORKNEY

  Level of debt (£ million)

  3·23

  0·00

  0·70

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  368

  91

  0

  SHETLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  0·23

  0·20

  0·00

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  1,075

  101

  95

  WESTERN ISLES

  Level of debt (£ million)

  3·05

  3·20

  3·74

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  616

  782

  339

  SCOTLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  408·03

  440·50

  495·45

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  56,274

  60,285

  67,145

  (b) Level of Debt and Loan Charges for Sewerage

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Level of debt (£ million)

  9·89

  10·56

  11·47

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  1,377

  1,626

  1,931

  CENTRAL

  Level of debt (£ million)

  28·86

  29·55

  34·03

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  4,185

  4,434

  4,820

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Level of debt (£ million)

  13·78

  15·22

  18·39

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  1,850

  2,034

  2,295

  FIFE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  29·15

  32·90

  37·45

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  3,885

  4,495

  5,565

  GRAMPIAN

  Level of debt (£ million)

  81·58

  82·10

  84·00

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  11,308

  11,412

  11,478

  HIGHLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  25·10

  27·52

  30·10

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  3,584

  3,968

  4,446

  Lothian

  262

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Level of debt (£ million)

  95·03

  102·69

  110·20

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  10,936

  12,474

  13,712

  STRATHCLYDE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  228·27

  243·73

  241·88

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  32,007

  33,359

  36,092

  TAYSIDE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  44·75

  48·13

  56·72

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  6,154

  6,950

  7,676

  ORKNEY

  Level of debt (£ million)

  0·00

  0·00

  0·00

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  213

  309

  0

  SHETLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  0·00

  0·00

  0·00

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  2,661

  0

  0

  WESTERN ISLES

  Level of debt (£ million)

  4·81

  3·50

  5·33

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  632

  750

  1,050

  SCOTLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  561·22

  595·92

  627·56

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  78,792

  81,811

  89,065

  (c) Level of debt and loan charges for water and sewerage

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Level of debt (£ million)

  19·03

  20·66

  23·01

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  2,756

  3,195

  3,735

  CENTRAL

  Level of debt (£ million)

  50·46

  52·85

  58·34

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  7,249

  7,724

  8,563

  DUMFRIES ANDN GALLOWAY

  Level of debt (£ million)

  26·51

  30·72

  33·89

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  3,616

  3,967

  4,681

  FIFE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  61·17

  66·40

  72·74

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  8,163

  9,178

  10,576

  GRAMPIAN

  144·58

  149·90

  159·31

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  19,810

  20,511

  21,338

  HIGHLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  42·04

  45·12

  48·46

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  6,163

  6,779

  7,473

  LOTHIAN

  Level of debt (£ million)

  183·4

  196·29

  235·01

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  20,808

  22,920

  25,806

  STRATHCLYDE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  357·77

  386·63

  391·63

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  50,742

  53,711

  59,051

  TAYSIDE

  Level of debt (£ million)

  72·53

  80·93

  90·88

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  10,194

  12,078

  13,503

  ORKNEY

  Level of debt (£ million)

  3·23

  0·00

  0·70

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  581

  400

  0

  SHETLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  0·23

  0·20

  0·00

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  3,736

  101

  95

  WESTERN ISLES

  Level of debt (£ million)

  7·86

  6·70

  9·07

  263

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  1,248

  1,532

  1,389

  SCOTLAND

  Level of debt (£ million)

  969·25

  1,036·42

  1,123·01

  Loan charges (£ thousand)

  135,066

  142,096

  156,210

  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate his Department has made of the value of fixed assets and property held by each water authority.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]Details of water authorities' fixed assets and property are not held Centrally and no estimate of their value is available.

  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the unmeasured(a) water charge, (b) notional sewerage element and (c) total household water charges for each year since 1989–90 in the area covered by each water authority.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]Water and sewerage is not charged on a household basis. Costs are met from the community water charges and, for domestic sewerage, through the community charge arrangements. Estimates of average expenditure on water and sewerage per household in each regional and islands council area are given in the tables.

  (a) Average Expenditure on Water per Household

  £

  Authority

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  Borders

  56·82

  49·16

  52·32

  70·71

  Central

  27·56

  26·73

  27·28

  36·42

  Dumfries

  49·92

  60·27

  56·64

  63·87

  Fife

  31·71

  25·88

  36·30

  43·51

  Grampian

  52·10

  54·57

  67·11

  69·75

  Highland

  31·12

  40·47

  54·29

  59·86

  Lothian

  32·83

  33·92

  45·66

  52·94

  Strathclyde

  34·49

  37·22

  51·29

  58·03

  Tayside

  35·69

  34·57

  42·64

  45·82

  Orkney

  37·13

  44·56

  75·18

  81·99

  Shetland

  11·40

  67·06

  72·49

  76·11

  Western Isles

  61·18

  78·14

  86·19

  97·79

  Scotland

  36·23

  38·49

  49·65

  56·26

  (b) Average Expenditure on Sewerage per Household

  £

  Authority

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  Borders

  49·25

  55·34

  60·33

  66·42

  Central

  41·20

  40·95

  48·05

  48·76

  Dumfries

  38·45

  47·59

  54·34

  60·42

  Fife

  31·39

  30·09

  35·72

  39·28

  Grampian

  41·11

  40·63

  49·65

  47·50

  Highland

  36·25

  38·96

  42·25

  47·58

  Lothian

  37·65

  38·02

  46·37

  46·61

  Strathclyde

  35·45

  37·05

  40·31

  43·50

  Tayside

  34·78

  34·30

  46·03

  48·32

  Orkney

  20·74

  27·45

  29·25

  31·29

  Shetland

  28·57

  26·95

  38·36

  43·66

  Western Isles

  42·33

  56·62

  60·93

  69·64

  Scotland

  36·69

  37·78

  43·65

  45·99

  264

  (c) Average expenditure on water and sewerage combined per household

  £

  Authority

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  Borders

  106·07

  104·50

  112·66

  137·13

  Central

  68·76

  67·68

  75·33

  85·18

  Dumfries

  88·37

  107·86

  110·98

  124·28

  Fife

  63·10

  55·97

  72·02

  82·79

  Grampian

  93·21

  95·20

  116·76

  117·25

  Highland

  67·37

  79·43

  96·53

  107·44

  Lothian

  70·49

  71·94

  92·03

  99·55

  Strathclyde

  69·94

  74·27

  91·60

  101·54

  Tayside

  70·47

  68·87

  88·67

  94·14

  Orkney

  57·87

  72·00

  104·43

  113·28

  Shetland

  39·97

  94·01

  110·85

  119·77

  Western Isles

  103·51

  134·76

  147·13

  167·43

  Scotland

  72·92

  76·26

  93·30

  102·25

  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the level of operating costs for(a) water supply, (b) sewerage and sewerage treatment and (c) total water supply and sewerage treatment at (i) current prices and (ii) constant 1991–92 prices-using the GDP deflator-for each year since 1988–89 in each water authority and in total for Scotland.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]From local authority financial returns, the figures for gross expenditure less loan charges are given in the tables for water and for sewerage for each authority, at cash and constant 1991–92 prices. Figures for 1991–92 are not yet available.

  (a) Operating costs for water

  £ thousand

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  2,227

  4,069

  3,579

  199–92 prices

  2,748

  4,708

  3,830

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  8,485

  9,013

  9,881

  1991–92 prices

  10,470

  10,428

  10,573

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  3,599

  3,971

  4,885

  1991–92 prices

  4,441

  4,594

  5,227

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  5,584

  6,038

  11,415

  1991–92 prices

  6,891

  6,986

  12,214

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  9,982

  10,918

  13,270

  1991–92 prices

  12,318

  12,632

  14,199

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  4,620

  5,079

  6,311

  1991–92 prices

  5,701

  5,876

  6,753

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  12,502

  13,813

  15,468

  1991–92 prices

  15,427

  15,982

  16,551

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  49,315

  54,701

  53,638

  1991–92 prices

  60,855

  63,289

  57,393

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  9,313

  9,997

  11,650

  1991–92 prices

  11,492

  11,567

  12,466

  265

  1988–89

  198–90

  1990–91

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  1,044

  1,086

  1,342

  1991–92 prices

  1,288

  1,257

  1,436

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  965

  1,460

  1,330

  1991–92 prices

  1,191

  1,689

  1,423

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  720

  720

  1,227

  1991–92 prices

  888

  833

  1,313

  SCOTLAND

  Cash prices

  108,356

  120,865

  133,996

  1991–92 prices

  133,711

  139,841

  143,376

  1992–92 prices established using the Domestic Product Deflator.

  (b) Operating costs for sewerage

  £ thousand

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  1,902

  2,178

  3,942

  1991–92 prices

  2,347

  2,520

  4,218

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  4,974

  5,752

  6,632

  1991–92 prices

  6,138

  6,655

  7,096

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  2,279

  2,710

  3,186

  1991–92 prices

  2,812

  3,135

  3,409

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  3,800

  3,685

  6,579

  1991–92 prices

  4,689

  4,264

  7,040

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  6,789

  7,051

  8,329

  1991–92 prices

  8,378

  8,158

  8,912

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  2,456

  2,633

  3,680

  1991–92 prices

  3,031

  3,046

  3,938

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  10,502

  14,683

  13,914

  1991–92 prices

  12,959

  16,988

  14,888

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  33,860

  38,417

  42,233

  1991–92 prices

  41,783

  44,448

  45,189

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  4,086

  4,555

  5,875

  1991–92 prices

  5,042

  5,270

  6,286

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  86

  130

  525

  1991–92 prices

  106

  150

  562

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  115

  545

  401

  1991–92 prices

  142

  631

  429

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  106

  139

  341

  1991–92 prices

  131

  161

  365

  SCOTLAND

  Cash prices

  70,955

  82,478

  95,637

  1991–92 prices

  87,558

  95,427

  102,332

  1991–92 prices established using the Gross Domestic Product Deflator.
  266

  (c) Operating costs for water and sewerage services combined

  £ thousand

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  4,129

  6,247

  7,521

  1991–92 prices

  5,095

  7,228

  8,047

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  13,459

  14,765

  16,513

  1991–92 prices

  16,608

  17,083

  17,669

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  5,878

  6,681

  8,071

  1991–92 prices

  7,253

  7,730

  8,636

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  9,384

  9,723

  17,997

  1991–92 prices

  11,580

  11,250

  19,254

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  16,771

  17,969

  21,599

  1991–92 prices

  20,695

  20,790

  23,111

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  7,076

  7,712

  9,991

  1991–92 prices

  8,732

  8,923

  10,690

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  23,004

  28,496

  29,382

  1991–92 prices

  28,387

  32,970

  31,439

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  83,175

  93,118

  95,871

  1991–92 prices

  102,638

  107,738

  102,582

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  13,399

  14,552

  17,525

  1991–92 prices

  16,534

  16,837

  18,752

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  1,130

  1,216

  1,867

  1991–92 prices

  1,394

  1,407

  1,998

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  1,080

  2,005

  1,731

  1991–92 prices

  1,333

  2,320

  1,852

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  826

  859

  1,568

  1991–92 prices

  1,019

  994

  1,678

  SCOTLAND

  Cash prices

  179,311

  203,343

  229,633

  1991–92 prices

  221,270

  235,268

  245,707

  1991–92 prices established using the Gross Domestic Product Deflator.

  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the level of gross revenue expenditure on(a)water supply, (b) sewerage and sewage treatment and (c) total water and sewerage at (i) current prices and (ii) constant 1991–92 prices—using the GDP deflator—for each year since 1988–89 by each water authority and in total for Scotland.

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]Gross revenue expenditure on water and sewerage services by regional and islands councils and for Scotland from 1988–89 is given in the tables at cash prices and constant 1991–92 prices, for(a) water, (b) sewerage and (c) water and sewerage services combined. Figures for 1991–92 are not yet available.
  267

  (a) Gross revenue expenditure on water

  £ thousand

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  3,606

  5,638

  5,383

  1991–92 prices

  4,449

  6,527

  5,760

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  11,549

  12,303

  13,624

  1991–92 prices

  14,250

  14,242

  14,578

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  5,365

  5,904

  7,271

  1991–92 prices

  6,620

  6,835

  7,780

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  9,862

  10,721

  16,426

  1991–92 prices

  12,168

  12,411

  17,576

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  18,484

  20,017

  23,130

  1991–92 prices

  22,806

  23,172

  24,749

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  7,199

  7,890

  9,338

  1991–92 prices

  8,882

  9,134

  9,992

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  22,374

  24,259

  27,562

  1991–92 prices

  27,606

  28,083

  29,491

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  68,050

  75,053

  76,597

  1991–92 prices

  83,963

  86,884

  81,959

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  13,353

  15,125

  17,477

  1991–92 prices

  16,475

  17,509

  18,700

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  1,412

  1,177

  1,342

  1991–92 prices

  1,742

  1,363

  1,436

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  2,040

  1,561

  1,425

  1991–92 prices

  2,517

  1,807

  1,525

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  1,336

  1,502

  1,566

  1991–92 prices

  1,648

  1,739

  1,676

  SCOTLAND

  Cash prices

  164,630

  181,150

  201,141

  1991–92 prices

  203,127

  209,705

  215,221

  1991–92 prices established using Gross Domestic Product Deflator.

  (b) Gross revenue expenditure on sewerage

  £ thousand

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  3,279

  3,804

  5,873

  1991–92 prices

  4,046

  4,404

  6,284

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  9,519

  10,186

  11,452

  1991–92 prices

  11,301

  11,792

  12,254

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  4,129

  4,744

  5,481

  1991–92 prices

  5,095

  5,492

  5,865

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  7,246

  8,180

  12,144

  1991–92 prices

  8,940

  9,469

  12,994

  268

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  18,097

  18,463

  19,807

  1991–92 prices

  22,329

  21,373

  21,193

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  6,040

  6,601

  8,126

  1991–92 prices

  7,452

  7,642

  8,695

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  21,438

  24,524

  27,626

  1991–92 prices

  26,451

  28,390

  29,560

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  65,867

  71,776

  78,325

  1991–92 prices

  81,2269

  83,090

  83,808

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  10,240

  11,505

  13,551

  1991–92 prices

  12,635

  13,319

  14,500

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  307

  439

  525

  1991–92 prices

  379

  508

  562

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  2,776

  545

  400

  1991–92 prices

  3,425

  631

  428

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  829

  889

  1,391

  1991–92 prices

  1,023

  1,029

  1,488

  SCOTLAND

  Cash prices

  149,407

  161,656

  184,701

  1991–92 prices

  184,345

  187,138

  197,630

  1991–92 prices established using the Gross Domestic Product Deflator.

  (c) Gross revenue expenditure on water and sewerage services combined

  £ thousand

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  BORDERS

  Cash prices

  6,885

  9,442

  11,256

  1991–92 prices

  8,495

  10,930

  12,044

  CENTRAL

  Cash prices

  20,708

  22,489

  25,076

  1991–92 prices

  25,550

  26,034

  26,831

  DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

  Cash prices

  9,494

  10,648

  12,752

  1991–92 prices

  11,714

  12,326

  13,645

  FIFE

  Cash prices

  17,108

  18,901

  28,570

  1991–92 prices

  21,109

  21,880

  30,570

  GRAMPIAN

  Cash prices

  36,581

  38,480

  42,937

  1991–92 prices

  45,135

  44,546

  45,943

  HIGHLAND

  Cash prices

  13,239

  14,491

  17,464

  1991–92 prices

  16,335

  16,775

  18,686

  LOTHIAN

  Cash prices

  43,812

  48,783

  55,188

  1991–92 prices

  54,057

  56,473

  59,051

  STRATHCLYDE

  Cash prices

  133,917

  146,829

  154,922

  1991–92 prices

  165,232

  169,974

  165,767

  TAYSIDE

  Cash prices

  23,593

  26,630

  31,028

  269

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92 prices

  29,110

  30,828

  33,200

  ORKNEY

  Cash prices

  1,719

  1,616

  1,867

  199–92 prices

  2,121

  1,871

  1,998

  SHETLAND

  Cash prices

  4,816

  2,106

  1,825

  199–92 prices

  5,942

  2,438

  1,953

  WESTERN ISLES

  Cash prices

  2,165

  2,391

  2,957

  199–92 prices

  2,671

  2,768

  3,164

  SCOTLAND

  Cash prices

  314,037

  342,806

  385,842

  1991–92 prices

  387,472

  396,843

  412,851

  1991–92 prices established using the Domestic Product Deflator.

  Assisted Areas
  Ms. Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement concerning the review of assisted area status and its particular implications for the Dunfermline travel-to-work area.

  Mr. Stewart
  The needs and problems of all areas, including Dunfermline, are being carefully considered in the review of assisted area status. Decisions on the designation of particular areas will be informed by an analysis of data on a range of relevant factors and by the responses to the consultation paper which my right hon. Friend issued in June.

  Caithness and Sutherland
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for SCOTLAND if he has plans to visit Caithness and Sutherland to discuss the future of the local economy.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to visit Caithness and Sutherland at present.

  Nimmo Smith/Friel Report
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the Nimmo Smith/Friel report of their review of the cases mentioned in a report to the chief constable of the Lothian and Borders police.

  Mr. Lang
  Mr. Nimmo Smith and Mr. Friel have not as yet completed their investigation nor reported to my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate. It is therefore not appropriate at this stage to make any statement.

  Transport Links
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what measures he proposes for improving transport links between Scotland, the rest of the United Kingdom and the European Community.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend is undertaking a wide-ranging programme of trunk road improvements. The final sections to complete the dual carriageway link to Aberdeen are under construction and most significantly of all Scotland's main road artery south,270
  the A74 is being totally reconstructed to extend the M6 north to Glasgow. My right hon. Friend is also working closely with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to encourage, where appropriate, improved rail, air and, sea links to and from Scotland.

  SCE Higher Grade
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress is being made with plans to replace the SCE higher grade examination.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Howie committee published early this year its thorough and comprehensive review of curriculum and examinations in the upper secondary school. The future of the highers is of the first significance for Scottish education, and our decision to allow a consultation period running to December has been welcomed. We shall decide the way forward thereafter.

  Private Health Insurance
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is his policy with regard to the availability of national health service facilities to private health care insurance companies.

  Mr. Stewart
  My right hon. Friend has delegated authority to health boards and NHS trusts to decide on the number and location of private beds in NHS hospitals. Beds are provided only when NHS services are not prejudiced.

  Sunday Trading
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has recently received about Sunday trading.

  Mr. Stewart
  Since June 1992, my right hon. Friend has received three separate representations from one individual in support of the present arrangements for Sunday trading in Scotland.

  Larne-Stranraer Ferry
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to upgrade road and rail links with Stranraer, to link with the increased use of the Larne-Stranraer ferry crossing.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Scottish Office has already made significant progress in improving the trunk road network in the south west of Scotland. The A75 has been substantially upgraded in recent years. However, to alleviate some remaining operating difficulties further work is planned to improve safety and overtaking opportunities. In conjunction with the Department of Transport, my right hon. Friend and I will continue to ensure that the transport infrastructure needs of the area are fully identified.

  Hospitals
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the public consultation process regarding applications for national health service trust status in the Argyll and Clyde health board area.
  271
  Mr. Stewart
  An application for NHS trust status by the Royal Alexandra hospital, Paisley was issued for public comment by the Argyll and Clyde health board on 24 July. The three-month statutory consultation period expired on 26 October. A report by the health board on the consultation has been received and will be considered carefully by my right hon. Friend.

  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for SCOTLAND what public consultations the local health board has carried out on trust status for Renfrewshire hospitals.

  Mr. Stewart
  Public consultation on an application for NHS trust status by the Royal Alexandra hospital, Paisley was carried out between 24 July and 26 October in accordance with the National Health Service Trusts (Consultation before Establishment) (Scotland) Regulations 1991.

  Local Government Reorganisation
  Mr. Maxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what further discussions he has had with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about his proposals for local government reorganisation.

  Mr. Stewart
  I recently chaired the first meeting of a steering group, comprising the president and other members of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which is to review the internal management of local authorities. My right hon. Friend is also looking forward to receiving, in due course, a response from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to the consultation paper "Shaping the New Councils", which was published on 12 October 1992.

  Fishing Industry
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met representatives of the fishing industry; and if he will make a statement on the current implications for the Scottish fleet of current negotiations on the multi-annual guidance programme.

  Sir Hector Monro
  My right hon. Friend and I meet representatives of the industry as and when required. My last formal meeting with the Scottish Fishermen's Federation was on 1 October. Negotiations on the United Kingdom's multi-annual guidance programme for 1993–96 will clearly have significant implications for the Scottish fleet. It is generally recognised that fishing effort is too high and has to be reduced, but it is equally important that the targets which emerge from these discussions are realistic. Negotiations are continuing on this basis.

  Industrial Output and Employment
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will announce in the near future an initiative to increase industrial output and employment.

  Mr. Stewart
  The measures announced in the autumn statement and my right hon. Friend's specific proposals for Scotland arising out of the public expenditure settlement will benefit the Scottish economy.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many national health service trusts have been approved in Scotland.
  272
  Mr. Stewart
  Three trusts have been approved, two of which are currently operational. A further 14 applications are at various stages of the public consultation process.

  Forestry Commission (Vehicles)
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many vehicles the Forestry Commission operates; how many use unleaded petrol; how many are diesel; and how many vehicles are serviced by the private sector.

  Sir Hector Monro
  The Forestry Commission owns and operates 2,239 road vehicles, of which 50 use unleaded petrol and 1,950 use diesel. The other 239, which use leaded petrol, will be replaced with diesel vehicles over the coming year. About one quarter of the servicing and maintenance of the commission's vehicles is carried out by the private sector.

  Unemployment (Greater Glasgow)
  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many long-term unemployed there are in the Greater Glasgow area.

  Mr. Stewart
  The most recent available figures are those for the quarter ended in July 1992. They show that at that time there were in the Glasgow travel-to-work area 43,757 people—6·5 per cent. of the work force—who had been unemployed for six months or longer, of whom 28,968–4·3 per cent. of the work force—had been unemployed for 12 months or longer.

  Governance
  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will set out a timetable for the completion of his stocktaking exercise on the future governance of Scotland.

  Mr. Lang
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I have given to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway).

  Development Areas
  Mr. Gallie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will announce the outcome of the review on development areas in Scotland.

  Mr. Stewart
  The public consultation paper on the review of the assisted areas map which my right hon. Friend issued in June stated that the Government's aim was to implement a revised map early in 1993, following the necessary clearance with the European Commission. This remains our intention.

  Agencies
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will place in the Library a copy of the health and safety policy of each of the agencies within his Department.

  Mr. Lang
  Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the three agencies in my Department. I have asked the chief executive of each of the agencies to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Dr. R. K. M. Hay to Mr. John McAllion, dated 11 November 1992:
  273
  In response to your request to the Secretary of State for Scotland, I attach a copy of the policy statement for the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency. A copy will also be placed in the Library as requested.

  Letter from Andrew MacLeod to Mr. John Mc.Allion, dated 12 November 1992:
  I have been asked to reply to your written parliamentary question asking the Secretary of State to place in the Library a copy of the health and safety policy of the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency.
  I enclose for your information a copy of our health and safety policy document. I have also arranged for copies to be available in the Library.

  Letter from S. Rosie to Mr. John McAllion, dated 12 November 1992:
  In the Director and Chief Executive's absence on business this week, I am responding to your recent parliamentary question and the Secretary of State's reply of 11 November.
  A copy of Historic Scotland's Health and Safety Policy has been placed in the House of Commons Library. A copy is enclosed for ease of reference. This policy statement, introduced in June 1991, is backed up by a series of Instruction and Information sheets, covering all aspects of health and safety applicable to the Agency. A high priority is attached to health and safety. Our full-time Safety Officer continually monitors performance and implements any changes needed to comply with legislative requirements.

  Fisheries Research Services
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the future organisation of the Fisheries Research Services of the Scottish Office Agriculture and Fisheries Department.

  Mr. Lang
  I have decided that, under the next steps initiative, my officials should initiate formal consultations with the Office of Public Service and Science and Treasury with the view to Fisheries Research Services being a candidate for agency status.

  Construction
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish the details of the £70 million package of construction-related work which he announced following the Chancellor of the Exchequer's "Autumn Statement".

  Mr. Lang
  I have now decided on the £70 million package of measures to be undertaken in the current financial year to assist the Scottish economy.

  I have distributed the resources between programmes to achieve a rapid impact on construction and related industries. As a result, a broad range of programmes is involved, and a large number of bodies in both Central and local government will receive additions to their programmes for the current year.

  I have allocated a total of £20 million for additional expenditure on housing. One component of this package will be £7·5 million for homelessness, which will be made available to local authorities on the basis of proposals I will ask them to submit by 11 December. The balance will be issued to local authorities as additional allocations. My hon. Friend the Minister for education and housing will be announcing the distribution to individual councils when he meets local authority representatives on Monday 23 November.

  This housing package is, of course, in addition to the benefits which Scottish Homes will receive from the repayment of debt which I announced last week.
  274
  The remaining £50 million will be divided among several Central and local government programmes. A total of £9·5 million will be given for special enterprise, economic development and environmental improvement projects to be undertaken by Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the new town development corporations and the urban regeneration initiatives.

  The current year's trunk roads programme will be supplemented by £8·5 million, to allow additional starts on a number of schemes and on highly desirable maintenance and improvement works, including installation of more Central reservation safety barriers. There will be an additional £5 million for local authority roads projects.

  There will be an additional £10·25 million for the health service and social work capital programmes, to be spent on a large number of projects across the country, focusing on upgrading and maintenance works and works to improve energy efficiency. There will be an extra £5 million for capital expenditure on schools, including £400,000 for grant-aided schools not in the local authority sector.

  A further £0·75 million will be used to expand the programme for modernisation of prisons. There will be El million extra for police capital expenditure, and an additional £2·5 million for local authority general services.

  On the water and sewerage programme, I have allocated a further £6·5 million for projects in the current year to service new developments and to make continuing progress with environmental improvements.

  I have also allocated £1 million additional provision for historic buildings repair grant.

  I shall publish details of the individual allocations and projects to be supported as soon as possible.

  This is a package specially designed to secure an immediate impact on the construction industry in all its sectors. It will bring employment opportunities where employment is most needed, and it will help continue the modernisation of Scotland's infrastructure. The work is to be completed by the end of March and I estimate that the package will sustain around 4,000 jobs directly and through suppliers over this period.

  A1
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on his plans for financing the upgrading of the A1 road to dual carriageway standard; and if he will make it his policy that no section of that trunk road will be subject to toll charges.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 12 November 1992]On 7 July this year, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, reaffirmed the Government's conclusion that it would be desirable to dual the whole of the A1 between Edinburgh and Newcastle. Very substantial progress is being made with improvements to the route and our present financial plans account for the dualling of half the length of the A1.

  While the Government are encouraging the private sector to consider viable options for new toll roads, no such proposals have been received for the A1.

  Council House Purchases
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will institute an inquiry into the incidence of proxy purchasing of council houses involving contracts
  275
  between elderly tenants who qualify for the maximum discount under the right-to-buy legislation, and third parties outwith their families who provide the purchase price in return for a legal right to inherit the property; and if he will make a statement on the Government's view of this practice.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 16 November 1992]I would welcome any specific information the hon. Member can provide me with on the details and extent of the practice he describes.

  Nurses
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give figures to show(a) the total cost and (b) the average cost for each nurse of training registered general nurses for each of the past three years.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]This information is not available.

  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish figures to show the numbers of nurses in training, the numbers of nurses who have completed registered general nurse training and the numbers of nurses who have completed registered general nurse

  Final year general basic students—one year later1; by health board year beginning 30 September

  Total final year students

  Status in following year

  In post2

  Further training2

  Not in NHS in Scotland3

  Participation rate4 (per cent.)

  1988

  Scotland

  1,521

  1,061

  47

  413

  72·8

  Argyll and Clyde

  79

  59

  2

  18

  77·2

  Ayrshire and Arran

  55

  49

  0

  6

  89·1

  Borders

  19

  19

  0

  0

  100·0

  Dumfries and Galloway

  38

  23

  1

  14

  63·2

  Fife

  82

  47

  1

  34

  58·5

  Forth Valley

  64

  41

  1

  22

  65·6

  Grampian

  101

  85

  1

  15

  85·1

  Greater Glasgow

  479

  330

  13

  136

  71·6

  Highland

  81

  51

  6

  24

  70·4

  Lanarkshire

  118

  92

  5

  21

  82·2

  Lothian

  294

  183

  10

  101

  65·6

  Orkney

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Shetland

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Tayside

  111

  82

  7

  22

  80·2

  Western Isles

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  1989

  Scotland

  1,654

  1,000

  54

  600

  63£7

  Argyll and Clyde

  81

  51

  1

  29

  64£2

  Ayrshire and Arran

  68

  60

  2

  6

  91£2

  Borders

  16

  10

  0

  6

  62£5

  Dumfries and Galloway

  42

  27

  3

  12

  71£4

  Fife

  89

  45

  1

  43

  51£7

  Forth Valley

  47

  30

  3

  14

  70£2

  Grampian

  133

  92

  4

  37

  72£2

  Greater Glasgow

  446

  248

  7

  193

  56£9

  Highland

  84

  34

  12

  38

  54£8

  Lanarkshire

  115

  74

  2

  39

  66·1

  Lothian

  323

  183

  13

  127

  60·7

  Orkney

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Shetland

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Tayside

  208

  146

  6

  56

  73·1

  Western Isles

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  1990

  Scotland

  1,708

  1,075

  30

  603

  64·7

  276
  training who have not obtained employment, in each of the past three years in Scotland; and if he will provide a breakdown by local health authority.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]Figures showing the numbers of nurses in training in the NHS in Scotland are already contained in the annual publication "Scottish Health Statistics". A total of 1,936 nurses completed registered general nurse training in 1991–92.

  Accurate information on the number of nurses who have completed registered general nurse training and who have sought and have not obtained employment in the NHS in Scotland is not available. The table can give only a broad indication. Those within the definition "not in NHS in Scotland" include, for example, those who have been unable to complete their training within the normal three-year period; those who, having qualified, may have chosen to have a break in service before seeking employment; those who have found employment as a nurse outwith the NHS or in England; those who may have qualified, joined the NHS and left within a census period, and those nurses converting to registered general from enrolled status. Those who qualify and work occasionally in the NHS, for example, bank or agency nurses, also cannot be identified and have therefore been counted with the "not employed" category.
  277

  Total final year students

  Status in following year

  In post2

  Further training2

  Not in NHS in Scotland3

  Participation rate4 (per cent.)

  Argyll and Clyde

  86

  64

  1

  21

  75·6

  Ayrshire and Arran

  63

  57

  0

  6

  90·5

  Borders

  I8

  15

  0

  3

  83·3

  Dumfries and Galloway

  48

  37

  0

  11

  77·1

  Fife

  77

  43

  0

  31

  55·8

  Forth Valley

  72

  43

  5

  24

  66·7

  Grampian

  141

  108

  4

  29

  79·4

  Greater Glasgow

  478

  250

  8

  220

  54·0

  Highland

  82

  53

  3

  26

  68·3

  Lanarkshire

  124

  78

  1

  45

  63·7

  Lothian

  329

  189

  5

  135

  59·0

  Orkney

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Shetland

  l

  0

  0

  1

  0·0

  Tayside

  189

  138

  3

  48

  74·6

  Western Isles

  0

  0

  0

  0

  —

  1 This table excludes those who were still final year students one year later.

  2 Includes staff employed in another speciality and/or health board.

  3 May include agency or bank nurses and those who fail to qualify.

  4 Proportion working in NHS in Scotland or continuing with further training.

  Oral Cancer
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to reverse the current increase in the incidence of oral cancer in Scotland.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 17 November 1992]Cancers and oral and dental health were identified as priorities in "Health Education in Scotland: A National Policy Statement" published in 1991. A major focus of activity in the programmes being developed by the Health Education Board for Scotland, will be on such risk factors as smoking and alcohol.

  The crucial importance of detecting and treating pre-malignant and malignant conditions at an early stage is emphasised in dentists' training, and in a video issued by the Scottish Office Home and Health Department to all dental practices.

  To ensure the highest standard of treatment, a Scottish cancer therapy network is being established. This will facilitate the exchange of information about clinical experience and practice in the treatment of all cancers to ensure that best practice is quickly recognised and spread throughout Scotland.

TRANSPORT

  Shipping
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer of 20 October,Official Report, column 238, what proposals for encouraging the growth of the British and other European fleets he discussed with the Chamber of Shipping.

  Mr. Norris
  Discussions of the non-financial issues have centred on the main areas where we consider there is scope for international action, particularly opening up new opportunities for United Kingdom and Community shipowners in third countries, increasing competitiveness including tackling state aids and consistently enforcing high standards for all shipping.

  Other issues discussed are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the authorisation of the employment of Bray's Detective Agency to investigate peaceful protesters at Twyford Down, Hampshire; when the agency was employed; what is the cost of the contract; and when is it due to end.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The Department has employed Bray's Detective Agency (Southampton) Ltd. to serve papers on people who have trespassed on the Department's land and to photograph trespassers. The agency has been employed from time to time since March this year on an hourly basis at its standad rates, plus expenses. It will continue to be employed on this basis for as long as necessary.

  Car Drivers
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what consideration he is giving to restricting the engine size of cars driven by fully qualified drivers(a) under the age of 22 years or (b) for newly qualified drivers over the age of 21 years for the first year after they have passed their driving test; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what consideration he has given to introducing P plates to denote newly qualified drivers; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) what measures he plans to introduce to reduce deaths and injuries as a result of driving errrors caused by drivers under the age of 22 years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  I have commissioned an extensive research programme into the causes of accidents involving young and inexperienced drivers, with a view to developing a set of measures to reduce their high accident rate. Whether those measures suggested by the hon. Member are included will depend on how their likely effectiveness is assessed by that research.

  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what proportion of road accidents involved cars driven by (a) 17 to 21-year-olds,(b) 22 to 30-year-olds, (c) 31 to

  279
  40-year-olds, (d) 41 to 64-year-olds and (e) over 64-year-olds result in (i) death or (ii) personal injuries; and if he will make a statement;

  Road injury accidents1 and car drivers, by type and severity of accident: Great Britain: 1991

  Number/percentage

  Accidents2

  Car drivers

  Injury accident type

  Number

  Percentage of all injury accidents

  Percentage fatal

  Number

  Percentage in fatal accidents

  Car accidents

  Car driver age3

  17 to 21

  47,816

  20·3

  1·79

  51,017

  1·81

  22 to 30

  74,281

  31·5

  1·58

  83,669

  1·56

  31 to 40

  54,420

  23·1

  1·33

  59,746

  1·33

  41 to 64

  65,312

  27·7

  1·49

  73,125

  15·1

  65 or more

  16,162

  6·9

  2·35

  16,747

  2·33

  All car accidents

  205,097

  87·0

  1·62

  308,007

  1·53

  All accidents

  235,798

  100·0

  1·76

  308,007

  1·53

  1 Details of road accidents where nobody is injured are not collected.

  2 Accidents with more than one car may be in more than one category.

  3 Excluding drivers whose age was not reported.

  Speed Limits
  Ms. Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans his Department has to increase the number of residential areas with 20 mph speed limits.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  It is for local traffic authorities to introduce these zones where appropriate, subject to the consent of the Secretary of State. Consent has been granted to 37 zones and no application has been refused.

  We have issued advice to local authorities on how to establish a 20 mph zone. Such zones are eligible for transport supplementary grant when introduced to address a road accident problem.

HEALTH

  Hospital Appointments
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the latest figures available for waiting lists for hospital appointments in London, by health district; and what are the comparable figures for 1991, 1990 and 1989.

  Mr. Sackville
  I refer the hon. Member to the replies I gave the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) on 29 October 1992 at column 848 and the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley) on 12 November 1992 at column 951.

  Morphine
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action she intends to take to prevent unqualified assistants of general medical practitioners dispensing a concentrated oral solution of morphine sulphate to patients.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The conditions under which a dispensing doctor employs another person to dispense on his behalf is a matter for that doctor. Under the common law, he owes a duty of care to his patients to ensure that he employs a competent dispenser.
  280
  (2)what proportion of road accidents involved cars driven by (a) 17 to 21-year-olds, (b)22 to 30-year-olds, (c) 31 to 40-year-olds, (d) 41 to 64-year-olds and (e)over 64-year-olds.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The information requested is contained in the table.

  London Ambulance Service
  Ms. Jowell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many ambulances the London ambulance service has; how many are less than two years old; and, of the rest, in which years they were registered.

  Mr. Sackville
  The London ambulance service currently has 816 ambulances consisting of 374 accident and emergency ambulances and 442 patient transport vehicles.

  Information on the age of these ambulances is not held Centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact Mr. James Harris, the chairman of the London ambulance service, for details.

  Ms. Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will publish the number of 999 emergency calls received by the London ambulance service for the years 1980 to 1991.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information on emergency calls has been collected Centrally since 1987–88. The available information is given in the table.

  London Ambulance Service—Total number of emergency calls

  Number

  1987–88

  470,348

  1988–89

  451,150

  1989–901

  231,294

  1990–91

  456,695

  1991–922

  472,310

  1 As a result of industrial action in this period, the service was unable to provide a complete year's return. The figure shown represents approximately half the calls received.

  2 Figure is provisional.

  Ms. Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will publish the number of ambulances used by the London ambulance service for the years(a) 1970, (b) 1975, (c) 1980 and (d) each year from 1986 to 1991.

  Mr. Sackville
  This information is not held Centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact Mr. James Harris, the chairman of the London ambulance service, for details.
  281
  Ms. Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health at what level the decision was taken for the purchase of the Leyland DAF vehicles as currently used by the London ambulance service.

  Mr. Sackville
  The decision to purchase these particular vehicles was taken by the London ambulance service board following the evaluation of competitive tenders and field trials.

  Land Sales
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the estimated income from land sales by each regional health authority in England in 1989–90, 1990–91 and 1991–92; and what is the projected income for 1992–93.

  Mr. Sackville
  Total capital receipts, for each regional health authority, from all sales of land and property in 1989–90 and 1990–91 are shown in the table. Provisional estimates of receipts for 1991–92 and projected receipts for 1992–93 are also shown.

  Receipts from disposal of land and property by RHAs

  £ million

  Estimates

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–921

  1992–932

  Northern

  3·7

  2·7

  4·8

  5

  Yorkshire

  11·5

  5·0

  4·1

  2

  Trent

  18·2

  25·6

  4·7

  9

  East Anglia

  4·5

  1·3

  2·7

  2

  North West Thames

  45·2

  17·2

  32·0

  24

  North East Thames

  22·0

  14·0

  21·9

  21

  South East Thames

  21·0

  7·6

  10·1

  20

  South West Thames

  9·0

  15·2

  19·2

  10

  Wessex

  15·5

  5·8

  5·2

  6

  Oxford

  5·1

  9·5

  6·6

  13

  South Western

  14·4

  20·3

  10·9

  18

  West Midlands

  9·0

  4·0

  8·0

  11

  Mersey

  15·0

  14·9

  4·5

  10

  North Western

  7·9

  16·3

  1·0

  5

  1 Provisional.

  2 Projected.

  It should be noted that provisional figures and projections may change.

  Private Detectives
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what use her Department has made of private detectives in each of the last five years; at what cost; and if she will list the firms involved.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health on how many occasions since 1979 her Department has engaged private detective agencies to investigate the activities of British citizens; and if she will list the date and purpose of each investigation.

  Mr. Sackville
  The Department's records do not show any use of private investigators during the period in question.

  Hospital Beds
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the bed complement at(a) the Doncaster royal infirmary and Montagu hospital trust and (b) the
  282
  Doncaster healthcare trust; and how many bed days have been lost since 1 April to date through (i) maintenance, (ii) refurbishment and (iii) lack of financial resources.

  Mr. Sackville
  The average number of beds available daily at the Doncaster royal infirmary and Montagu hospital NHS trust at the end of March 1992 was 886. The remaining information is not held Centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact Mr. C. Bryant, chairman of Doncaster royal infirmary and Montagu hospital NHS trust, and Mr. P. Horsburgh, chairman of Doncaster healthcare NHS trust, for details.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has for the creation of a class of community bed for treatment of patients outside the acute hospital sector; and what proportion of patients in such beds she envisages will be treated by(a) general practitioners, (b) district nurses and (c) other categories of carers; and if she will specify what other categories are contemplated.

  Mr. Sackville
  Community hospitals have played an important role in the national health service for many years. It is for each health authority to determine, through contracts with the providers of health care, the pattern of local services best suited to the needs of the communities they serve.

  Charity Trust Funds
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list by regional and district health authority and health service trusts the charity trust fund balances at 31 March.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Information derived from 1991–92 annual accounts submitted to the Department will be available later in the year.

  Assisted Conception Unit, Walsgrave Hospital
  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what fee the assisted conception unit at Walsgrave hospital pays to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority each time a cycle of treatment is conducted; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Sackville
  Assisted conception units which carry out certain infertility treatments and embryo research have, under the terms of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, to be licensed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. During the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill it was accepted that applicants for licences should pay a significant part of the cost of licensing. The authority is therefore required to raise 50 per cent. of its costs through fees to licensed centres.

  Licences are issued annually, with an initial fee on application of £250 for treatment licences and £100 for research or storage licences. Additional fees are charged to centres based on the numbers of treatment cycles performed in the year prior to application. The current figures are £30 per IVF—in vitro fertilisation—cycle and £7 per donor insemination cycle. Further details of the authority's licensing structure are contained in its annual report, a copy of which is available in the Library.

  Brain-damaged Children
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will review the facilities and services provided for brain-damaged children by health authorities; and if she will issue instructions on minimum standards for the treatment of these children.

  Mr. Yeo
  District health authorities are responsible for assessing the health needs of their residents and purchasing a comprehensive range of services to meet those needs. These include a wide range of services, equipment and support for children with brain damage including child health surveillance, primary care, therapy services, wheelchairs and other equipment. Health authorities have a duty to ensure that they obtain the highest quality and most cost-effective care for all their residents, taking into account appropriate professional advice. We also expect them to collaborate with other service providers such as local education authorities and social services departments.

  Waiting Lists
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will publish by health authority and specialty the waiting lists for in-patient and out-patient treatment for 31 March 1992 and for 31 March 1989.

  Mr. Sackville
  Information about waiting times for in-patients by district health authority and specialty, is given in "Hospital Waiting List, In-Patients and Day Cases" published every six months, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Information about waiting times for first out-patient appointment is not collected Centrally. However, all health authorities are required under the patients charter to publish information on the local standards they have set for first out-patient appointments and on performance against targets.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what guidelines she has issued to health authorities regarding the appropriate waiting time for a first opthalmic out-patient appointment;

  (2) if she will introduce into the patients charter a standard for waiting time for a first out-patient appointment.

  Mr. Sackville
  Under the patients charter, health authorities are already setting local standards for waiting times for first out-patient appointments and regional health authorities have been asked to set targets to build on this progress.

  Dentistry
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number and percentage of pupils in Lancashire inspected and re-inspected by the school dental service in 1979 and the most recent year for which figures are available.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The number of inspections and re-inspections by the community dental services in Lancashire in the year ending 31 March 1990 were 81,017 and 11,684 respectively. Comparable figures are not available for 1979. Information relating to the number of pupils in the county of Lancashire is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education.
  284
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the comparative productivity of salaried and contractual dentists; and what information she has on the costs of treatments in each case.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The monitoring of the cost effectiveness and productivity of salaried dentists is the managerial responsibility of those family health services authorities concerned. Data held Centrally are not sufficiently detailed to permit a treatment-by-treatment comparison between general dental practitioners and salaried dentists.

  Health Service, Doncaster
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consideration was given to the appointment of the chairman and non-executive directors of Doncaster healthcare trust to appointing a greater proportion of persons living within Doncaster or south Yorkshire.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The area where chairmen and non-executive directors live is a factor in appointing chairmen and non-executive directors of NHS trusts. Those appointed are expected to live or work in the area served by the trust, or to have connections with it.

  Computers
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will set up a public inquiry into the investment in computers by the national health service since 1986, into their appropriateness and robustness, and into whether the contracts were issued in accordance with standing orders.

  Mr. Sackville
  No. The National Audit Office published a report of its inquiry into the management of national health service computer projects in 1990 and we accepted its recommendations. The Audit Commission plans a further inquiry in 1994. It is for the local general manager to ensure, and auditors to be satisfied, that staff letting contracts comply with standing orders.

  Guidelines
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will issue revised guidelines as to the matters with which health authorities should deal in public.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  There are no current plans to do so.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent guidance she has issued to health authorities on purchasing.

  Mr. Sackville
  The NHS management executive's priorities and planning guidance for 1993-94 issued in July 1992 (EL(92)47), a copy of which is available in the Library, required regions to take a range of actions to develop the purchasing role of health authorities. Over the last two years the NHS management executive has also issued good practice guidance on several purchasing and contracting issues.

  Health Authorities
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what basis annual remuneration for NHS chairmen and non-executive directors was calculated; and what is the minimum time each would be expected to contribute to their duties each month.
  285
  Dr. Mawhinney
  The remuneration of health authority and trust chairmen is determined by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury; the level of remuneration depends on a number of factors including the level of duties and responsibilities. Chairmen are expected to spend between two and a half and three and a half days per week on their duties, depending on the nature of the authority or trust. Non-executive members and directors are expected to spend two to three days per month on their duties.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what disciplinary action has been taken against(a) officers, (b) chairmen, (c) members and (d) non-executive directors in respect of the recent contractural problems in Wessex and the West Midlands regional health authorities.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Disciplinary action taken against officers is a matter for the regional health authorities concerned. Formal disciplinary procedures are not appropriate for chairmen, members or non-executive directors as they are not NHS employees.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans there are to change the nature or extent of the current duties and responsibilities of(a) the Doncaster health authority and (b) the Doncaster family health services authority.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  This is a matter for Trent regional health authority. The hon. Member may wish to contact Sir Michael Carlisle, the chairman of the authority, for details.

  Food Supplements
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the proposals for the restriction on the sale of food supplements manufactured by Foresight.

  Mr. Sackville
  My right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food received comments from Foresight earlier this year on the Government's proposal for an EC framework directive on dietary supplements.

  A proposal for a draft directive has not yet been made by the EC Commission.

  Hospital Trusts
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether she will permit those hospital trusts approved in the most recent wave to alter the management structure submitted in the application before the trusts begin operating on 1 April 1993.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  National health service trusts are free to create their own management structures. Before 1 April 1993 third wave trusts may appoint staff and do anything reasonably necessary to prepare for their operational'. date.

  Manchester Royal Infirmary
  Ms. Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will increase the funding of the Manchester royal infirmary for renal services.

  Mr. Sackville
  Renal services at Manchester royal infirmary are funded by North Western regional health authority. The hon. Member may wish to contact Sir Bruce Martin, the chairman of the authority, for details.
  286
  Ms. Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients(a) at Manchester royal infirmary, (b) in the North West regional health authority and (c) in England are currently on the waiting list for (i) renal disconnect systems and (ii) all renal treatment.

  Mr. Sackville
  Waiting time information by individual procedure is not collected Centrally. However, patients who are suffering from end stage renal failure are not placed on waiting lists but are treated immediately by means of haemo-dialysis or kidney transplant.

  Ms. Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients at the Manchester royal infirmary have been treated under(a) conventional and (b) renal disconnect systems in each of the past three years.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information is not collected Centrally. Manchester royal infirmary is part of the Central Manchester hospitals and community care NHS trust. The hon. Member may wish to contact Mr. K. Collis, chairman of the trust, for details.

  Expenditure
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what was the level of capital spending on hospital and community health services in net terms after deducting proceeds from land and property sales, in each year since 1974–75(a) in cash terms, (b) adjusted using the gross domestic product deflator and (c) adjusted using the relevant index of NHS prices;

  (2) what was the level of (a) total NHS expenditure, (b) current expenditure on the hospital and community health services, (c) capital expenditure on the hospital and community health services, (d) expenditure on the family practitioner services, (e) expenditure on Centrally funded NHS services and (f) expenditure on personal social services, in each year since 1974–75, (i) in cash terms, (ii) adjusted using the relevant pay and prices index and (iii) adjusted using the gross domestic product deflator.

  Mr. Sackville
  [holding answer 11 November 1992]The information requested is given in the table. In addition, a net increase in 1993–94 of £1·066 million for the national health service as a whole was announced in the "Autumn Statement"—a real increase of 1 per cent. over 1992–93.

  NHS expenditure: gross (excludes trust debt remuneration)

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by the GDP 1990–91 prices

  Adjusted for input unit cost 1990–91 prices

  1974–75

  3,426

  15,577

  18,194

  1975–76

  4,511

  16,339

  18,599

  1976–77

  5,149

  16,428

  18,771

  1977–78

  5,689

  15,965

  19,044

  1978–79

  6,525

  16,514

  19,767

  1979–80

  7,755

  16,821

  19,578

  1980–81

  10,103

  18,520

  20,131

  1981–82

  11,329

  18,938

  20,805

  1982–83

  12,353

  19,277

  21,281

  1983–84

  13,114

  19,559

  21,537

  1984–85

  14,102

  20,031

  21,828

  1985–86

  14,923

  20,088

  21,957

  1986–87

  16,044

  20,909

  22,207

  1987–88

  17,653

  21,819

  22,624

  1988–89

  19,599

  22,591

  22,814

  1989–90

  21,112

  22,831

  23,075

  1990–91

  23,632

  23,632

  23,632

  1991–92

  26,739

  24,931

  —

  1992–93

  29,379

  26,276

  —

  287

  HCHS current gross expenditure (excluding trusts' capital expenditure)

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by GDP 1990–91 prices

  Adjusted input unit costs 1990–91 prices

  A

  B

  A

  B

  A

  B

  1974–75

  —

  2,346

  —

  10,667

  —

  12,613

  1975–76

  —

  3,073

  —

  11,131

  —

  12,828

  1976–77

  —

  3,508

  —

  11,192

  —

  12,868

  1977–78

  —

  3,925

  —

  11,015

  —

  13,257

  1978–79

  —

  4,509

  —

  11,412

  —

  13,896

  1979–80

  —

  5,375

  —

  11,659

  —

  13,747

  1980–81

  —

  7,072

  —

  12,964

  —

  14,130

  1981–82

  —

  7,804

  —

  13,045

  —

  14,411

  1982–83

  —

  8,403

  —

  13,113

  —

  14,570

  1983–84

  —

  8,842

  —

  13,187

  —

  14,587

  1984–85

  —

  9,344

  —

  13,272

  —

  14,570

  1985–86

  —

  9,852

  —

  13,262

  —

  14,603

  B:

  1985–86

  10,053

  —

  13,533

  —

  14,901

  —

  1986–87

  10,820

  —

  14,101

  —

  15,003

  —

  1987–88

  11,960

  —

  14,783

  —

  15,284

  —

  1988–89

  13,268

  —

  15,294

  —

  15,331

  —

  1989–90

  14,222

  —

  15,380

  —

  15,459

  —

  1990–91

  16,027

  —

  16,027

  —

  16,027

  —

  1991–92

  18,232

  —

  17.000

  —

  —

  —

  1992–93

  19,818

  —

  17,725

  —

  —

  —

  HCHS capital gross expenditure (including trusts' capital expenditure)

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by GDP 1990–91 prices

  Adjusted input unit costs 1990–91 prices

  A

  B

  A

  B

  A

  B

  1974–75

  —

  242

  —

  1,100

  —

  1,043

  1975–76

  —

  326

  —

  1,181

  —

  1,075

  1976–77

  —

  355

  —

  1,133

  —

  1,046

  1977–78

  —

  314

  —

  881

  —

  809

  1978–79

  —

  365

  —

  924

  —

  842

  1979–80

  —

  402

  —

  872

  —

  768

  1980–81

  —

  552

  —

  1,012

  —

  838

  1981–82

  —

  666

  —

  1,113

  —

  980

  1982–83

  —

  695

  —

  1,085

  —

  1,006

  1983–84

  —

  718

  —

  1,071

  —

  1,019

  1984–85

  —

  810

  —

  1,151

  —

  1,104

  1985–86

  —

  881

  —

  1,186

  —

  1,133

  1985–86

  964

  —

  1,298

  —

  1,240

  —

  1986–87

  1,041

  —

  1,357

  —

  1,275

  —

  1987–88

  1,103

  —

  1,363

  —

  1,286

  —

  1988–89

  1,186

  —

  1,367

  —

  1,307

  —

  1989–90

  1,423

  —

  1,539

  —

  1,436

  —

  1990–91

  1,551

  —

  1,551

  —

  1,551

  —

  1991–92

  1,635

  —

  1,524

  —

  —

  —

  1992–93

  2,001

  —

  1,790

  —

  —

  —

  FHS gross expenditure

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by GDP 1990–91 prices

  Adjusted input unit costs 1990–91 prices

  A

  B

  A

  B

  A

  B

  1974–75

  —

  697

  —

  3,169

  —

  3,736

  1975–76

  —

  925

  —

  3,350

  —

  3,862

  1976–77

  —

  1,078

  —

  3,439

  —

  4,047

  1977–78

  —

  1,220

  —

  3,424

  —

  4,218

  1978–79

  —

  1,473

  —

  3,728

  —

  4,499

  1979–80

  —

  1,731

  —

  3,755

  —

  4,469

  1980–81

  —

  2,173

  —

  3,983

  —

  4,583

  1981–82

  —

  2,504

  —

  4,186

  —

  4,767

  1982–83

  —

  2,894

  —

  4,516

  —

  5,087

  1983–84

  —

  3,112

  —

  4,641

  —

  5,205

  288 289

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by GDP 1990–91 prices

  Adjusted input unit costs 1990–91 prices

  A

  B

  A

  B

  A

  B

  1984–85

  —

  3,432

  —

  4,875

  —

  5,349

  1985–86

  —

  3,615

  —

  4,866

  —

  5,366

  B:

  1985–86

  3,376

  —

  4,544

  —

  5,011

  —

  1986–87

  3,631

  —

  4,732

  —

  5,123

  —

  1987–88

  4,019

  —

  4,967

  —

  5,300

  1988–89

  4,554

  —

  5,249

  —

  5,474

  —

  1988–90

  4,811

  —

  5,203

  —

  5,451

  —

  1990–91

  5,304

  5,304

  —

  5,304

  1991–92

  6,013

  —

  5,607

  —

  —

  —

  1992–93

  6,458

  —

  5,776

  —

  —

  —

  Central health and miscellaneous services gross expenditure

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by the GDP 1990–91 prices

  1987–88

  404

  499

  1988–89

  411

  474

  1989–90

  464

  5(12

  1990–91

  506

  506

  1991–92

  618

  576

  1992–93

  633

  566

  PSS expenditure

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by GDP deflator

  Adjusted for input unit cost

  1974–75

  602

  3,062

  3,262

  1975–76

  798

  3,233

  3,595

  1976–77

  90S

  3,230

  3,599

  HCHS capital net expenditure (including trusts1 capital expenditure)

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by GDP 1990–91 prices

  Adjusted input unit costs 1990–91 prices

  A

  B

  A

  B

  A

  B

  1974–75

  —

  242

  —

  1,100

  —

  1,043

  1975–76

  —

  525

  —

  1,181

  —

  1,075

  1976–77

  —

  355

  —

  1,133

  —

  1,046

  1977–78

  —

  314

  —

  881

  —

  809

  1978–79

  —

  357

  —

  904

  —

  824

  1979–80

  —

  392

  —

  850

  —

  749

  1980–81

  —

  536

  —

  983

  —

  814

  1981–82

  —

  645

  —

  1,080

  —

  950

  1982–83

  —

  675

  —

  1,055

  —

  979

  1983–84

  —

  685

  —

  1,022

  —

  972

  1984–85

  —

  760

  —

  1,080

  —

  1,035

  1985–86

  —

  796

  —

  1,072

  —

  1,024

  1985–86

  888

  —

  1,195

  —

  1,142

  —

  1986–87

  892

  —

  1,162

  —

  1,093

  —

  1987–88

  902

  —

  1,115

  —

  1,051

  —

  1988–89

  906

  —

  1,044

  —

  998

  —

  1989–90

  1,191

  —

  1,288

  —

  1,202

  —

  1990–91

  1,372

  —

  1,372

  —

  966

  —

  1991–92

  1,427

  —

  1,331

  —

  —

  —

  1992–93

  1,856

  —

  1,660

  —

  —

  —

  Note:

  (a) All figures in HCHS, capital and current, and CHMS have been adjusted to reflect the transfer of public health laboratory services from the HCHS to CHMS.

  (b) Figures in column A have been adjusted to reflect the transfer of the family health service administration, the family health services cash limited spending and the Disablement Services Authority partly to the HCHS and partly to CH MS, (and also take account of changes since 1990–91 relating to the NHS reforms). Figures in column B do not reflect these transfers and are therefore nut comparable with those for later years.

  (c) CHMS figures only available from 1987-88 onwards. There is no pay and price index for the CHMS.

  (d) 1991–;92 figures are provisional and 1992–93 figures ale estimated outturn.
  290

  Year

  Cash

  Adjusted by GDP deflator

  Adjusted for input unit cost

  1977–78

  988

  3,101

  3,584

  1978–79

  1,115

  3,156

  3,735

  1979–80

  1,375

  3,336

  3,907

  1980–81

  1,703

  3,492

  4,026

  1981–82

  1,879

  3,513

  3,695

  1982–83

  2,051

  3,580

  3,764

  1983–84

  2,218

  3,700

  3,861

  1984–85

  2,361

  3,751

  3,949

  1985–86

  2,453

  3,694

  3,886

  1986–87

  2,727

  3,974

  4,122

  1987–88

  3,073

  4,249

  4,326

  1988–89

  3,421

  4,411

  4,512

  1989–90

  3,893

  4,709

  4,772

  1990–91

  4,390

  4,909

  4,944

  1991–92

  4,809

  5,025

  5,061

  1992–93

  5,186

  5,186

  5,186

  Hospital Patients (Segregation)
  Mr. Jon Owen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidelines his Department has issued to hospitals about segregating elderly patients from other patients.

  Mr. Yeo
  There is no policy of segregation for acute medical treatment; but some health problems in elderly people are best treated by specialist teams, which will usually be concentrated in one part of a hospital designed to cater for the special needs of elderly people. Decisions 292
  about the most appropriate type and place of treatment are for local clinical judgment. The Department has no proposals to issue guidelines.

  NHS Pensions
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will amend the NHS pension scheme to allow unmarried members of the scheme to nominate a person to receive the benefit of the scheme after their death.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The scheme already provides entitlement to lump sum death benefit to be paid to the estate of an unmarried member. We are reviewing the provisions of the scheme.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chester.
Earl Spencer Earl Spencer —Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Overseas Trade Forecast
Viscount Caldecote Viscount Caldecote asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the forecast deficit on the visible balance of overseas trade for 1993 and 1994.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, the deficit on the balance of visible trade is forecast to be £19½ billion in 1993. Forecasts for later years are not available.
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that clear but somewhat limited reply. Does he not agree that that figure of £19½ billion deficit for 1993 is a matter of grave concern? Will he give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government now accept that an increase in output of manufacturing industry is of prime importance if we are to achieve a situation of sustainable growth in the economy? Can he assure us that the Government will do everything possible to encourage that increase?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously I accept what my noble friend says. The figure is of grave concern but I emphasise that it is only an estimate. I accept what my noble friend has to say about the importance of manufacturing output, but I would also say that obviously the key to success in the world export markets must be for the United Kingdom producers themselves to keep quality high and costs low; that is, to produce goods which people overseas wish to buy.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Lord give the House an indication as to how much of the £19½ billion trade deficit he has forecast will be incurred between ourselves and the remainder of the European Community countries, the deficit of which at the moment is running at £51½ billion per annum? Is the noble Lord aware that in the first six months of next year it will be difficult to determine what the total visible trade deficit is because we shall be without any statistics relating to our trade with the remaining countries of the EC?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord's figures. The latest full year figures which I have are the figures for 1991 and the deficit with our European partners is only £½ billion. It is estimated that our deficit for this year will be £2½ billion but not the £5 billion that the noble Lord is saying. As regards the second part of the noble Lord's question, I think
614
we dealt with that quite adequately on 22nd June last year when we discussed the new statistics that will be coming out as from next year.
Lord Bruce of Doningto: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is already a £4 billion deficit this year?
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, in view of the figures he has just quoted, does the Minister consider that import saving is of as much importance as exports? If so, will the Minister pay attention to the fact that we import timber and timber products to the extent of £6.25 billion per annum? In those circumstances, would it not be wise to have a more active forestry policy in this country?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am not going to be drawn into the question of a more active forestry policy. Obviously we would like to limit the amount of imports wherever possible, but without using any unfair methods. Clearly we cannot discriminate against imports due to our various EC and GATT obligations. We do not believe in protectionism.
Lord Morris: My Lords, arising from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, why is it that fellow members of the European Community buy goods cheap from us and sell dear to us?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am not quite sure if I follow what my noble friend is getting at. I was trying to say that I did not accept the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. Our estimate for this year is a deficit with our European partners of some £2½ billion. I have to say that the share of the United Kingdom's exports to the EC has been steadily increasing throughout the last 10 years and is now something of the order of 58 per cent.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, is it not true that that figure of £19.5 billion includes some success stories in terms of lowering the deficit? The very fact that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, brought the attention of the House to the forestry problem also makes me want to make the point that there is a deficit of £6 billion on the food account. Will the Minister confirm that the motor industry account, for example, is no longer likely to be in deficit this year and that that is a true success story?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously there are successes in the figures. I do not have in front of me the particular figures for the motor industry, but I am certainly prepared to write to the noble Baroness. Returning to the question of our trade balance with Europe, the deficit has been steadily falling since about 1988 and it is, as I said, this year estimated to be something of the order of £2½ billion.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that figure is half the estimate of £5 billion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce? The noble Lord's figure is hardly in accord with the actual figures for this year so far, which are on public record.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not have the figures my noble friend has, nor the figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. The figure I have in front of me is an estimated deficit for this year of some £2½ billion.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, has the noble Lord observed that for the first time during a recession this country is running a deficit in its balance of payments whereas in all previous recessions within history we have run a surplus? Have the Government reached any conclusion as to why that should be so?
Lord Henley: My Lords, our share of world trade has stabilised in the 1980s after a steady fall in the years since the war. It has now stabilised at around 5 per cent. of world trade. That shows that United Kingdom exporters are competing successfully in world markets and it belies the notion of there being any structural problems in industry. I should have thought that the vast amount of inward investment we are receiving from both Japan and the United States is some indication that the hard-headed people making those investment decisions do not see the structural problems in British industry which the noble Lord implied.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, the Minister did not answer my question. Have the Government reached any conclusion? Is it due to the rundown in our manufacturing industry that we are running a deficit instead of a surplus, which has always been the case in previous recessions?
Lord Henley: My Lords, what I was trying to say was that I do not think that the fact that there is a deficit during this recession, whereas in the past there has not been a deficit, indicates that there are any structural weaknesses in British industry.
Lord Annan: My Lords, could one answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, be that there has been a change in government policy, because it was not so long ago that we listened to the noble Lord, Lord Young, at the Dispatch Box saying that the level of manufacturing industry was a matter of indifference and what mattered was service industries? The noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, is quite right to ask this Question.
Lord Henley: My Lords, in answering my noble friend Lord Caldecote I emphasised that the Government do believe that manufacturing industry is of prime importance.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is not the Minister aware that in his supplementary question the noble Viscount put his finger on the most dangerous facet of what is taking place; namely, the reduction in our manufacturing base? Does not the Minister understand that the only target which has been hit so far is the prediction by all those involved in such matters that approximately 30,000 jobs a year would be lost in the manufacturing sector? That is the only target which the Government have hit so far. When is it going to end?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord is not correct. Export volumes are at a very high level. They reached their peak—at record levels—last May. That belies what the noble Lord said.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the accumulated deficit since 1990, including the forecast he gave, is over £50 billion and that the accumulated deficit since the general election of 1987 is over £80 billion? Is that not a barometer of economic mismanagement? Do the Government have any policies to bring trade back into balance, apart from massive devaluation?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously the change in the value of the pound will provide a great many opportunities for exporters, but we have never set that as the sole panacea in terms of encouraging exports and improving our trade figures. We already spend very large amounts of money, in both the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, in encouraging exports. Some 2,000 staff are employed by the DTI on those very activities. As I said, the fall in the value of the pound will provide new opportunities for exporters, but it must in the end be a matter for British industry to produce the right goods at the right price so as to sell them abroad.

Minicab Drivers: Sex Discrimination
2.46 p.m.
Lord Blyth Lord Blyth asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why the Department of Employment refused a request by a women's cab firm that such firms should be exempt from sex equality legislation.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the employer sought to place an advertisement for minicab drivers with the Richmond jobcentre. It emerged that the employer was prepared to consider women only. It is unlawful discrimination, contrary to Section 6 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, to discriminate against a man in arrangements made for the purpose of determining who should be offered employment. Jobcentre staff therefore acted correctly.
Lord Blyth: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that reply. But does he accept that the company involved, which I did not name in my Question, runs a two-tier firm, one section of which employs male drivers and the other section of which attempts to provide a minicab service operated with women drivers? Therefore it employs both sexes. Does he not agree that there is great demand among women for cabs driven by women because many women are afraid of minicab drivers, and every week one sees reports of rapes taking place in minicabs? Can the Minister help in this matter? Can the Government not make an exception in this case, which seems to be genuine?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government appreciate the concerns expressed but consider that a change in the sex discrimination legislation would not be justified. The requirement is for reliable drivers of either sex.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that there have been a number of horrific attacks on women passengers by bogus taxi drivers? Is there not a case for more regulation in the area of minicab operations? Is there not a case also for looking at exceptions here because I understand that the EOC is sympathetic?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government deplore attacks on women and consider safety a top priority. However, we question the extent to which changing the sex discrimination law to permit employers to employ only women taxi drivers would address the more complex problem of women's safety.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the law is as he says, then clearly the law is an ass? Should it not now be amended to make the perfectly common sense amendment that women may be allowed to drive minicabs in small firms so long as the firm operates another part of the company to employ males?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, there are problems. The drivers gain or may gain some benefit from the jobs that they undertake. They receive a percentage of each fare charge, set a fee for each trip or passenger or may receive tips from passengers. The firm would contravene Section 6(2) (a) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 if it chose a driver for a particular job on the grounds of that driver's sex.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, if Section 6(2) (a) of the Sex Discrimination Act does not make sense in those human terms, does the noble Viscount agree that it ought to be amended? Does he not feel that there ought to be some form of derogation? It is not a question of women drinking in the bar at El Vino's; it is a question of their security, is it not?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, what is at issue here is a recruitment practice which is plainly unlawful. We must avoid creating a false impression about the extent to which women are at risk.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, was the noble Viscount suggesting that women passengers might give smaller tips than men do? That is certainly not my experience. Is it not a fact that if a firm employs both male and female drivers, that firm is at liberty to deploy its staff so as to ensure the safety and security of women? Furthermore, does he accept that there are exceptions to the Sex Discrimination Act? If the Equal Opportunities Commission is favourable to an exception in this case, does he agree that it would be to the benefit of the community as a whole if the Home Office would consult with the commission about an appropriate amendment?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I draw the noble Baroness's attention to my earlier Answer with regard to Section 6(2) (a) of the Sex Discrimination Act. There are problems that would arise. As regards exceptions to the Act, Section 7 acknowledges that in certain very limited circumstances sex may be a genuine occupational qualification (GOQ) for a job;
618
for instance, where a man or a woman is needed because of physical form, for example, as an actor or a model.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am sure that the House has understood the noble Viscount's interpretation of the law. Is not the question now whether he will ask his right honourable friend the responsible Minister to consider whether the law ought to be changed?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I shall draw the comments made on this Question to the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, at the risk of being hit on the head, does the Minister agree that if women want equality, which they now have, they must accept the disadvantages as well as the advantages?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Sex Discrimination Act fulfils a very valuable purpose; namely, to promote equality of opportunity between men and women generally.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, if the Minister means it when he says that the Government are concerned for the safety of women, does he not agree that something should be done to protect women more when they use public transport? I am sure that I cannot be the only woman in this House who feels quite uncomfortable when using the tubes after a certain time in the evening. Will he accept that it is very disconcerting to find that there are not any staff around? Could that area not be looked at? Does it not require a change in the law?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I believe that that is wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Blyth: My Lords, does the Minister accept that, although I do not suggest anything about his sexual preferences, I would sooner be raped by a female minicab driver than a male one?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, if the noble Lord promises not to talk about my sexual preferences, I shall promise not to talk about his.

Grant-Maintained Schools
2.55 p.m.
Lord Lord Desai asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their estimate of the number of grant-maintained schools in 1994.
The Minister of State, Department of Education (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, current forecasts suggest that over 1,500 grant-maintained schools will have been approved by April 1994. Projections are based on term-on-term growth in numbers since the first schools were incorporated in September 1989.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Inasmuch as revenue depends upon the projection, if the forecast proves to be too optimistic, can she say whether there is a contingency plan to allocate funds differently from that predicted in the Autumn Statement?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we have no reason at all to move away from believing that those projections will be met. There are already 342 schools either up and running or approved. We know that there are 158 ballots already that are "yes" ballots waiting for determination. We know that there have been 200 ballots in the past two months. We have every reason to believe that that target will be met.
Baroness David: My Lords, according to my figures, £61 million will be spent this year, £157 million next year, £294 million the following year and £446 million in 1995–96. If there are not a sufficient number of grant-maintained schools to justify those figures, as my noble friend asked, will some of the money go back to the LEA and to the schools, which will need the money desperately?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, there is no question of changing the system of payment. I do not know whether the noble Baroness refers to capital or recurrent spending. We expect on capital to spend £500 million over the next three years. Taking capital and grants together, it will be £900 million over the next three years. If those schools do not come on stream and grow in the numbers we expect, that money will not be spent; and it is a matter for the department to decide what to do with it. The system itself will not be changed.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the forecasts on the future numbers of grant-maintained schools are based on a continuation of the Government's policy of bribing local education authority schools to opt out by offering them higher capital grants than those received by schools which remain local authority schools? Does she consider it fair to either parents or pupils in schools which remain within the LEA?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I do not accept that that is a bribe. There are some schools now in the grant-maintained sector that have had years and years of neglect by the local education authorities. Therefore the burden is disproportionate.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister accept that satisfactory progress is being made with regard to grant-maintained schools, especially in the light of the very hostile attitude taken by many local authorities to parents wishing to have their schools opt out of the local education authority system? In particular, are there any steps she can take to prevent authorities such as Nottinghamshire from having its officials put out quite false and misleading information to parents?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend makes a very important point. Perhaps the local authorities should spend energy supporting grant-maintained schools instead of opposing them. Some of the opposition has been quite scurrilous. If he does not know it, perhaps for the record I should say that I called for a report from the chief education officer of Nottingham to explain just why it has been so hostile to two schools in particular.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I revert to the answer that the Minister gave to my question. Is she not aware of the fact that capital spending has always been determined not by the local education authorities but by the Department of Education and Science in the past and now by the Department for Education? If there is any neglect, is it not entirely a function of the Department of Education's core performance in this way?
Baroness Blatch: No, my Lords. Again, I do not accept the noble Baroness's point. In replying to her I was making a criticism of the priorities for spending in many local authorities.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: My Lords, can the Minister give any figures for the number of opted out schools that were formerly grammar schools and schools which are threatened with closure? What proportion of those which have opted out or are proposing to do so are numbered among them?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, 84 per cent. of the schools that are grant maintained are non-selective; therefore 16 per cent. of them are selective. As for the schools that applied that were subject to both closure proposals as well as grant-maintained applications, there were 64 schools and 33 of them were accepted. The case for closure was accepted because it was a better case made for closure than for grant maintained. The rest were all accepted for grant-maintained status.

Electricity Price Increases and Jobs
3 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Chester The Lord Bishop of Chester asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will act to prevent the potentially substantial number of job losses which is likely to be incurred by ICI and other companies as a result of the increases in electricity prices since privatisation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Baroness Denton of Wakefield): My Lords, electricity prices will no doubt be only one of the factors which ICI and other companies take into account in determining future plans. ICI has said that it is also facing significant expenditure for environmental and other reasons. Overall, average electricity prices to large industrial users have fallen in real terms during the past three years. All customers whose maximum demand is more than one megawatt can now shop around in a competitive market for their supplies at the keenest possible prices. That includes ICI.
The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is she aware that my request for government intervention in this matter accords with the speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Guildhall on 29th October when he urged us to do everything to support industry? Is she further aware that, according to ICI's figures, electricity price rises since privatisation amount to 60

621
per cent. and therefore Runcorn's ICI chlorine plant, which uses more electricity than the City of Liverpool, will close because it cannot compete in world markets if it cannot obtain electricity at a better price than at present, and that will have a domino effect on the chlorine-related industries in Runcorn, with the loss of 4,000 jobs at first and possibly 18,000 jobs? That will cause devastation to this important area of my diocese.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to inform the right reverend Prelate that we work to the same policy as the Chancellor. It has been our policy to open up the electricity market to competition wherever possible, to expose the utilities to private sector discipline and to ensure that customers' interests are looked after by an independent regulator. I quoted ICI's statement that there were environmental and other reasons for the expenditure at sites such as Runcorn. Furthermore, prior to privatisation of the electricity supply industry ICI and other large users received favourable terms for electricity under the QICS scheme. That scheme is essentially incompatible with a competitive market.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, will the Minister give the House an undertaking that the Government will give detailed consideration to the written evidence which I understand ICI will give the DTI's coal review, including proposals for a mechanism to resolve the problems of major energy users as regards pool pricing?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to assure the noble Lord that DTI officials are engaged in dialogue with the energy intensive users' group and the major users' energy council. After collecting all the relevant information we shall be able to consider this issue in future.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, is not the real problem the operation of the electricity generating pool? Why is it not possible for this particular factory to have an allocated power station from the National Grid?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, it is perfectly possible for companies to generate their own electricity, as indeed ICI does at Teesside.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is it not the case that the Electricity Act gave to the regulator regulation over prices for domestic consumers and even for small business users but not for large business users? Given that ICI at Runcorn consumes approximately 1 per cent. of all the electricity transmitted at high tension in the National Grid and given that with this extraordinary price increase closure at Runcorn would cause devastation in the area, is it not the case that there should be some change in the Act to make sure that Offer has the power to regulate prices to industrial consumers? Competition is simply not working.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord that competition is not working. Prices to industrial consumers, including
622
some large consumers, have fallen in real terms since privatisation. Indeed, prices to industrial customers fell by about 12 per cent. in real terms between the second quarter of 1989 and the second quarter of 1992. Therefore, it cannot be said that competition is not working.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, how does the Minister respond to the report by Phillips and Drew that some £60 million has moved directly from ICI profits to the profits of the generators?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, as I said earlier, it is not for industries to subsidise certain other specific industries.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, if competition is working, why is it that competitors in Germany are able to buy electricity at more favourable prices than the British chemical industry?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, we are aware of situations in Europe in respect of these issues. Where we have specific instances and where companies have specific interests in incidents, they can and will be referred to the Commission. The Government are committed to the development of a single energy market in Europe.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, if the Minister believes that one industry should not subsidise the electricity prices of another, why is it that all of industry and all domestic consumers must subsidise the nuclear electricity industry through the nuclear levy?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I must disagree with that comment. The nuclear levy is imposed to cover the cost of decommissioning nuclear power stations. That levy is required whether or not stations are producing electricity.

Business
3.7 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I should like to say a word about this afternoon's debates standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Mackie of Benshie. As the mover is allowed 15 minutes and the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate, in the case of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, it means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 14 minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length he would do so at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate. In the case of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, the number of speakers is such that it is not necessary to propose a formal time limit. However, I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it would conform with the spirit of these short debates if they keep their speeches within the 15 minutes which apply to the mover of the Motion.

The North East: Economy
3.8 p.m.
Lord Redesdale Lord Redesdale rose to call attention to the economy of the North East; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I wish to thank all noble Lords who are taking part in the debate. I also thank the many noble Lords who wrote to me saying that they would have liked to take part in the debate but were unable to do so. I am pleased in particular that the noble Baroness, Lady Denton of Wakefield, is to reply to the debate because she has a great deal of knowledge of the area.
In the North East during the past decade the transformation from reliance on the industries which were the backbone of the industrial revolution to an economy which has become very diverse is a remarkable achievement. The region is now a leading manufacturer of products ranging from cars and high-technology equipment to food products. Many are known throughout Europe; for example, Newcastle Brown Ale, a product which I can vouch for personally.
The developing industries have proved themselves to be ahead of the competition in many overseas markets. Indeed, the North East is now the leading exporting region in Britain with 40 per cent. of its GDP coming from exports. That basic change in the area's economy can be seen only as a long-term process that requires commitment and support from the Government.
The Government have proved over the past 10 years that they are committed to the growth of the economy in the North East. Indeed, the fact that the area has become a manufacturing success story is in no small part due to policies instituted by the Government; for example, the assisted area programme. Those have proved remarkably successful in drawing overseas companies and investments through organisations such as the Northern Development Company, which is able to market the region throughout the world, and the development corporations of both Tyne and Wear and Teesside which are seen as exceptionally successful in helping companies to establish themselves in the North East. Indeed, it is through the work of the development companies that many of the companies that were originally dependent upon the local market are now actively seeking markets abroad.
The cautious optimism which the second quarterly statement of the Northern Development Company's survey conveyed has been swept away by the NDC survey of the third quarter, which shows that the recession is now clearly beginning to bite in the North East. One area of policy which would be of supreme benefit to the region would be the retention and even the expansion of the assisted area status programme.
The North of England as a whole is faced with a serious unemployment situation. The figure is currently running at 11.5 per cent. which is worse than when the assisted area boundaries were last reviewed. The region has the highest rate of unemployment in Great Britain, a position that it has held for the past
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20 years. There are no indications in the medium term that that position will change. At the very least, the North of England needs to retain its present coverage of assisted areas and also needs coverage to be extended to those areas where unemployment is likely to rise significantly over the next year and where that rise in unemployment can clearly be identified as being both long term and structural in nature. It is essential that the North of England retains assisted area status, even in those areas where there have been some relative improvements in unemployment rates compared with the regional average, as it is those areas which typically contain many of the high quality sites and general infrastructure which are likely to attract inward investment.
The areas to which I refer which need development are the intermediate areas of the A.1 corridor, including Durham and Consett and the areas around Amble, Alnwick, Ashington and Morpeth. Their upgrading to development status would make them both eligible for regional selective assistance and EC grants—an enormous boost to these regions because they become immediately more attractive to companies investing.
The North East must continue to rely upon inward investment to provide the bulk of new employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector in the medium term. If the performance of the region over the past five years can be replicated up to 1995, even allowing for a poorer climate for international investment and more intense international competition, the North of England could expect to secure between 15,000 and 20,000 jobs through inward investment. That alone would provide immense benefits to the local business base and would ensure that the significant improvement that has occurred in the regional economy in recent years is not arrested.
To make the assisted areas even more attractive I hope that the Government will consider giving training schemes a higher priority. An important point to note is that one of the primary reasons that industries have established plants in the North East is due to their high opinion of the quality of the workforce and the exceptional record of industrial relations that has led to a very low loss of working days through industrial action.
Although seven years ago 35 per cent. of non-service sector workers in the North were employed in coal, shipbuilding and steel, and this has now fallen to 3 per cent., the heavy industries which remain are more competitive. A prime example is British Steel which is progressing with its £100 million investment on Teesside, having recently installed a new high-tech rolling mill. Although that rolling mill will lead to job losses, it ensures that the plant remains viable.
There are many large-scale successful companies which replaced the mass employers of heavy industry. A good example of that is Derwent Valley Foods. Ten years ago four local people formed that company. It was initially based in a Nissen Hut on the site of the former steel works at Consett in County Durham. Now the company occupies three sites in the town, employs over 250 people and has become the UK's

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leading producer of adult snacks. The company has earned wide recognition and numerous awards, including the accolade "Food Company of the Year". I particularly wanted to use that company as an example as its amusing and effective advertising stresses as a marketing ploy that the product is from Consett, County Durham.
Without detracting from the achievements of domestic companies, the region is proud of its record of attracting overseas companies. The best known foreign investment in the area is the Nissan car plant, which exhibited such impressive start-up speed. By the end of 1991, Nissan was spending approximately £150 million per annum in the North of England on components, supplies and services. Thirty-six local companies have component or material contracts with Nissan and up to £17 million is spent on local facilities and general service suppliers. In addition, since car production began in Sunderland in July 1986, 19 new automotive suppliers have moved to the region, bringing the current total to 23. Almost 2,000 employees are now in direct supplier companies dedicated to Nissan business.
The experience from Nissan's investment seems to show that inward investment can lead to local business growth and further inward investment. There has been a comparative lack of small firms and self-employed people in the region. I hope that that spin-off will do something to tackle this problem. The importance of inward investment to the region is apparent, and in the light of this I very much hope that both the GATT round is completed and the Maastricht Treaty is ratified with the greatest speed. For as protectionism would damage all regions, it would damage the North East in particular, with such a large percentage of the region's GDP being derived from exports.
Having said that the region is heavily reliant on income from exports, it is logical that the region should be well linked to its markets. The danger in not doing this is that the region will become peripheral within the European single market. The region's connection with the Channel Tunnel is of particular importance, as Germany and France are our two biggest export destinations, being worth £14.7 billion and £11.6 billion respectively.
I hope that the Government will look again at their transport policy concerning rail links. Not only must the links to the markets be upgraded, but they must also be geared to the needs of exporters who are not only centring their attention on the European single market but are also looking for new markets in the area of the northern arc. The Government have emphasised that they are committed to capital spending on roads. The main artery that connects the North East with Europe is the A.1. Considering the importance of this road, it is surprising that it has not already been upgraded to motorway status. I hope that the Minister will be able to give an assurance that the upgrading of the A.1 will be completed by the end of the decade at the very latest, because the scheme will not only improve the speed of passage of exports on the way to Europe, but it will also show the Government's confidence and commitment to the North East as a major developing and manufacturing
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area. I do not suggest this lightly because I travel the road frequently and I know exactly how much disruption the scheme will cause.
I also hope that the Minister will be able to clarify whether the A.1 north of Newcastle will be upgraded to dual carriageway throughout its length, or at least as far as Alnwick. I have personal experience of the delays that this section of the single carriageway can cause, as well as the dangerous nature of this section of road in its present form.
The north-south flow of traffic throughout the country is seen as the natural route for exports. This is unfortunate as the North East is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the northern arc. The northern arc is a geographical band that spreads from Northern Ireland through the North East on through Denmark, Scandinavia and into Eastern Europe and Russia. The concept is that this northern trading area could, with improved communications, become a valuable trading region. It is wasteful to assume that goods destined for Northern Europe should travel via the Channel Tunnel or Channel ferries and then be transported through Holland, Belgium or France. There is definite interest from northern companies to create new markets in the area of the northern arc. Indeed, a seminar planned to look at this area of developing trade was flooded by inquiries from northern exporters.
The Government could substantially boost this trading area concept by upgrading one of two trans-Pennine routes, namely the A.69 or the A.66. This upgrading would in the long term significantly increase the importance of the North East and help to bring it into the centre of European trade rather than enforce the image that it is an area on the geographical periphery of Europe.
That major investment in infrastructure, which I should like to see the Government undertake as soon as possible, would not only give the region adequate links to markets but would also give the economy an injection of capital which one would hope would lead to recovery from the recession. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some assurance on the status of the assisted areas and also be able to answer my questions on the A.1. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.23 p.m.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, I begin by congratulating with enthusiasm the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on his very well delivered speech. Those of us who knew his distinguished father as a friend feel that he would be proud of his son today. I thank him also for raising the subject of the economy of the North East. He is a young man, just arrived in your Lordships' House, and in all probability this is the first time he has taken part in a debate on the region of the North East. Some of us here have taken part in such debates on many occasions, both in your Lordships' House and in another place.
I very much appreciated what the noble Lord had to say about the region, having known it and its problems for quite a long time. He is right to stress the remarkable achievement which the North East has

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attained with regard to its exports. It is right also to emphasise that the region has known enormous government support, from governments of both parties.
The recession is biting, but it has been pleasing for many of us who have known the region's problems closely for a long time that it was longer in biting the North East of England than in other parts of the country. This was not least because of the success we have known in diversifying our industry in recent years.
The noble Lord talked of the region having the highest rate of unemployment. It often has had the highest rate of unemployment, and has now. And no wonder! The northern region, in terms of recasting its industry and recasting its means of employment, has had a mountain to climb. That is putting it mildly. It may surprise your Lordships to know that I can remember when North-East England, which for a long time now has known a considerable employment problem, had, in the definition given by the late Hugh Gaitskell, full employment. In the late 1940s there was full employment. Believe it or not, at that time we had 188 coalmines in east Northumberland and County Durham. There are five today, only two of which have any hope of a future.
We had full employment on the Tyne and Tees in terms of shipbuilding, with full order books. Consett Ironworks was booming. I can even remember in the late 1940s a great trade union row blowing up in County Durham when there was the suggestion that Italian labour be introduced into one of the mines there.
By the late 1950s the storm clouds were gathering with regard to employment; and the obvious signs of a major industry declining were there. Since the late 1950s, our major industry has declined. Goodness me!, think of that, my Lords. There were 149,000 men and boys employed in the pits in the North East of England. Now it is down to possibly one pit remaining open. The shipyards on the Tyne have all gone except one, and that is struggling for orders. There are no shipyards at all on the Wear, or in the once-proud shipbuilding town of Sunderland. It was the saddest thing possible that just when the shipyard had been modernised to make it one of the most modern not only in Europe but in the world, there were no further orders. The shipyard had to be closed and dismantled.
We climbed the mountain; what is more we are still climbing it. There is still much to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, outlined in his interesting speech, a great deal of new industry has been brought into the region and encouraged to come there. It employs an enormous number of people, many ex-mineworkers, ex-shipyard workers and ex-steel workers. What a blessing that is! There is still a great deal of unemployment and we must continue to work on it.
I interject that much of the new employment is far better than the old. Perhaps I may tell the noble Lord, who is a young man, that I have two memories of my youth. One is of visiting Consett Ironworks with a group of students. It was a dark November evening,
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and I still remember the flames, the heat, the unbelievable noise. I thought at that time that if there was a hell on earth anywhere, it must be a steelworks. The Consett Ironworks is now closed and many of its employees are in modern industry.
The second memory I have is of accepting a challenge, when I was a prospective Parliamentary candidate, to work a half shift. Thank goodness it was not a whole shift, I should never have recovered from it. The half shift was in the Duke Pit in Ashington. I did it, I worked at the face—or rather I did not work, I was there at the face, looked after by a splendid senior deputy. It was a two-foot seam and those good-humoured men, so far as I was concerned, were shovelling coal on to a moving belt underneath. At that time I thought what a terrible way it was for men to have to make a living.
So it is a great pleasure to me to know that there is much nicer and healthier employment now in so many areas of the North East than there was then. But the problem which the decline of major industry in that region brought about was an enormous one. It was a mountain that we had to climb. The great providers of jobs for generations—mining, shipbuilding, steel, heavy engineering—had gone. So it has been that over a considerable period of time now new industry has been encouraged to replace the old. We have known remarkable success. We have now got a varied industry with varied forms of employment in the region. That has come about in the periods of both Labour and Conservative Governments. I pay due tribute to both.
The debate which I recall in another place occurred after 35 years had elapsed since the end of the Second World War. As I was preparing a speech in another place for that debate, it occurred to me that 17½ of those years, by chance, had been with Labour Governments and 17½ years with Conservative Governments. Our score has gone up a little since then and that pleases me enormously. There were 17½ years of each government at that particular point 35 years on. I say in all sincerity that both major parties have done their best to restore the North East of England to a state of reasonable prosperity where it can contribute to the national good.
Of course mistakes were made. I do not suppose that any of us who know the region remember the regional employment premium with very great pleasure. That premium injected a great deal of money where it was needed: it also injected a great deal of money where it was not needed. So we learnt and we have been on a learning curve ever since.
I well remember the Labour victory of 1964. The Minister who became responsible for regional development was the late George Brown. What enormous energy and enthusiasm he had! I remember him saying in a speech that the Conservatives did not really know how to plan. He abolished development districts. We called them growth points then. He turned the whole region into a growth area. It was not very long before we were back to the growth points. The growth areas in turn developed into the highly successful enterprise zones which have done so much in recent years to restore our well-being.

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A very large part of the success of recent years has come from training. I can remember entering another place as a duly elected member and when the Newcastle upon Tyne polytechnic was not there. Now happily it is there. It has recently become, under the distinguished chancellorship of the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, the University of Northumbria. We wish it well. Since it has been in being so many people have gone through the polytechnic, as it was, and gained some training for life on which they could earn a modern way of living. So training in general has played an enormous part in the recovery which our region has known. It must go on doing so. I repeat: we are not yet to the top of the mountain. We still have a great deal of unemployment and we still have a great deal to do. But a great deal has been achieved.
In our various agencies there have been consider-able successes. The noble Lord mentioned the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation. That is one of the more recent attempts by a Conservative Government to assist the area into a state of prosperity again. It is five years old. I understand that it has a prospective life of 10 years. In five years it has achieved a very great deal. The other day I looked at the annual report of the development corporation and I quote from it. In the past year:
"Land reclaimed-350.8 acres; jobs created 3,752".
There is more about the number of housing units completed, and so on.
When we had the recent announcement about the package associated with pit closures given by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, it was most pleasing that included in that package was an extra £2 million for the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation. That will help the corporation enormously to further extend the Sunderland and Viking Enterprise Parks. The enterprise park in Newcastle has been such an enormous success and has created quite a number of new jobs.
I sum up by always believing that the North East of England has a great future. We are an ingenious and adaptable people. We have known enormous employment problems. In common with all other areas in the country—here again I do so agree with the noble Lord—the region would benefit enormously by the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Without a single market heaven help the North East of England. I am sure we shall get that ratification.
Let us continue the encouragement of enterprise zones. How successful they have been! It is a concentration on areas to which businesses wish to come and in which businesses will naturally develop. That has been very important to us and let us continue with it. Let us also continue with the encouragement of English Estates with its headquarters on the oldest trading estate of all at Team Valley in Gateshead. The English Estates has done much to help the region. We must continue that encouragement in the widest sense with all forms of training.
I was born in the North East of England. I claim to know its people. They are proud people. The main thing which the people of the North East of England
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wish is that they shall play their fullest part in the establishment of national prosperity. I believe that they will.
3.37 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I too wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, not only on his most admirable speech but on his good fortune in winning the ballot to have this debate today. He may remember that I said informally to him yesterday that he had anticipated me by about a month. I had hoped to raise the same topic in an Unstarred Question, but it is much better to have it as a balloted debate because at the very least we are having it at prime time.
I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if I sometimes refer to the North rather than to the North East. He referred to the North himself on several occasions. I do so because the North is an official region. I say that because many of the official facts, including statistics, are related to the northern region and not just to the North East. The noble Lord will also know that the northern region is the North East plus Cumbria. The features and problems of Cumbria are in fact very similar to those of the North East.
The noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth, will not expect me to agree with everything he said. He and I are old adversaries both here and in another place in debates about the northern region. However, I must agree with him that there has been substantial progress. I intend to make reference to some of the features of that progress in the course of my remarks. It must not be forgotten—I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, mentioned it—that the northern region remains the region with the highest unemployment. He referred to 20 years, but the period is longer than that. Ever since records were kept the northern region has had the highest rate of unemployment.
At the moment that rate is 13.1 per cent. There is presently a total of 139,800 people unemployed in the North East. In the past four months there has been a net growth of 4,400 unemployed, and what is even more disturbing is that announcements have been made in recent weeks—indeed, within the last month—of a further 6,000 redundancies, excluding those that will arise from the pit closures. That will add considerably to the problems of the North East. As the Minister knows, within the last week the Confederation of British Industry has issued its regional trends survey. That shows that output will fall in every region except three—and the North is not one of them.
The latest blow to the North East is, of course, the proposed closure of more pits. It is impossible to be optimistic about the outcome of the review. It is highly likely that within a year only one pit will remain in the North East. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, referred to one in County Durham. There are five pits there at the moment, but I am sure that only one will be left in 12 months' time. Some 4,500 miners' jobs are involved, and if we accept the usual multiplier figure, an additional 9,000 jobs in related industries and

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services will be affected by the closures. These figures will cancel out the gains which have been made in the region in recent years.
I hope that the devastating effect of all these figures will be seriously considered by the Government when they assess the grant to be made to the Northern Development Company. The NDC continues to do splendid work in the region. It enjoys the support of employers, trade unions, businesses, local authorities, small businesses and others—indeed, of everyone. The NDC received £1.41 million from the Department of Trade and Industry for its inward investment work this year. I hope that the Government will agree—I am sure that they will—that the company made excellent use of every penny of that money. However, there must be not only an increase next year because of the continuing substantial increase in the number of jobless, some of which I have just spelt out, but also an addition because of the problems which will arise from the further pit closures which in my view will undoubtedly come.
Every effort must be made to stimulate manufacturing industry in the region. As the noble Lord said, the workers of the North have a tradition of work in heavy industries such as coal, steel and shipbuilding, so they are well fitted to adapt to the newer manufacturing businesses, provided—and it is an important proviso—that proper and adequate training facilities are made available. I have to say to the Minister that I am not entirely convinced that the variety and depth of the training provision needed are available. I hope that the Government will examine this matter closely.
Some time ago the Minister admitted in answer to a Question from me that there has been a transfer of training money from the North to the South. Figures published on 11th November show the extent of the budgetary changes for the training and enterprise councils. The biggest loser is the northern region where the TEC budgets have been cut by no less than £21 million. In the region with the highest rate of unemployment, how on earth can that be justified? If the North is to make economic progress, adequate training is absolutely essential. We must remember that, in addition to the figures that I have given, 3,513 businesses failed during the first nine months of this year, an increase of 36.8 per cent. on last year. It takes little imagination to realise what a massive task faces the training and enterprise councils, internal training programmes and, of course, the colleges and other educational institutions if they are to meet those training needs.
I make a brief, but important, reference to the splendid work being done by the two urban development corporations in the North East. Both have been mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Elliott. Perhaps I have one advantage in that I am deputy chairman of the Teesside Development Corporation, so perhaps I should spend the rest of my speech praising what we have done. However, all that I will say is that in the five years since we started we have created 7,000 new jobs and have met our other objective —the objective
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of all UDCs—which is to clear the dereliction. The place is transformed. As deputy chairman I offer an open invitation to any Member of your Lordships' House who would like to come to see what we have done and what we are doing.
The same story can be told of the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation where a transformation of the banks of the Rivers Tyne and Wear is taking place. Perhaps I might advise the noble Lord, Lord Elliott—and I am being helpful here; he knows that I am always helpful—that, although I believe he said that 3,000 jobs had been created, I had a brief from the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation this week which says that it has created 9,000 jobs
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, my figure was for the past year.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I hope that I am right and I am sure that the noble Lord joins me in that.
The Minister will be aware that UDCs receive their core funding from the Government. Speaking for Teesside Development Corporation—and I think that I can speak for the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation also—I can say that the Government have been very co-operative in recognising the needs of both areas. I am not just saying that in the hope that our next application will be favourably considered, although if it has a spin-off, so be it. Eventually, of course, the areas covered by the UDCs must return to democratic control. In the meantime—and I make this point quite genuinely—I hope that the Government will allow both corporations to complete their tasks. Those tasks have been defined for some time now and if, as the noble Lord said, it takes another five years, perhaps that is the length of time that is needed.
I have argued for many years that the North's greatest asset is the quality of its people, and of its workforce in particular. They are hard-working, fair, amenable to suggestion—and that certainly includes training—and responsible, but I often wonder whether those qualities are sufficiently advertised not only in this country but abroad. When I was a Member of another place and doing my bit to try to attract industry to my constituency, I soon discovered that employers were primarily concerned about the quality of the workforce. Although they wanted to know about the grants and other incentives, it was that factor which in many cases—perhaps in all—finally decided them to come to a particular area of the North or the North East in order to meet the needs of their companies. I am not sure that the Government have a role in this matter, but others certainly have, such as the CBI, the chambers of trade and commerce and the training and enterprise councils. I hope that more will be done in this respect.
I turn to tourism. The North East has a great deal to offer and the Northumbria Tourist Board plays an important role in increasing the number of visitors to the area. The board has over the years taken some important and imaginative initiatives and has been strongly supported by many of the local authorities. It must be said, however, that, in spite of its many attractions, the North East is still not regarded by

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most people as a holiday area. Tourism is Britain's biggest export and it is sad that an area like the North East is not earning its fair share of it.
I am deeply concerned to learn that money for the English Tourist Board, which includes funds for the 11 regional boards, is to be progressively cut over the next two years. It will get £13.9 million in 1993–94 and £9 million 1995–96. If the Minister tells me, as she probably will, that the allocations to the regional boards is a matter for the English Tourist Board, is there not a case for intervention when one realises the difficulties and the problems of the North East? I hope that the Government will have a close look at the position.
I conclude with a fervent plea—and underline what the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said—that the Government retain and indeed extend the present coverage of assisted areas. It is clear from the evidence of past investments that the North will not attract the necessary inward investment without this status. Had time permitted I could have produced a battery of statistics on this matter but presumably the Government themselves examine what effect assisted area status has. If that happens in this case, the noble Baroness will find that the North's case is absolutely unanswerable.
While much has been achieved in the North East in recent years there is still a great deal to be done. What worries me in particular is that some of the structures which have helped—this point was referred to by both previous speakers—are being dismantled. I suggest to your Lordships that we are at the end of an era in the North East and we could be on the threshold of a new and perhaps even more exciting era. I stress the words "could be" because so much remains to be done and some government policies frankly are not helping. A good start has been made by the degree of diversification, by attracting and retaining world class companies, by exporting more than we have ever done in the region's history and by the development of effective partnerships between public and private sector interests. All of those and other features demonstrate that the North East is not a begging bowl economy. We are a self-help and cohesive community. But the Government have an important role to play and I hope that they will act on the many useful and constructive suggestions which have been made in this valuable debate today.
3.51 p.m.
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for introducing this debate today. He will not mind my saying that he is a relatively recent graduate of the University of Newcastle, but a distinguished one. I am also delighted to see that he now shares a peg in the cloakroom with my noble brother. Whether or not he shares his views, I have yet to find out.
I was reluctant to take part in this debate because I am anxious to avoid any trace of party politics. I do not want to join the chorus of those who want more public money for this part of England. We are all aware that there is not going to be much more public money for anything for quite a long time. But in
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North-East England, where I have spent all my life, and which has probably always had a relatively high level of unemployment and sadly probably always will, there are indeed some worries. I shall refer to only one of those today, and that concerns the aluminium industry, which is, as your Lordships will be aware, intimately linked to the coal industry. The issue was raised at Question Time yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Williams.
I do this because I was deeply involved more than 20 years ago in the successful attempt to attract Alcan to Lynemouth in Northumberland. I am still emotionally attached to that period. At that time I was chairman of the Northumberland County Council. We had important help from the government of the day. We were jointly able to provide for the needs of Alcan to establish a large smelter on the coast linked to its own power station and Ellington Colliery. There were then four smelters: this one, in England, one in Wales and two in Scotland. Invergordon has now permanently closed, and British Alcan, as it now is, remains the largest one in Britain. It was a large investment and it created a great many jobs. Now, British Alcan's smelter is threatened, and already half its production has ceased. To reopen that half, and to modernise the pollution control equipment to meet EC regulations, will cost £80 million. In order to justify this money, British Alcan has to have a guarantee of supplies of raw materials for at least 20 years. The key to this is the cost of fuel, because aluminium is only produced by electricity, and to compete on the world market, the cost of electricity must come down—below £1 per gigajoule. I do know what a gigajoule is. I am sure that your Lordships know too so I shall not weary the House with a description of it. It is an important thing. If this is not done, British aluminium will not be competitive and the smelter may have to close, probably for ever.
I do not need to paint the picture which the loss of the smelter would produce. We are not talking of a few hundred jobs but of more than 4,000. There would then be a loss of jobs in the colliery, the last in Northumberland, and fatal damage to the port of Blyth, through which the alumina is shipped, and to the power station as well. The port was the largest coal port in the country 30 years ago. I am not exaggerating. It would be a very serious setback for the North East. The jobs that would be lost would be far more than those that have been produced by the Nissan factory in Sunderland.
What has to be done? I believe that British Alcan is desperately keen to continue production and to play its part in keeping people in work. It has a good chance of success if fuel costs can be reduced. At the moment, the cost of deep-mined coal fed straight to the power station is too high. In time, perhaps costs from this colliery can be reduced, if there is a will to do so, which I believe there is. Nor do I think it relevant to argue whether this is done by a public or a privatised industry. I do not know. I do not think anyone knows. But much more important is that the people doing this should have regard to local interests.
There are alternative possibilities. One would be to import coal. As British Alcan needs at least 20 years'

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guaranteed supply of fuel at the right price, it does not believe that this is a realistic option; nor does it think it right to add to our already disastrous balance of payments situation by importing coal. We should all be glad that British Alcan takes that view.
Secondly, it could use another form of fuel, but again, it would not wish to put so many people out of work in the coal industry, and the investment already made would be wasted. British Alcan rejects this solution as impractical. There is a third option, which is hopeful, which is that it should be able to get for 20 years a supply of deep-mined and opencast coal mixed in about equal proportions. British Alcan needs in the order of 1.3 million tonnes per annum. With this 50:50 mix, it is probable that it can compete in the world market; otherwise it cannot. So what I have to ask is that, in the interests of thousands of jobs, we should, as a nation, accept the continuing need for opencast coal. It is approximately 25 per cent. cheaper than deep-mined coal. I do not know the exact figure because British Coal is not keen to publish it, but I think that that is about right, and it is a fact which cannot be ignored.
However, opencast mining arouses deep passions. I should know, having lived on top of it and among it for at least 50 years, since it started during the Second World War. It can devastate people's lives. It can ruin agricultural land. It is dirty, noisy, smelly and often dusty; but the land eventually recovers. Anyway we do not need any more arable land at the moment or for a long time to come. The environmental lobby hates it. My father fought the Opencast Coal Act 1958 in this House bitterly at the time. He would not enjoy what I am saying now. It is a rape of the countryside and I too have hated it as much as anyone else. But we have to bring ourselves to accept that we must have cheap coal if we are to preserve jobs in the aluminium industry and that we stand to lose far more than the landscape or hedgerows. We shall suffer far worse than mud on the roads, the disturbance of heavy lorries during the night and so forth if we cannot have it.
This is not a new idea. Opencast coal is not a new thing. It has been around for a long time and no doubt will continue in one way or another. It is exploiting what is one of the North East's most important assets. As the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, said, the quality of the workforce is very much another one. I hope that the review which the Government are rightly conducting into the coal industry's future will take note of all this and will explore the real cost of coal from above and below the surface. I do not view opencast coal as a threat to deep-mined coal. It will supply a cheaper fuel while the deep mines adjust to the new competitive world which they have to face.
It has been suggested that there is no need for opencast coal while the stocks at pitheads from the deep mines are so large. Of course it is possible that those stocks could be, for a limited period, made available before they completely deteriorate. I do not know, but they certainly would not be available for the 20-year period which is necessary. This would also need a massive distortion of costs in the price of coal,
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which is not open to us. I noted with interest a report in the Financial Times the other day that the German Government can subsidise the German coal industry to the tune of 3 billion deutschmarks a year. We could do that but I doubt whether we have any deutschmarks left to do it with.
We need a long-term commitment by planning authorities and government departments. In this field development area status for the area would be enormously helpful, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, yesterday. We also have to suffer a sacrifice of amenities, albeit temporarily. But I believe that this has the real merit of not asking for much more public money, if any, only a sense of realism in facing what is a frightening threat to jobs in north east England. I end by saying that this matter is urgent.
4 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I should like to add my own tribute to those already paid to my noble friend Lord Redesdale for choosing this topic for debate today, and for speaking in the way that he did. Since the days of the hunger marches, the distressed areas, and indeed Team Valley, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, the problems of the North East have been a proper subject for debate in Parliament. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, when he said that substantial progress had been made, but I agree also with the general sentiment—and it is important to emphasise this—that whatever progress has been made there is still a long way to go.
It is true that the North East finds unemployment a chronic condition. Therefore, in a recession as severe as this it sometimes appears able to ride it out more comfortably than the South East. But the plain fact is that in the northern region as a percentage of the workforce as a whole 11.5 per cent. of men and women are out of work but in the South East even today that figure is 9.7 per cent., which is substantially lower. If we look at pockets of unemployment, particularly on Teesside, in County Cleveland the level is 14.1 per cent., but pockets of male unemployment are far more acute than anything found in any other part of the United Kingdom and without doubt there is nothing worse to be found in London and the South East. Let us have the perspective that the problems faced by the North East are still in large part unchanged in relative terms and that it remains the duty of Parliament and successive governments to redress the balance in favour of the North East and the northern region, so far as they can, as a matter of priority.
We must beware of false dawns, because there have been many of them. I remember—and the noble Lord, Lord Bottomley, will remember it well—that on Teesside 20 years ago there were many of us who believed that the future was ours. I remember making a speech in which I referred to "an escalator of progress". Whatever the problems elsewhere, in the North East we had overcome them. ICI, which had an important role in Britain's export performance, was employing 25,000 men and women, mainly men, at Billingham and Wilton, and British Steel, which had

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just constructed its new plant at Redcar, also employed some 25,000 men and women. I am glad to hear from my noble friend Lord Redesdale that new plant is coming into operation today.
Nevertheless, on Teesside today, instead of 25,000 men and women employed by ICI, there are 11,000. Instead of 25,000 in the steel industry, there are 5,500. Where we were optimistic, as we believed with good reason, 20 years ago things have not worked out quite as we then anticipated and hoped. We thought that the final elimination of heavy engineering, including marine engineering, and the run-down of the coal industry were almost complete, and that therefore employment would grow. The process of change has been much extended, and there is a great deal of hardship on the way. Prosperity in the North East, perhaps more than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, still remains precarious.
I referred to the contrast between the North East and the South East and to the problems of the North East being chronic. We may see this reflected equally in the construction industry. It has been of much concern to this House, particularly when some 450,000 men have been laid off over the last two years. But the problems of the construction industry and all those associated with it are certainly as acute in the North East as in the South East. The only difference is that the North East did not enjoy the boom of 1988 and 1989, and had less distance to fall.
I should like to believe, as all of us must—and perhaps the noble Baroness will refer to this in her remarks later —that the Autumn Statement will do something to transform the problems of the North East as elsewhere. But I have to say with reluctance that so far there is very little sign that this is the case. We know that there has been no perceived return of confidence, and I am not aware that most of the manufacturers of the North East believe that the Autumn Statement will have a significant impact upon them.
As for capital receipts, something to which the Government have attached considerable importance and from which we hope much, we must not forget that capital receipts that local authorities will be able to spend have to be earned from sales between now and the end of 1993, which means that any part of the recovery expected to come from that quarter will not occur soon, and will occur only over a period of time and probably not before next year. When we look at what the Autumn Statement could have contained, we can reflect on the fact that a quarter of all dwellings in the northern region, 24.8 per cent. of them, were built before 1918. They and many others would benefit from a major programme of rehabilitation, especially to raise them to new energy and environmental standards. Alas, there is no proposal to spend the money necessary in the North East and elsewhere to achieve such desirable objectives.
I referred to false starts. I was much involved in 1964 and thereafter with the establishment of a new economic planning framework for the North East. Since that time not only has the Northern Economic Planning Council been disbanded but economic planning has gone, as things will from time to time,
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out of fashion. I hoped at that time that the tentative steps that were taken in establishing the Regional Economic Planning Council and the Regional Economic Planning Board might develop in due course into a form of regional government. Alas, this did not happen, and a good deal of the impetus that we acquired at that time petered out and much of the machinery was disbanded. I am alarmed to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, that some of the existing structure for the rehabilitation of the North East is still being taken apart today.
There were, however, some positive gains. Despite the proper remarks of my noble friend Lord Redesdale about the need to improve transport, particularly the A.1, I believe that the North East has been given by successive governments a much better transport network than hitherto. If I may in that context make a modest claim of my own, I was responsible as Secretary of State for Transport for improving the A.19 through Cleveland and the A.66, and I saved the Tyne-Wear Metro at a time when it was much under threat following the visit of the International Monetary Fund in 1976. Although we have still further to go with transport improvements, I think we can claim that one factor that we have inherited from those years of the 1960s is a better transport network.
Secondly, we have inherited the ability in the region to speak with one voice. Those of us who were conscious of the importance of Parliament in persuading the government to play their part in these matters were always aware of the role of the Secretary of State for Scotland. At a crucial juncture in a Cabinet meeting when the Cabinet was likely to make a decision which he as Secretary of State would find unfavourable, he would bang on the table and make clear how many seats would be lost in Scotland by whatever government it was if such and such a course rather than another one was adopted. Those of us who had some role in the North East were aware that there was nobody who could do the same for us. I have never been persuaded, although we have had some admirable Ministers of State performing this role, that anything less than a Cabinet Minister banging the Cabinet table is likely to have that impact for the North East, or for anywhere else.
Nevertheless, during that period the region began to speak with one voice, which is what the Scots had always done. They had argued that new investment had to come to Scotland, and whether it went to Strathclyde or to Tayside was only a secondary consideration. For a long time that was not the case in the North East, but from the middle of the 1960s men and women in the North East began to argue that it was important that there should be inward investment to the region and whether it went to Teesside, Tyneside, Wearside, Durham or Northumberland was of secondary importance. That too is something that we carried over.
The third thing we have carried over is a willingness to accept change. There was a time when the outside world thought that the northern region was all whippets and Andy Capp. There was a great yearning for a past which was slipping away and sometimes an

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inability to adapt to a different world. That has now gone. The response to Nissan's investment, to which my noble friend, Lord Redesdale, referred, is one measure of the adaptability which the North East, and the northern region as a whole, has achieved in recent years.
There is still much further to go. I was looking the other day, for example, at the number of school leavers going to university and higher and further education. The percentage of school leavers in the northern region going to university is lower than anywhere except East Anglia. We have 10.2 per cent., compared with a national average of 12.1 per cent and 13.6 per cent. in the South East. If we take the percentage of school leavers going to higher and further education other than universities, at 30.8 per cent. we have the lowest percentage in England and Wales, and we had the lowest percentage 10 years ago.
When I and, I think, the honourable Member for Motherwell put forward a proposal in 1963 for a university of Teesside it received little local support. That was a great disappointment to us. It is good news that, as I understand it, a combination of Durham University and Teesside Polytechnic has now proceeded to create what will be known as the University College of Teesside. I repeat that we still have some distance to go in the North East towards ensuring that a sufficient number of our young people have all the advantages that others possess and have taken the opportunity to use.
There are other areas where one must hope that progress will be made. My noble friend Lord Redesdale and other noble Lords have referred to the role of the North East within the European Community. In the referendum of 1975, 62.9 per cent. of the people of Tyne and Wear voted for Britain's membership of the Community; in Durham it was 64.2 per cent; in Cleveland, it was 67.3; and in Northumberland it was 69.2. That was the verdict of the people at that time. The North East will not prosper if Britain is seen to be half in and half out of Europe. The Government will have my full support not just in maintaining but in perhaps accelerating the momentum of their commitment to Europe if for no other reason than that it is so important for the steady prosperity of the North East and the achievement of many of the goals that the region has set for itself.
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Given a favourable wind from government, and given the long-term commitment to which my noble friend referred, there is a brighter prospect for the North East than we have seen before. If this Government, and successive governments, get their macro-economic policies right, and if they give regional development policies their due weight again, we can look back at the changes of the past 25 years and look forward to rather better changes in the next quarter of a century.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, the recession that we are now experiencing has been particularly noticeable to the South of England to which it has come as an unaccustomed shock after years of prosperity. Against
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all previous experience, early indications were that the North was going to avoid the full impact this time round. As recently as this Spring, surveys by local chambers of commerce were pointing to continued optimism in Cleveland's local economy. However, over the past six months, business confidence in Cleveland has fallen to an all time low. Companies are reporting cutbacks, not just in orders but in equipment replacement, training and recruitment. That does not bode well for future commercial development in the sub-region.
Cleveland's economy remains dominated by the traditional manufacturing industries—steel and chemicals—and they remain the largest employment sectors. The move to contract out many of their operations has resulted in the formation of numerous new small companies which depend entirely upon the prosperity of their customers—British Steel, ICI and other large firms. Heavy industry therefore is for ever the key to the local economy and its continued commitment is vital. That commitment has been seen in the past. For example, ICI has done its best to attract new investment into the area, has itself made major investments in new plant, and has contributed to the formation of new business parks which have created over 600 new jobs. But times are difficult even for it at the moment, and it has had to restructure to keep in the game.
Many small businesses were started in the' eighties; but there have been many failures. In September, one consultant described the recession as being just two months away from catastrophe. It is to be hoped that the recent drop in interest rates will belie that possibility. Many firms moved into the area with their head offices rather than branches which could be easily closed down when things became tough. That has been a healthy development. However, if new firms are to bring wealth to the area, they must sell not just to their local customers but outside the area, just as, nationally, we have to sell abroad.
Among new firms, 78 per cent. of sales were made within the county and only 1 per cent. abroad. That is not a strong basis for the long-term development of the county or the country, and perhaps the Government could give more encouragement to export out of the region and out of the country.
There are many vital linkages that must be appreciated, and a successful manufacturing economy must recognise them. First, there is transport. Having seen the success of the Japanese philosophy of "just in time", firms now rely upon moving components to and from manufacturing plants to a tight schedule, and that requires highly efficient transport links. The county roads, still with certain gaps, are acknowledged throughout the country; but once the area is left, transport meets the endemic delays of the A.1 which were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. Thus, the decision to upgrade the A.1 to motorway standard has been welcomed warmly by the county and it cannot come too soon.
Another linkage is education. Links between education and heavy industry were looked down upon for a long time, with industry seeing little relevance in the theoretical and academic approach within higher

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education. Likewise, education saw little reward in getting one's hands dirty on machinery, and engineering was not therefore seen as a proper academic qualification. Consequently, Britain has not fostered the environment for research and development so vital for the diversification of its manufacturing base.
In Cleveland, in the past 12 months BASF and ICI have opened major new research establishments, and they are warmly welcomed. For the county to achieve a period of sustained recovery, a commitment to research over a whole manufacturing spectrum will be required. That provides the only chance for entering the 21st century with any degree of hope; but there are good signs. The University of Teesside has started to reap the benefits of its newly-acquired status, while Britain's newest university—University College, Stockton-on-Tees—has just opened its doors to students who are studying the environment.
Having restructured to meet the streamlining of heavy industry, the North East is facing yet another economic problem—that is, massive cut-backs in the coal industry. That will require new investment and support in addition to that already in place. The recent review of assisted area status has demonstrated conclusively that any downgrading of the Cleveland area will put in jeopardy all the benefits that that status has brought in recent years; namely, the creation and safeguarding of over 10,000 jobs through regional selective assistance. All the good work undertaken by various councils, the chamber of commerce, Teesside Development Corporation and other agencies, will have been in vain. Despite those efforts, Cleveland remains among the bottom two or three counties in terms of its rate of employment. Where would it be without that assistance, my Lords? One in six of the workforce is without a job. That figure rises to one in three, and even higher in certain inner urban areas. There is no sign that a ceiling has been reached. This is a terrible waste of resources, particularly as some of the unemployed have skills that are a vital ingredient of economic recovery and are in danger of being lost for ever. The jobless situation is very serious and leads not only to great hardship, waste of resources and personal depression, but also to crime as unemployed youngsters have nothing to do but get into trouble. In one of the most wide-ranging surveys recently undertaken, it transpired that 29 per cent. of unemployed people aged between 18 and 24 had never had a regular job, and 37 per cent. of those who had been unemployed for more than six months had no skills. Yet mobility has increased; more people are prepared to travel to their jobs than the average in the region. Not all is despair. Fifty-seven per cent. of the unemployed had education and vocational qualifications, while 56 per cent. had been on training courses.
Homelessness in Cleveland has recently been reported in very vivid terms. For example, in Stockton the number of homeless single people applying for housing is 633, or the equivalent of 13 double-decker busloads. In the past 12 months, 387 families have been re-housed on the grounds of homelessness. At
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present there are 70 families who must wait three or four months to get homes; and some 9,000 people are reported to be on the waiting list.
Cleveland is not used to just sitting back and suffering when the going gets tough. Massive redevelopment projects continue to be initiated, and there is close working between the private and public sectors. The university I mentioned earlier has been built as part of the largest project for the reclamation and redevelopment of derelict land in western Europe. Over the past 10 years the county council has contributed to attracting some £78 million of European assistance. Cleveland is an example of infrastructure spending having a real and rapid impact. The Government must be well aware of the effect of their own direct activities. There was great joy when it was decided that the Quality Assurance Directorate would be moved to that area from Woolwich with 1,700 jobs and, as a knock-on effect, several hundred more. Sadly, the project was cancelled. But hope now lies in current discussions about the threat to 180 jobs as a result of the Royal Navy spares department being moved from Eaglescliffe to Bath and the possible creation of 1,700 jobs at the unified Army personnel centre.
The TDC is spending £4 million on converting 200 hectares of derelict land into a largely self-sustaining nature reserve which will be one of the largest and most sophisticated environmental projects in the country. Stockton made a successful bid for City Challenge. There will be a £20 million town centre redevelopment scheme together with a dramatic and exciting upgrade of the river Tees and a training scheme for the unemployed to build houses for the homeless. At Hartlepool there is a new marina, a fine waterside housing development and a branch of the Imperial War Museum that will be a great benefit to the area. There are many other multi-million pound projects in the county.
But Cleveland needs a sustained period of confidence to encourage would-be industrialists to put the area at the top of the list for new projects. New arrivals find to their amazement that in a few minutes they can travel along the motorways from their homes to the countryside, their offices and the town centres. And five times a day they can take a 40-minute flight to London. For recreation indoor tennis courts, first-class theatres, walks in the national park, racing, cricket and every other sport are available. I remember when the area was smoggy and unhealthy with hideous old industrial buildings belching smoke. All of that has gone. The industrial area is now clean and very often impressive in its own way. Now we look only for continued confidence from the Government in return for which the county and region will be able to make a positive contribution to the economic rejuvenation of the country as a whole.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to Lord Redesdale for initiating the debate. By so doing he has done a service to the North East, and I hope that we hear him frequently in this House.

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The north east of England is a quadrilateral: the Tweed is to the north, the Tees is to the south, the Pennines are to the west, and the North Sea is to the east. It is a clearly defined geographical area that contains over three million hard-working, intelligent, excellent people who have served Britain well both in peace and war. For six years I served in the Durham Light Infantry. The Durham Light Infantry was recruited mainly from the mining industry because (as the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, said in his "half-shift") miners worked in the dark and in confined spaces. Those are the qualities required of infantrymen. The mining industry produces the best infantrymen in the country. But, as one would expect, the Government have abolished the Durham Light Infantry. They have either abolished or privatised almost everything. They are now going to privatise the castles which are so important to the tourism to which the noble Lord, Lord Dormand referred.
The North East was the crucible in which was forged the Industrial Revolution on which our country's prosperity in the 19th century and early 20th century was based. Even as late as 1975, as Lord Redesdale, said, a third of our non-service jobs were in steel, shipbuilding and coal. Today, 17 years later, that 35 per cent. has dropped to 3 per cent. Those two figures illustrate the problem facing the north east of England. Of course, the heavy industries had to run-down but the problems associated with that run-down have been greatly exacerbated by this Government's policy.
I shall mention one or two examples. First, there was the shameful betrayal of Sunderland in collusion with the EC. Not only did they close down shipbuilding in Sunderland—the oldest shipbuilding centre in Europe, maybe in the world —but they made an agreement with the EC which forbade any further shipbuilding in Sunderland at any time in the future. Secondly, the Government privatised the steel industry. Now, the only criterion for the siting of steelworks is profit for shareholders. According to my philosophy there should be another criterion in addition to profit: the provision of employment. Thirdly, the latest step is the appalling betrayal (that is not too strong a word) of the coal industry. Let us face the facts. The purpose is to prepare the coal industry for privatisation.
Another example was mentioned today and came from an unexpected source—a right reverend Prelate. The noble Baroness replying to his Question, pointed out the effect that electricity prices charged since privatisation had had on industries such as ICI. I just wonder how many of the job reductions mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, in ICI on Teesside are due to the same cause as the redundancies in Cheshire; namely, the astronomical increase in energy prices since privatisation. The result of all this, as almost everyone has said, is our unemployment figures announced today of 11.6 per cent. and of 15.3 per cent. male unemployment.
I implore the Minister not to tell us we are doing better than other areas. The Government have tended to do that simply because in one or two years our rate
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of increase in unemployment in the North East has been marginally lower than elsewhere. The figures that came out today, which I checked, show that our rate of increase is a little higher, at 0.1 per cent., than most other areas. I hope the Minister will not tell us we are doing better than other areas. Not only do we have high unemployment, but we have far more than our share of deep-seated, long-term unemployment. The North East has 12.5 per cent. of the national total of people who have been out of work for three years or more. Just imagine that. The North East has 5 per cent. of those employed but 12.5 per cent. of the total of those who have been out of work for three years or more.
The noble Baroness knows quite well that the longer people have been out of work, the more difficult it is for them to get jobs. All the evidence up and down the country points to that fact. What chance have those unemployed people, who account for 12.5 per cent. of the total unemployed, of getting a job? What chance have the 16 per cent. of people who have been out of work for two years or more of getting a job? What chance have the 35 per cent. of people in the North East who have been out of work for one year or more of getting a job?
There are 10 travel-to-work areas in the North East with assisted area status. I am glad they have that status. I shall not trouble the House by reading out the names of those places, but I shall read out the male unemployment figures in those 10 areas which cover most of the North East. The figures are 16.8 per cent., 15.9 per cent., 24.3 per cent. in South Tyneside, 18.5. per cent., 11.9 per cent., 20.9 per cent., 12.3 per cent., 15.2 per cent. and in my noble friend's area of Middlesbrough the figure is 19.8 per cent. The final figure is 15.5 per cent. Those figures are not only unemployment statistics but they also show up in other statistics too. They show up in the statistics about poverty.
At the weekend the Daily Telegraph published a table of family incomes by regions. The North East was well down at the bottom. I believe that is a direct result of this appalling unemployment, especially the deep-seated, long-term unemployment. We have this reservoir of unemployment and poverty. I think that that is quite appalling after 13 years of Conservative rule which was supposed to be doing great things for this country. We have heard about miracles and all kinds of things but this is the state of affairs after 13 years.
I should have thought that when the Prime Minister stood up in the Guildhall—that citadel of the classless society—the night before last he might have devoted just a few sentences to the plight of the 3 million of his fellow citizens who are out of work and their 3 million dependants. I should have thought he might have mentioned the 6 million Britons who are living either in poverty or on the very verge of poverty. However, they did not receive a mention. That omission from the Prime Minister's speech, plus the brutality of the coal closure announcements, plus the Chancellor's statement that unemployment was a price worth paying, to me are clear evidence that unemployment is

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not exactly uppermost in the minds of Ministers. I could put it more bluntly and say it looks as though they do not care tuppence about unemployment.
As everyone has said, there has of course been a great deal of inward investment, especially from abroad, and we are delighted about that. Thank heavens for the Japanese. Nissan is not the only Japanese company in the North East. The Japanese have brought with them many companies and they have provided excellent employment. We are grateful to our ex-enemies for that. Thanks to the excellent work of the Northern Development Company and the local authorities—I do not think anyone has paid tribute to them; I know this Government do not like local authorities, but they do splendid work in the field of industrial promotion—who have co-operated with the Northern Development Company and with government agencies inward investment has been brought into the area.
It would be churlish of me not to admit that the assisted areas policy has achieved a great deal. We are grateful for that. Nissan has been mentioned by a number of speakers. It is a unique example of how one firm can regenerate a whole area. Its investment and the excellent employment which it provides are important, but also a multiplier effect is created in the local economy. Nissan is a good example of inward investment. What of the future? There have been a number of medium-term models of the British economy and they seem to show that by the year 2000 our unemployment will rise to 185,000. I believe it should be everyone's job and everyone's concern, especially the Government's, to ensure that that dreadful target is not reached.
I wish to mention two areas of special concern. The first concerns coal. It took the North East, the Northern Development Company, local authorities, the Government and everyone else four-and-a-half years to attract 4,500 jobs. If Mr. Heseltine had had his way those 4,500 jobs would have been wiped out in one afternoon because he proposed to create exactly that number of redundancies in the coal industry in the North East. But of course his plans would not merely have resulted in 4,500 redundancies. There is also the knock-on effect of that to be considered in technical support industries such as mining machinery, in the transportation of coal and in the possible effects on our two coal-fired power stations. The multiplier effect of the loss of one job in coal has been variously estimated at ratios of 5:1 and 3:1. But let us suppose that it is a factor of 2:1. That would mean that if Mr. Heseltine's plans are carried out, a total of 9,000 redundancies would be created in the North East; that is, 4,000 in coal and 4,500 elsewhere.
The second area of concern is the offshore industry. That has been one of the great success stories in the North East in recent years. It currently employs 20,000 people, but there are great fears about the future. There are fears that a reduction in orders could put much of this employment at risk. AMEC has already talked about 1,500 redundancies, but 10,000 jobs could be at risk in this industry. So the outlook is not exactly rosy in spite of all that has been done and achieved.
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I wish to make three pleas to the noble Baroness. First, I know an inquiry is taking place at the moment—we referred to that point yesterday or the other day—but I plead with the Minister to retain, and if possible improve, the assisted areas policy. If possible, please can it be extended to the areas of the North East where it does not apply at present and where unemployment is projected?
Secondly, please will the Government increase the funding from the DTI for inward investment work, which costs a great deal of money, beginning with 10 per cent. of the level of funding of similar work in Scotland and Wales? I do not suggest for one minute that they get too much; they do not. But we get far too little. Please try to provide more resources for that work.
Thirdly, I have heard from a number of people in the North East over the past year or so that there is a need for more co-ordination of government efforts in the region. Individual government departments in the region appear to be running their own programmes and doing their own thing, with little concern for what other departments are doing. We hear that complaint from many places. Therefore, will the Minister please try to co-ordinate what the Government themselves are doing?
The North East is a marvellous area of the United Kingdom. It is a beautiful area, a hard working area and an innovative area. It deserves better from the country in the future than it has received in the past.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Crathorne: My Lords, speaking at this point in a debate one usually has to cross out much of what one had intended to say. It would be pointless for me to repeat many of the points and statements which have already been made. I should like to concentrate on my own particular area of the North East—Cleveland. That is still thought of as Teesside by many people. I should like to focus on one or two points in relation to that area. Therefore, I hope that there will be little repetition.
As we have heard, the area has to some extent bucked the trend, but it started from a low base. It is clear from the debate today that we are considering the position of the North East at a particularly critical time when its economy is delicately balanced.
The geological make-up of the Cleveland area has meant that the economy has always been bound up with iron, steel, shipbuilding and chemical manufacture. The success of the giants—ICI and British Steel—is vital to the area. It is good to know that ICI has committed another £159 million to the area. Many smaller companies owe their very existence to the industrial giants.
The traditional image of those giants conjures up a picture of pollution, which, thankfully, is not nearly as bad as it was. However, we have to overcome that in order to attract businesses and people to the area. I should like to register two caveats to the Government. The first concerns the erection of the chemical waste plant at Seal Sands. It is clearly needed, but I gather that large additional amounts of chemical waste will

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be imported into the area. That seems unsatisfactory. I am not clear as to how the dioxin emissions will be monitored and I have some doubts on that aspect.
My other point concerning pollution relates to the use of North Sea gas and the problems which spring directly from the lack of a coherent energy policy. A pipeline which is to bring 1,400 million cubic feet of gas per day into Teesmouth is nearing completion. Experts tell us that that irreplaceable fossil fuel should not be burnt in power stations and sewage sludge chemical incinerators but should be used as chemical process feedstock in the production of plastics and the endless other products of gas.
One of the consumers of that gas will be the ENRON power station currently being built on Teesside—the largest of its kind in the world. It will supply 3 per cent. of Britain's energy needs. In retrospect it appears that insufficient thought has gone into considering how to direct that energy to where it is required. Only a small percentage will be required on Teesside. The National Grid's plans for linking the electricity created into the grid system threatens our area with a proliferation of pylons, which is seen by all of us living in the area as unacceptable. That has led to a public inquiry which reports to the Secretary of State next year. My noble friend the Minister should be in no doubt about the strength of feeling on that issue. Indeed, there is to be an adjournment debate on the subject in another place this Friday.
We in Teesside, and in the rest of the North East, do not want to become a visual or chemical dumping ground. The Government have a role to play here. I understand that there is a rumour that further power stations will be built on Teesside. That would be unfortunate. First, that is not where the electricity is needed. Secondly, I understand that soon there will be massive overproduction of electricity—more than we can consume. I also understand that if those new power stations are not built the new pylons would not be required.
Having made that plea to the Government in relation to environmental pollution I should now like to be more positive. The Teesside Development Corporation has been and continues to be a great success. It is good to know that the Government have agreed the TDC's budget in full for next year in these difficult times. The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, was very modest about the achievements of the corporation and about his own achievements. He has contributed enormously to the success of the TDC.
I should also like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Blatch, who is the sponsor Minister for the Cleveland area with responsibility for the Cleveland Action Team and the City Challenge programmes in the county. She has shown great commitment to the area. I know from my attendance at discussion meetings that her efforts have been admired and appreciated right across the political spectrum.
The Teesside area has been particularly successful with City Challenge. There is about a one-in-three chance of success for those who enter the scheme. Last year Middlesbrough was a winner and this year both
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Stockton and Hartlepool won. This has attracted funding of £37.5 million over five years for each winner.
There are also numerous other innovations in the area. To mention just one, the new task force for Stockton, with an annual budget of £1 million from April 1993, will help inner city residents into work.
I turn now to tourism. In addition to the North Yorkshire Moors national park, Teesside has a wide range of tourist attractions. As noble Lords have said, we do not yet have enough tourists there. It is particularly good news that the Imperial War Museum is to have a permanent exhibition at Hartlepool based on 20th century naval heritage. The decision to locate this prestigious facility in that area is a great vote of confidence.
I should also like to mention a much smaller attraction—the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Stewart Park, Middlesbrough. I have always been fascinated by Captain Cook and I am pleased to be a member of the museum's trust board. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Bottomley, our chairman, in the Chamber today. We are now embarking on a major development. Already new environmental controls have been provided allowing a wider range of exhibits, particularly very fragile ones. A three-phase development costing around £750,000 is about to start. The initial financial package of £140,000, including contributions from the borough council, Cleveland Action Team, the European Regional Development Fund, the Museums and Galleries Commission, Teesside TEC, Teesside Development Corporation and English Estates, has been put together by the curator working with the Cleveland Action Team and others. I have mentioned all those who are involved because that is a marvellous example of the arts, tourism and urban policies all working together. There will also in that first phase be a new educational study centre, which will be particularly targeted on schools in the disadvantaged area, covered by Middlesbrough city challenge programme. We hope that visitor numbers will increase from 100,000 per annum to about four times that amount.
This is not a debate to discuss the arts in detail. However, to attract people and businesses to the area, the area has to be made as attractive as possible. Northern Arts has done its best to foster the arts in the area and has mounted a splendid bid for the area to become the visual arts region of 1996, fighting off particularly stiff competition from Bradford and Glasgow. Plans for that are progressing and it will be an all-year, all-region celebration of the visual experience. It will be managed by a consortium including the Northern Development Company, the North of England Assembly of Local Authorities, the Northumbrian-Cumbrian Tourist Board and Northern Arts. It is to be hoped that that will have a major economic impact on the area.
Sticking with the arts for a moment, we are still without a fine concert hall in the North East, which obviously inhibits what can be done. We are certainly better off with theatres, including the oldest theatre in the country, the Georgian Theatre Royal in

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Richmond, North Yorkshire. It is of extraordinary interest and beauty and I have been involved with it for a number of years.
It is quite clear from the speeches made today that the North East is doing a lot to help itself. It has to be said that the Government have played their full part in that. We now look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister has to say.
4.52 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for winning the ballot and for introducing his Motion so effectively. In almost every case noble Lords who have spoken have some association with the North East itself. My association is extremely distant: my grandfather was rector of St. Mary's, Tyne Dock, for 23 years, and my father was born and educated in Durham. So in my time I have been called an honorary Geordie, though I would still say that I am an honorary Geordie from mid-Wales. I think I can compromise on that.
I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Glenamara mentioned the role of local authorities because this allows me also to declare something of an interest—again, it is an honorary interest as it is not paid—as president of the Federation of Economic Development Authorities. They are the development authorities run by district councils. They have played an enormous role over the years. This year the federation is celebrating its 50th anniversary—if I may put in a commercial plug for the association. The role of local authorities in the North East, as elsewhere, as my noble friend pointed out, is extraordinarily important.
The main theme in this debate has been that of a north eastern economy in transition. It is not a new problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth, pointed out. The problem has been with us since the Second World War. Heavy industry—coal, steel and shipbuilding—is gradually running down. In some cases plants have shut down overnight, or there has been an attempt to shut them down overnight. But I think everybody recognises that, given the world market for ships and the difficulties in the steel industry, inevitably there will be a transition out of heavy industry in the North East towards some sort of lighter industry. Nevertheless, as the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, said, the result of this process, together with the recession, is now hitting the North East much harder than it has been hit before. It has resulted in what I take to be the major problem that almost every noble Lord who has spoken today has raised: that is, the problem of unemployment.
First of all, I would like to say that all your Lordships will have an opportunity to take part in a rather larger debate on unemployment because my noble friend Lady Turner has put down a Motion for a five-hour debate on Wednesday, 25th November. We look forward to responses from noble Lords opposite as to what they feel should be done about unemployment generally. Unemployment in the North East has a series of characteristics which we ought to look at in greater detail.
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Perhaps I may give your Lordships one or two figures. Since 1979—taking the period June 1979 to June 1991—the change in manufacturing employment is minus 36.3 per cent. The increase in banking and finance employment—although the gross figures are small—is 52.6 per cent. The decrease in production employment is 40.7 per cent. and the decrease in employment in energy and water is 52.6 per cent.; in metal manufacturing and chemicals it is 49.5 per cent. There is an increase in public administration, and defence is 5.1 per cent. Those are rather dramatic percentage figures. No other region in the United Kingdom has experienced such a large decline in employees in employment. That is an important figure to grasp.
There are various problems linked with the figures that I have given your Lordships. There is the problem of inward investment, however welcome it is. We accept the views of those noble Lords who have said that Japanese inward investment, for instance, has brought great benefit to the North East. Unfortunately the inward investment has not made up for the decline in employment in traditional industries. Furthermore, in manufacturing there is a continued dominance of large firms, many of them foreign owned. Small firms on the whole have not done all that well. I know that the noble Baroness is the Minister for small firms, but I hope she will agree that the North East has not been a particularly productive area for small firms, whatever has happened in the rest of the United Kingdom. On the whole the balance has not been good. As we heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, a point taken up by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, employment is very much dependent upon that balance. If a large firm runs into trouble, the knock-on effects are absolutely enormous, both in terms of the firm itself and the downward multiplier in terms of employment of the supplying firms.
There is also the problem of emigration. We learn that there is to be net emigration from Cleveland and Durham, for instance, which are expected to suffer population losses up to the year 2001. Those losses will be among the younger, more able elements of the workforce and they are likely to continue to out-migrate, as it is called. For obvious reasons, employment opportunities in Cleveland and Durham are entering a period of great uncertainty—I shall come back in a moment to the point about confidence mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough—because quite frankly unemployment, whatever we do, unless we do something very dramatic, will remain above the national average, and long-term unemployment, as my noble friend Lord Glenamara pointed out, will remain a most serious problem.
Nonetheless, we find that training money—money to train people who are unemployed—has been shifted massively from the North to the South, with Tyneside and Durham TECs losing more than any other in the whole country. That leads me back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Glenamara. We wonder whether the Government care very much about what happens to the unemployed.

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The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, mentioned the question of confidence. There is no doubt that during the past few months confidence in the North East has taken a sharp blow. Home market orders continue to fall. Export orders are not too bad, particularly after devaluation, but optimism about the general business situation fell after a short revival post-election. Output has declined further and employment continues to be reduced. That is not a happy situation.
In order to try to combat the effects of recession, which are now hitting the North East almost as hard as they hit the South East a year or two ago, I recommend to the Minister the prescription of my noble friend Lord Glenamara; that more money is required by government to fund inward investment work. There is no doubt that the workforce in the North East consists of good workers. They are solid, honest people who want to help and want to get on and work. But it is up to the Government to make sure that that can happen.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that the economy of the North East is now at a turning point. That view was echoed by my noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington. Perhaps it is like the rest of the United Kingdom. As the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said, either we are in Europe and at the heart of Europe or we are not. If we are, and I hope that we will be, the impact on the North East could and should be immense. But for that to happen the Government must make sure that the proper infrastructure is in place, that the ports are properly developed, that the Channel Tunnel does not lead to a corridor running up the western side of the country thereby neglecting the North East and that the North East reaches out to Europe. None of that can be achieved without help.
Perhaps I may give as an example the M.4 corridor. There is no doubt that the M.4 corridor, which now reaches from Slough to Swansea, has had an enormous effect on the economy of the South and of South Wales. If there is a high-speed link from the Channel Tunnel up the western side of the country to Glasgow in Scotland, there is a fear that in the long term the North East will suffer. That will be corrected only by the development of the north eastern ports so that the North East can reach out directly to Europe.
The simple fact is that the Government must be prepared to plan ahead for those events. It is not enough simply to lurch from one spending round to another. The planning must be long term. Furthermore, the Government must be prepared not only to plan but to lead. They must lead together with members of the community, organisations and institutions, many of which have been mentioned during the debate, co-operatively and with consensus in ensuring that the north eastern economy turns in the right direction rather than into further decline. That is the only way forward.
The essential point is that if the North East is to build on what has already been achieved—and I recognise that a great deal has been achieved—the Government must move forward. Either they are prepared to abandon the philosophy of the 1980s—that is the wholesale reliance on market forces—and
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join with everyone in the North East in a collective effort or they are not. That is their choice. I hope only that they make the right choice. If they do, there is no doubt in my mind that the North East will go from strength to strength.
5.5 p.m.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, has called for today's debate to draw attention to the economy of the North East. In doing so, he has rendered a great service to the region. I congratulate him on initiating a stimulating debate about a number of issues which are important not only to the North East but to other areas in the country. The North East is fortunate to have a young champion in this House who will continue to defend its cause for many years.
I hope that we shall not see a contest between Front Benches in claiming relationships with the North East. I wonder whether the claim of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, is connected with the state of Welsh rugby. My first job was in Newcastle and as a Yorkshire lady at least I recognise quality. There is a great deal of quality and there are many achievements in the North East. Perhaps I may first pay tribute to the partnerships there. They have made a great deal of difference to the work of the Northern Development Council and of local authorities in their co-operation in working with others. They have achieved a great deal. I refer also to central government's role and to my own regional office, which is well networked into those partnerships.
The North-East region has undergone a transformation. Indeed, that continues. There has been a transformation from dependence on the traditional industries such as coal-mining, shipbuilding and steel-making to a broader, modern industrial base. Some of the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, will be protected by the diversity of those industries, although the automotive area is much to the fore. They include food companies and an environmentally-friendly bicycle tyre. The diversity is considerable. Ten days ago it was my privilege to open a £1 million extension of Mi-King, which symbolises all that is happening which is so good. There is a manufacturing steel strip activity; an inward investment, joint venture partnership with Japan; a large company with a small company; and of course it has an excellence. It was typical of the smaller to medium-sized companies which are supplying some of the large companies in the area.
The reduction in the dependence on traditional industries offers opportunities which the region has seized to restructure its industrial base. Despite the tough times—and I do not wish to under-estimate the situation—the area is more resilient against the cyclical fluctuations to which individual industries can be prone. Indeed, during the previous four or five years, the area has staged a significant recovery. Although recently an effect of the overall world recession has been apparent in the North East, unemployment, albeit the highest in mainland Britain, is significantly below the level prevalent during the mid 1980s. Regrettably unemployment rates were then

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between 18 and 19 per cent. Noble Lords from the North East must be pleased that the regional disparity between unemployment levels in the North and South is smaller than it has been for 25 years. A great deal of that is due to the efforts of people in the North East.
There has been a resurgence in local enterprise with more than 10,000 new businesses registering for VAT between 1980 and 1991. Your Lordships will appreciate that that was no mean transition from an employment culture which had not lent itself to breed entrepreneurial spirit but which had been used to an "employee" existence. Yet we saw the birth of 10,000 new businesses.
In opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, recognised that some of the activity in the area—for example, British Steel activity—does not necessarily create more jobs but it protects the jobs which are there. That is an important factor which we must bear in mind. The component industry supplying the car factories works to a standard which allows it to be competitive worldwide; that is important. I was delighted to hear noble Lords comment on the fact that it is crucial for the future of the North East and the rest of the United Kingdom that the GATT negotiations should be concluded successfully and that we should become a full partner in Europe.
It will not be easy to attract more inward investment into the North East because France and Germany have woken up to the fact that that is an area in which the United Kingdom took the lead. They are putting much more effort into pursuing inward investment than was ever the case before. I am delighted to say that the DTI regional office has launched a programme of aftercare for inward investors which involves making sure that we look for expansion from the companies which are already there and do not say, "Thank you for coming. Next one please". I believe that will prove to pay dividends in the future.
The region was the first in the country to have complete training and enterprise council coverage. I do not deny that there has been a swing elsewhere in some payments, but the combined budget for the North East training and enterprise councils for 1992–93 is £136 million. Of course, extra money is involved from the coalfield issue. The Durham training and enterprise council has already submitted a programme in that respect.
Many noble Lords mentioned the importance of the review of the assisted area map. I cannot go ahead of decisions yet to be made; but the choice is made by identifying the third worst part of the country based on unemployment figures. I stress that we are well aware of the need for speed in completing the review. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that the current assisted area map review is not linked to European regional support programmes and European support is not conditional on assisted area status. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord.
Several noble Lords followed the lead given by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, in identifying the key role which infrastructure plays in the North East. Roads are a matter for the Department of Transport, but I can confirm that the department has made it
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clear that it is desirable for the A.1 to be fully dualled from Newcastle to Edinburgh. There are dualling schemes in progress at Marshall Meadows and in Northumberland, design work has commenced on schemes to complete the Alnwick by-pass. There are also a number of schemes under way or at the planning stage in Scotland. In July 1990 the Secretary of State for Transport announced that over a period of time the 260 mile section of the A.1 from the M.25 motorway to Tyneside would be upgraded to a motorway. That announcement recognises the strategic importance that that road has for the economic wellbeing of the area.
The noble Lord mentioned also the A.69 trunk road. Following discussions with Northumberland County Council and Cumbria County Council in May 1991 the Minister with special responsibility for roads agreed to commission a study of the requirements of the A.69 trunk road. Although that was unfortunately delayed, I am pleased to tell your Lordships that the report is due to be published shortly. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord.
My noble friend Lord Elliott of Morpeth always brings a positive view to the work of the area. While we all agree that there is a great deal of work still to do, what has been achieved sets a tremendous example and is an enormous tribute to the people involved. I shall deal with development corporations in a moment, but I hope that the work of English Estates with the new urban regeneration agency will be of continuing benefit to the North East.
Several noble Lords mentioned the role of development corporations. The two north-eastern development corporations have set examples which are to be followed by others. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, and the Teesside development corporation which was totally innovative in founding University College. That must have a long term effect on the future of industry in the North East. The Tees barrage is one of the largest civil engineering projects in the country. That has created about 7,000 jobs, as the noble Lord said; but I understand that the forecast is that 12,000 jobs will be created in the area. That is much to be praised. There are large numbers from the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation but it is interesting that it has attracted over £450 million private sector investment in the area, which is the key to the work of the development corporation. The Tyne and Wear Development Corporation has reclaimed 806 acres of derelict and polluted land. That is the kind of effort which needs focus and is the kind of work which the development corporations are doing so effectively.
The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, referred to the CBI's survey of regional trends which has just been published. I know that we shall always look at matters through different glasses; but it is important that I should put on record that the survey recorded that export orders have increased for the first time for more than a year, and investment plans for plant and machinery point to an increase in expenditure. I believe it is a typically North East comment to say that

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that is motivated primarily by the need to raise efficiency. There is certainly no playing amateur in the North East.
I was delighted also that tourism was mentioned in our debate. Jobs in tourism in the North East have increased significantly in recent years from 59,000 in 1987 to 65,000 in 1989; that is an increase of 9.6 per cent. That is a good figure as regards tourism. A recent study shows that in the first seven months of this year, the Northumbria Tourist Board region was the only English region to demonstrate increased occupancy levels. I pay a personal tribute to the diversity and interesting type of tourism which is being developed in the North East. Tributes to the industrial heritage of the region are a great attraction and are very important.
Noble Lords would not expect me to prejudge the Government's review of the coal industry. The North East would be fully eligible to participate in the range of assisted measures announced on 21st October. They include incentives to enhance the prospects of inward investment. Consideration will be given as to whether enterprise zone status would be an effective means of helping particular areas. There is a local co-ordination effort from the North East under the direction of a local person, Danny Sharp, with a budget of £3 million over three years. The money is following the knowledge.
It is important that I should mention the activities of British Coal Enterprise in the area. We have often mentioned the number of jobs created; but I should point out that British Coal Enterprise has invested £2.4 million in work space in the North East and is seeking to build the first development on Wansbeck Business Park in Ashington, an area to which the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, drew attention. Having heard a Question asked yesterday by my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil and the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, today, there can be no doubt that British Alcan has powerful allies. There can be no doubt that their anxieties will be heard. As the noble Viscount rightly pointed out, the linking of the industrial scene in the Wansbeck area is of crucial importance. My honourable friend met a delegation from the district council and my honourable friend Mr Eggar, the DTI Minister with responsibility for the area, is a full and active supporter of the Wansbeck initiative.
I was interested to hear of the noble Viscount's support for the contribution of opencast coal. I have seen an area of opencast coal restored in a totally operational state. With a residential committee, some of the problems were taken away and we did not have local protests. However, what is happening is that again we see solutions being sought by all parties working together, as is the tradition in the North East.
The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is less optimistic about the effects of the Autumn Statement than I must be and am. The balance between keeping a grip on inflation and encouraging growth was well handled. I can certainly reassure him that although DTI regional Ministers cannot bang Cabinet tables, we look after our own regions. We shout loud and perhaps we
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whisper effectively in the right places. It was nice to hear my noble friend Lord Crathorne's tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Blatch in the area, and as I said, of my honourable friend Mr Eggar in Northumbria. I am doing the same for Yorkshire, but not this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is to be greatly thanked by the area for preserving the Metro programme which is still something which other regions admire.
One other point to which noble Lords drew attention is the importance of Europe. We must pay tribute to my right honourable friend who valiantly and successfully fought off attempts to keep cars produced in the North East out of Europe. We won that battle and it now affects the Midlands and Swindon.
I am pleased to reassure my noble friend Lord Gisborough, in view of his comments earlier this afternoon, that one of the forward-looking develop-ments which we can appreciate in the North East is the increasing role that women are beginning to play in the economy. There are several successful medium-sized firms which are run by women in the area. Probably one of the leading TEC chief executives in the country is a woman in Tyneside, and my own regional director is a woman. That is a personal remark which I hope my noble friend will appreciate. He rightly paid tribute to the contribution that ICI makes in the area which we should not underestimate.
I must be more positive than the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara. I think there is a danger that we might send a message about problems of social violence to which we all know unemployment is related. However, we must not send that message out to the rest of the world so that it stops bringing investment to the area. That is a key issue of which we must beware.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I am not sure why the noble Baroness mentioned me. I did not refer to social violence.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I apologise, my Lord. We are aware of the problems that the area is facing but we must point out the benefits which so many noble Lords have identified today. We and the DTI are already working with the offshore oil industry on diversity of manufacture in which their skills can be used to find other markets. We cannot remake the market, but we can make sure that skills are re-used.
I must point out, as I did earlier today, that ICI generates its own electricity at Teesside. I regret that the Ministry of Defence did not move to Cleveland and understand the disappointment to local expectations. However, defence changed drastically as a result of the opening up of the East-West frontiers and the peace dividend is significant. But on the more positive side, there are large DSS offices in Newcastle, employing over 4,500. The Inland Revenue has an office in Darlington and the import licensing branch of my own department is at Billingham. There is a consciousness of the benefits that government relocation brings to the area.
The noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, raised the issue of the chemical waste incinerator at Seal Sands. The fact

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that the Department of the Environment recently approved plans for the construction of this incinerator at Seal Sands and that it followed a full public inquiry will indicate that all environmental questions, including pollution, must have been satisfied.
The noble Lord also drew attention to the contribution that the arts play in attracting investment to the area. Sometimes it is neglected because it is not easily quantifiable; but I think we all agree that it is a crucial part of the process of selling inward investment on the quality of life the area can offer.
I was therefore a little surprised that none of your Lordships mentioned the recent success of Newcastle United, sitting proudly at the top of the First Division. They identify the spirit of the area, as do the other sporting achievements: Durham County Cricket Club elevated to the first class game; the cricket stadium at Chester-le-Street, which is the first new stadium in the United Kingdom for 70 years. The Great North Run is now an official world championship, and Gateshead International Stadium is the host to major international athletics. Those attributes typify some of the activities which are positive in the North East.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams mentioned the lack of smaller firms in the North East. I am conscious of some of the issues, but I see evidence that "just in time" processes being used by the major manufacturers mean that they have to develop a circle around them of the smaller companies which become competitive again.
I wish to list the great success that the North East has had in inward investment. Since 1985, over 25,000 jobs have been created or safeguarded; £2 billion has been brought in; there are 340 overseas companies in the North East; and, with the highest concentration of Japanese companies in Europe, up to 10 per cent. of the region's workforce is now employed by overseas companies. They have brought a new culture, a new quality expectation and new management styles which will only be of benefit to the area in the times ahead which will not be easy.
Within the overall context of the UK, each region can point to aspects of its economy that call for action. We have heard much about the challenges that confront the North East. I use the word "challenges". They have been described as "problems", but "challenge" is how the North East has responded to the problems it has faced before. There are many positive factors that make the North East economy more resilient than ever before; but paramount must be the people. Their adaptability and attitude to change have made possible in the region the creation from scratch of a car industry. It is a car industry with extremely sound roots. The positive attitude finds expression in the agencies which have become adept in their task of economic regeneration of the region. As I said, nowhere else is there such an energetic and creative combination of agencies.
The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, rightly paid tribute to the Northern Development Company. It speaks for itself that it won the European Development Agency of the Year Award. The NDC has been instrumental in attracting projects to the area. With the after-care programme planned by the
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DTI now, I am sure that we shall continue to see the North East set an example which many can usefully emulate. Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for giving noble Lords the opportunity to air this very positive side of the scene.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I do not believe that anyone who took part in the debate could go against her sentiments about the very positive aspects of the economy in the North East. I also thank her for the Government's commitment to the transport policy. I am a little disappointed that she could not have been more specific over the assisted areas. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

World Food Situation
5.31 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie rose to call attention to the world food situation and the state of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to open this debate in the knowledge that we are speaking about an immensely important subject. I am very grateful to those noble Lords who have put their names down to speak. I must admit that I am a little astonished that there has not been a greater response. However, I look forward with great pleasure and anticipation to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Geraint.
Perhaps I may give one of the reasons for putting down this Motion. For many years I had a great friend named David Lubbock. He was a close kinsman of the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot. For years he was secretary general of the FAO. He worked on missions all over the world for that organisation. On his death bed he was still working. He asked me to have a debate put down. He has since died after a lifetime of devotion to the cause of feeding the world. I am very glad that I am able to have this debate and to give the Government a chance to reaffirm their devotion to food production, to the feeding of people all over the world and also to stress the importance of the subject.
Over the centuries we have had various eras of expansion. It is very useful to look back at what happened at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Industrial Revolution in this country sparked a tremendous demand for food which also sparked a tremendous advance in techniques and a big rise in the supply of food. That was done in an extraordinarily sustainable way which is the way of the modern world. The practices and rotations were such that the land was actually improved and not impoverished. That resulted in the four-course rotation in Scotland and Norfolk and the six-course rotation in my native county of Aberdeenshire. In 100 years they turned what was described by travellers as a "blasted heath" into one of the most productive areas of Scotland. That also included Angus but it had a better start.
Then the wretched Vanderbilts built railways across the prairies and enabled the land to be mined. The results were sent to this country and we were able to buy them. That was considered a great boon in that there was cheap food. Because we were an expanding industrial nation we were able to buy that food to the great profit of the industrial population of this country.
However, the lesson to be learnt is that it did not do much good to the great prairies. They turned into dust bowls and eventually required a tremendous revolution in the method of cultivation in order, not to bring them back to their previous fertility, but simply to hold a little the erosion of the soil which still takes place in very large amounts.
Therefore, we have to realise that although the green revolution has been enormously successful in many areas of the world, there are perils which we have to watch. The breeding of new strains of wheat short enough and strong enough to sustain the application of quantities of fertilizer has raised the production of wheat per acre enormously. In fact it has doubled in the past 20 to 30 years. It has enabled countries like India to make great strides and to produce a very large proportion of its own food. In fact it is exporting some of it, although there are troubles there which I have no doubt that my noble kinsman will be highlighting when he speaks next.
The fact is that the green revolution, the use of fertilizers and pesticides, and the breeding of new strains, has been enormously successful in the production of food. But we have to watch that we do not repeat the dust bowl in another way. Perhaps I may give a small illustration of the kind of thing that can happen. I used to grow a lot of strawberries. When the new herbicides came in, which enabled one to keep the strawberries clean over many years, I thought that was a tremendous boon. Instead of ploughing up the strawberries after three years I kept them down for five years or six years. I thought that that was a very smart thing to do.
However, when we ploughed up the plants after six years I noticed an extraordinary thing. After the plough there were no gulls or rooks at all. When I went to investigate this I noticed that the earthworms had disappeared. One of the points of this story is that we cured the problem without going back to basics. We did it by learning about the use of herbicides and reducing the quantities. We used new types of sprayers which give the same results but in much smaller quantities. The lesson is that one cannot discard scientific advance. One has to use it properly so that it can be of benefit and reduce the damage. In our case we had solved the problem because the soil continued healthy with large numbers of earthworms.
All these advances have enabled us to feed the world. The trouble is that we have not fed anything like all of it. We could do. The situation in many parts of the world is quite desperate. I shall concentrate today on Africa from where we have had the most incredible scenes reported on our screens and in our newspapers showing poverty and appalling famine. A
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great deal of it is caused by civil war, bad government and a whole range of other factors, quite apart from the ability to grow food.
All the voluntary bodies are very concerned; in fact they are dismayed at what is happening. For example, Christian Aid is saying that 480 million people face acute problems at every level; political, environmental, economic and social. Africa contains 32 of the world's 47 poorest countries. Christian Aid simply states:
"Sub-Saharan Africa's economic disaster has been well-documented… per capita real gross domestic product declined by almost 20 per cent. in the region between 1974 and 1984. That is the greatest sustained development failure of the century".
It goes on to show that the growing of cash crops for export is not always particularly beneficial to those countries. That can be illustrated by what happened in Nigeria where sudden wealth from oil enabled the Government to import large quantities of grain, most of which attracted a levy in the form of a percentage paid corruptly to the people who allowed the imports. That ruined the economy of the area around Kano where earthnuts used to abound in great piles and which used to have a substantial and reasonably well fed peasant economy. But that was simply ruined as a result of the buying-in.
When one looks at the whole question of feeding the poorer nations, one must realise that home production not only produces the sort of food that they want to eat, but also is absolutely essential socially because, unlike us who have had the Industrial Revolution, such countries have no growing industries where people can find better employment and better conditions. Errors have been made all over the world in the sort of policies that we have been advocating. I have illustrated the good policies which have had beneficial results in India and elsewhere, but in many cases the policies that we have been advocating have ruined the peasant economies and have displaced populations, with dire results for the cities to which the people have moved. If one wants an example of that, there is no question but that Lagos is the best example. It is the most dangerous city that I have visited because there is no employment, yet the displaced peasant population has flocked there.
So we must look at what we are doing and not simply take what appear to be the straightforward facts—that if one breeds a drought-resistant wheat and feeds it, one can produce more food in an area. It is not as simple as that. Oxfam and all the other voluntary agencies are absolutely convinced that we must make a major effort to protect such communities involved by using our scientific knowledge to improve their own methods. We should allow them to develop along traditional lines instead of causing the sort of destruction that can be wrought by introducing new methods which are totally unsuitable in those areas.
We must also consider the fact that we do not know what we are doing to the world's climate. Anyone of my age who flew over Africa 15 years ago and who flies over it again today can see that the expansion of man's activity is enormous—and not always beneficial. Various forecasts have been made about the rain forests and there is no question about the part that

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they can play in the climatic change which we have undergone and which we may undergo. If things continue at the present rate, the rain forests may disappear in 50 years.
All of these are facts which pertain to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. One of David Lubbock's main preoccupations was that the organisation which he loved and for which he had worked for many years was in absolutely dire straits. A lot of good people were still there and a lot of good work was still being done, but it was not the body that it should be. I have looked at the original constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. It started off with high ideals, which were pursued by a great many able and dedicated people, starting with Lord Boyd-Orr, a former Member of this House.
The preamble to the FAO's constitution states that its purposes will include,
"raising levels of nutrition and standards of living of the peoples under their respective jurisdictions,
securing improvements in the efficiency of the production and distribution of all food and agricultural products,
bettering the condition of rural populations, and thus contributing toward an expanding world economy".
We are talking about 1945. The constitution continues:
"There shall be a Conference of the Organization in which each Member nation shall be represented by one member.
Each Member … shall only have one vote".
All this is important, although your Lordships may think that I am quoting at random.
The constitution also states:
"There shall be a Director-General of the Organization who shall be appointed by the Conference by such procedure and on such terms as it may determine.
Subject to the general supervision of the Conference and its Executive Committee, the Director-General shall have full power and authority to direct the work of the Organization".
This is very relevant to the situation that exists today.
This is the director-general's third term and he has been in office for some 15 years. There has been the most extraordinary amount of criticism from governments, magazines and the staff. The magazine, The Ecologist, not all of which I agree with, last year devoted a whole issue to an attack on the policies and personnel of and the work performed by the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. It gave some quite interesting figures. Each year the FAO currently handles some 500 million dollars in core and extra budgetary funding. That gives it very great influence over the recipient nations. At the moment, as all your Lordships know, its headquarters is in Rome in a sumptuous building—nothing wrong with that. It has a staff of 6,483 people. If divided roughly, two-thirds of them work in desk jobs while one-third are involved in field work. When one gets that sort of proportion one begins to think,
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark".
The United States is the biggest single contributor and is very unhappy about its contribution. I believe that Britain contributes about 6 per cent. of the total. Indeed, only a few industrial countries—non-recipients of the benefits —contribute 70 per cent. of the budget.
The Ecologist's attack continues and includes the projects. One economist from the FAO's development department states:
"The quality of projects is not the concern here. We are expected to process projects as quickly as possible. What counts is quantity, even if that means funding a badly conceived operation".
The director-general insists on full diplomatic privileges and on being called "Your Excellency", which I daresay is a fine human weakness but is not, I should have thought, the kind of thing that adds to the efficiency of this great and important organisation. The contributing nations have been trying to do something about it but the fact is that the FAO dispenses favours. When one has a one nation, one vote situation, the director-general, if he is so inclined, can canvass his favours around; in other words, it is a kind of pork barrel operation.
I have made these criticisms because many people who are passionately interested in the work of the FAO have said this to me. It is the United Nations organisation which should be able to co-ordinate all the work and which should be able to assemble the information and to forecast where the trouble is coming from. This it has failed to do, certainly in Africa. Of course it will fail to do it unless the organisation is right, unless it can get the best people to work for it and unless people know that they are working for an ideal and that they are directed by someone who is also working for an ideal. Without a competent and absolutely upright organisation and leadership it cannot do its job. That is the criticism that I am making. I hope that the Government will be able to give us some answers as to what they are doing about it. I look forward now to hearing the rest of the debate. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.52 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, it is not often that I follow my noble kinsman in a different way. He did not have to declare an interest because he is now a political farmer and not an actual farmer. I am still in the business. I have just finished my 65th harvest and I am very much interested in what will happen in the future. When I came to the House today I expected to see a long list of speakers for the debate. I therefore made only a few notes because I expected to speak for not more than two or three minutes. I was horrified to see only four other names on the list. I have had to expand my notes considerably so I may be a little disjointed in what I have to say.
During the time I have been farming—I started in 1926—I have come through many a crisis. I always remember my old father, who also farmed for many years, saying that he also came through a good many crises—so many, he said, that he had begun not to believe in crises. I am trying to adopt that attitude as well. From 1926 through to the early 1930s there was a deep depression in the economy which affected agriculture to a tremendous extent. A huge number of farmers went to the wall at that time. I do not know the figure but I remember that things were bad and that a good few neighbours where I farmed went bankrupt. That era, from the late 1920s to the early 1930s, was a very bad time indeed.

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I am not sure but I do not think that the recession was quite as bad as the one we are experiencing at the present moment. We have had this terrible uncertainty. There has been no agreement on GATT and we are not sure exactly how the CAP review will work. I must admit that there are different interpretations of what is going to happen, but the main thing about farming—my noble kinsman mentioned this—is that it is a long-term business. If one is going to produce a field of wheat, it is a year's job. If one is going to breed cattle to sell as adult animals, it is a three to three-and-a-half year job. One cannot do what the motor industry does. If that industry feels that it wants to stop producing cars, it can stop producing cars. Production of a car can be stopped and then restarted a year later. Therefore I want to emphasise the long-term nature of farming.
Perhaps I may tell a story which I think I once told in the House many years ago. I think it is worth telling again. It is about a friend of mine who was giving his father and mother a golden wedding celebration. After the meal the bridegroom of all those years before was talking to his brother, who had been his best man. The brother said, "You know, George, you think you have been married for 50 years. You're wrong. You've been married for 51 years". "Nonsense", said John, "Arthur, my son, has the marriage lines". In Scotland we call the certificate the marriage lines. Arthur pricked up his ears and said, "Of course I have them. They are on my desk. I'll get them". While he was away the brother said, "Look, on the day you were married"—in those days everyone was married on Hogmanay because you were allowed one day's holiday in agriculture—"I was ploughing the lea at the back of the stable. And it's in turnips this year. Seven sevens is 49 and two is 51. Arthur can produce any certificate he likes". The certificate was duly produced whereupon it was found that the registrar had been careless. They were married in one year but registered the marriage in the next year. He put the same year for the marriage and the registration. That just shows what forward planning in agriculture was doing in those days.
During the time I have been in farming we have mostly been encouraged to grow more food. That policy was created by the two wars to a certain extent. Now we are discouraged from growing food, particularly by the dreadful set-aside policy. I am afraid that I disagree slightly with the figures of my noble kinsman on whether there is enough food in the world to feed starving people. I have received figures from several sources; some from the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who we all know was director of Oxfam for a long time; some from the FAO, which my noble kinsman does not have much faith in. Nevertheless, there are between 1 billion and 1.5 billion starving people in the world today. If we divide the difference between 1 billion and 1.5 billion the figure is 1.25 billion. That is five times the population of America. It is also four times the population of Russia. Is anyone telling me that there is surplus food in the
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world today to feed that number of people—to feed America five times? I do not think the food is there. That is why I think that set aside is a bad thing.
I have been trying to look at the situation. In the spring of 1981 a debate on the subject took place in which the noble Lord, Lord Renton, made a very good point. He said that there were people to feed, which was a long-term project, and there was the job of teaching them how to grow their own food, which was also a long-term project. Somebody else said that population control also came into the picture long term. The figures that were quoted then have nearly doubled over the last 10 years. It is an ongoing thing that we have not managed to tackle at all in the last 10 years. It is vital that it should be tackled in a strong way.
My noble friend Lord Judd gave some figures, particularly the dreadful one about a baby dying every two-and-a-half minutes, or something like that. I also have a friend who did a lot of work in the west of South America and in the north of South America with a charity that does not take out anything. They go out and try to teach the people how to develop. He said that the situation there was very bad indeed. I met somebody from India not long ago who said that along the foothills of the Himalayas there is an enormous scarcity of food. Whether they cannot get their surpluses there or not I do not know.
I have been trying to interest people in the whole of this dreadful situation. I wrote twice to the Independent. The first time I got just one reply, somebody wrote to me, and the second time there were only two replies. One was an interesting one. I wrote to The Times but the paper would not print the letter. There is a suggestion—and there have been suggestions; I got the reply from the other side not very long ago—that the food that we might have in surplus the starving people would not eat. Of course that is absolute nonsense. If you are starving you would not turn up your nose at our bread, our wheat or dried milk from our cows, but that point has been made.
The other point that was made to me not too long ago was what was the sense of sending out dried milk when the water is all stinking. For goodness sake, we are a manufacturing country and we make good water purifiers. Let us get them out there to help. This farmer who wrote to the Independent said that we should find out what foods might be suitable that we could grow on set aside and that we should go about growing that food especially for export to those countries. I cannot imagine starving people turning up their noses at any of the food that we may produce in this country and send there. I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that set aside should be stopped.
The other thing that I found by talking to a lot of people is that there is not much co-ordination in growing food for these starving people. If there was more co-ordination then proper food could be grown. There is no question but that there is an immense problem in getting the food to them. The tremendous work that the charities do is to be highly respected in every way. They deserve every help that we can give them. They are doing a good job. I have spoken to

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some of the people who have been out there in various places and they said that there is a grave lack of co-ordination and that there could be tremendous help here.
This country should give a lead either through the EC or the United Nations to get a co-ordinating committee of some description that could help the charities to the extent that they could double their work, as one person put it to me. Of course we have the old story of who is going to pay for it. About three weeks ago the Observer had an article putting the point that there were just short of 100,000 millionaires in this country. What about getting an average of £5,000 from each of them? That would be £500 million. That would help a bit, and I am sure they would not begrudge it. I know that the Government are not keen on any fresh taxation, but if they really understood the situation in these countries a lot of people would not object to being taxed to help the situation.
I do not think that I can add much more to what I have said, except to say that if we help these countries and help them to develop, when they become developed they may be of tremendous use to this country in trade. That is a practical point that we should remember. These people will not forget if we go ahead and give all the help we can to people who are starving.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Geraint: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that, after 18 years in the other place, I rise to speak for the first time in this House, having always admired the calm, reasoned approach to debate here and the knowledge and wisdom that informs the words spoken by so many noble Lords. After leaving the hurly-burly of the other place and its highly-charged atmosphere (rather sooner than I had planned, to be honest) I wondered how I would adapt to the more serene and dignified surroundings of your Lordships' House. I find that this has been accomplished with very little pain —indeed, much pleasure—and this is due to the warm welcome and ready friendship that has been extended to me by noble Lords on all sides of the House. I thank you for that.
Perhaps I may also express my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Mackie for introducing this debate on a subject that is not only close to my heart but should also concern every single one of us on both sides of the House. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute just a few brief comments.
I am a farmer from the Welsh hills. Many of you may have read George Borrow's book about when he walked Wales from one end to the other. When he came to our village, the village of Ponterwyd on Pumlumon slopes, he stopped and said:
"This is an area where men will live when crows do die."
I have spent most of my working life on the land, and my whole instinct is geared towards producing as much as I can from this land to help fulfil this country's food requirements.
Coming as I do from this background, I find it difficult to accept the situation where farmers like myself in the developed world are being offered good
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money to stop production, when hardly a day goes by without a harrowing report of famine and devastation in other parts of the world. In our affluent Western society food is thrown away or rots in intervention while, every day, in the poorer countries of this world, children are starving to death. How can we stand by and let that happen?
As a youngster many years ago, being a chapel goer—like many of your Lordships I profess to being a Christian—I remember listening to the minister's sermon on poverty. I remember his words:
"It is a great shame that politicians in this country and in America are keen to pay the farmers not to produce, while others die by the thousands in other parts of the world".
His message to us that morning was, "You have got to do something about it". But here we are, 30 or 40 years later, just talking about the subject. It is still in my mind that we should do more for those people who are less fortunate than ourselves.
As one report produced by the FAO rightly points out, famines very rarely come without notice. The report continues:
"Mostly they grow from steadily deteriorating conditions, the results of which can be anticipated and prevented through appropriate action. When governments—and the international community as a whole—fail to respond to such indicators, famines must be considered human-induced disasters".
The latest information is discouraging. While Europe enjoyed record harvests last year, global figures show a downward trend in food production. The FAO annual review for 1991 shows global cereal harvests down on 1990 (which was a record year); world output in 1991, estimated at 1.881 billion tonnes—a drop of 91 million tonnes (4.6 per cent.); wheat fell by 50 million tonnes to 551 million tonnes (down 8.3 per cent); coarse grains fell by 4 per cent; and rice (paddy) fell by 7 million tonnes (down 1.4 per cent.); developing countries' cereal production fell by 2 million tonnes (0.2 per cent.); and developed countries' cereal production fell by 89 million tonnes (9.6 per cent.). I turn to food aid. In 1990–91 it was 12 million tonnes (up 700,000 tonnes on the previous year, but well short of the 13.5 million tonnes in 1987–88).
I had the privilege of visiting Somalia and other starving countries a few years ago. When visiting the refugee camps, I found it impossible to convince starving mothers and children that our policy of cutting back food production is the right policy to pursue until we are able to help those people who are less fortunate than we are. Let us always remember that our wasted food belongs to the hungry and those with empty stomachs.
We talk about aid. We have the choice of food aid or financial aid. From my experience, what is wanted in the short term is food aid with financial aid later. Therefore, let us go forward to try to help those people in the undeveloped countries who need food aid. I believe in the old adage: "Where there's a will, there's a way". We can solve these problems only if there is a political will to do so. We in this country should look first to our own record. Why cannot we increase our official development assistance to 0.7 per cent. of GNP over the next five years, and aim to increase it further over succeeding years? That is surely possible.

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As your Lordships are aware, today is a crucial day in the GATT discussions. The results will have a profound effect on world trade and on the future of developing nations. It is not my intention to enter into the whys and wherefores of the dispute that has arisen, but merely to wish the negotiators well in their difficult task. However, I should like to make one point. I hope that the outcome of those talks will not result in such a fierce cutback in food production that we shall no longer be able to respond to emergencies by providing food aid in the short term to the countries that so desperately need our help.
I thank your Lordships for listening. Let us all, on all sides of the House, commit ourselves this evening to doing everything within our power to help those people in other parts of the world who are less fortunate than ourselves.
6.17 p.m.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, the noble Lord's speech was an emotional speech to have to follow but it is my great honour and privilege to congratulate on behalf of the whole House the noble Lord, Lord Geraint, on his excellent maiden speech. I echo much of what he had to say. He is, like myself, a farmer; but, unlike me, he is an expert. There is nothing that he does not know about sheep that is worth knowing. He was the Liberal Party's agricultural spokesman in another place for longer than most Members of Parliament can remember. He endeared himself to farmers, not just in his native Wales but throughout the rest of the United Kingdom. I feel certain that his emotional and brilliantly delivered speech will have endeared him to many of your Lordships tonight.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Palmer: My Lords, let us hope that we hear from the noble Lord again, and often.
It is not just your Lordships' House, but really I think the whole world, who should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, for bringing this important subject before us this evening. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, and his noble kinsman Lord John-Mackie, I find it quite extraordinary how few people put their names down on the list to speak tonight. I am pleased to see at least one right reverend Prelate in his place. I thought that we would have a tremendous innings from the Members of those Benches. As the noble Lord said in his maiden speech, the timing of the debate is so crucial with the outcome of the latest GATT round just about to be announced.
I have already declared an interest, as I try to produce food, albeit not very satisfactorily. It was not long ago that we were told to drain the wetlands and grow more. A few years later we are told, "Stop, set it all aside". It is madness. It depends upon whose figures we believe. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, will have another set of figures. I am reliably told that there are today 780 million chronically under-nourished people in the world. I stress the figure 780 million. In other words, that is 156 times the population of the native Scotland of the noble Lord,
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Lord Mackie of Benshie. This year, 11 million children will die from starvation; and yet, on paper, there is enough food in the world to feed everyone.
Surely, as the 20th century draws to a close, it is an international scandal that anyone should be starving, let alone die of starvation. It is a scandal of which we should all be bitterly ashamed. Of course, there is no easy answer. Like so much of life, it is itself a very delicate balancing act between providing urgent humanitarian aid and creating an environment of food security in the developing world. I am sure that many of your Lordships would agree that the western world simply is not doing enough, and surely this is where Britain should and must take the lead. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, is not here tonight as I feel sure she would agree.
As the EC strengthens its global, political and economic position we must, I believe, persuade it to accept the responsibilities and obligations pertaining to its power. It is no longer acceptable—even if it ever was—to treat the reform of the CAP as an internal matter to be decided during long, secretive discussions dominated by powerful domestic lobbies. Decisions taken in Brussels have profound implications for vulnerable communities and commodities in developing countries. I believe the interests of these communities must be included on the agenda for CAP reform. However, I have seen first hand how the vast Brussels bureaucratic machine works, and I still question whether bureaucrats well cushioned in Brussels can realistically decree what is to happen in the Greek islands and the Outer Hebrides, but that is the subject of another debate.
There is a gathering consensus in Europe that, despite the new reforms of the CAP, much unfinished business remains. Public pressure is building for a more sustainable form of farming geared towards lower levels of output, reduced inputs of agro-chemicals and higher levels of environmental care. This provides a fertile soil for a coalition of interests spanning the third world development agencies, environmental and consumer groups and, not least, organisations of small farmers to press for the debate on reforming the CAP to be reopened. The aim of that debate must not be simply to postpone the next CAP budget crisis, which is bound to be round the corner; it must, I believe, be to develop an alternative vision for European agriculture based on sustainability at home and justice for the developing world.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject this evening. I congratulate him on the speech he made in introducing it. If I do not follow him too closely in his strictures about the way in which the FAO is currently being administered it is because I believe he has stated the case clearly and concisely and it is now a matter for the Minister to say what is the reaction of Her Majesty's Government to that statement of the case.
The noble Lord, Lord Geraint, in a very fine maiden speech brought back memories of an

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excessively political boyhood when I used to spend time listening to political speeches rather than doing homework. His speech recalled for me the oratorical trick of the local Member of Parliament, David Kirkwood (then acutely Left-wing), who subsequently became a Member of your Lordships' House. The trick was to use a kind of leitmotif. Throughout a speech he repeated the phrase "poverty in the midst of super-abundance". In a sense I think that that is what this debate is about.
Lord Geraint also gave the FAO's figures for food production in 1991 which show that there is not the surplus of food in the world that we are sometimes inclined to think there is, especially in the context of the common agricultural policy. That point was echoed by the pleas of the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, about the unwisdom of reducing production as a so-called solution to our farming problems.
If food surpluses are measured against population growth, the figures are not as excessive on a world scale as we are led to believe. However, the availability of food is another matter, as is the question of distribution and price. The dominance of certain types of food production by groups of suppliers, usually to be found in the developed countries of the Western world such as North America, the European Community and the Cairns group of countries, is dangerous in economic terms. Yet it is vitally necessary in a global context to ensure that the world has the capacity to produce food.
In my opinion the food problems of the third world are made more difficult by the collapse of stability in Eastern Europe and the emergence there of nationalist and religious quarrels. Those quarrels do not bode well for the immediate future. For example, the resulting diversion of resources, particularly of the United Nations, to former Yugoslavia seems tragic in its own right but doubly so in the context that it exacerbates third world problems.
I also believe that a distinction needs to be made where food shortages arise from civil war, droughts, maldistribution, poor farming, fragmentation of land holdings, illiteracy, population explosions and poor government methods. Developing countries undoubtedly have a duty to assist, whatever the cause of food shortages may be. That point has been made by all speakers tonight; but in general it will be easier to convince people of that duty if the shortages are due to natural causes rather than civil strife, whatever justification may be made for such strife. It is also vital that food aid should reach the needy and is not hijacked by the greedy and the dishonest.
The Western world must take account of the effect of its food policies on growers in the third world. I believe that that point was well made by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. High interest rates as a policy may help to reduce inflation but the ripple effect will make life harsh for even efficient farmers, let alone the subsistence variety. The common agricultural policy, like its counterparts elsewhere—and we are not alone in the world as protectionists in the production of food—is particularly unfair to growers, especially those in developing countries, even when allowance is
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made for easements granted by the EC to ACP countries on an individual commodity basis. EC food aid generosity is partly conscience money, bearing in mind the effect on world markets of what we are pleased to call restitution payments—a euphemism for subsidies—especially when certain food surpluses are drastically reduced by the Community over a short time.
The GATT talks are mainly considered in the context of possible consequential trade wars between developed countries if they fail. We must all hope that the talks currently taking place do not fail. Third world nations have a vital interest in trade and agricultural production provided that they are fair and free. GATT matters no less for them, and a consequential trade war in the event of failure is the worst possible scenario for the third world.
One of the consolations in all this is that distance from markets is not the debilitating factor for developing countries it once was; for example, food cargoes flown by air can reach the West in hours as opposed to weeks. This is an added reason for third world countries to market well. In a United Kingdom context our track record for both aid and assistance is good in my opinion. One would still wish to see it improve, even if the magic 0.7 per cent. of GDP is currently beyond us. It is vital to ensure that good use is made of the help that we are undoubtedly giving.
The ministry for overseas development once had an established post for an adviser on co-operatives. I knew both incumbents, who held the job over many years. They were well trained in the field having been officers in former Commonwealth countries, and for a time the ministry also had an advisory committee on co-operatives. Both those activities have now been discontinued on the grounds apparently that they were no longer necessary. Yet, as I see it, the need for co-operatives in agriculture, especially in the third world, is as great as ever, maybe even more so.
Co-operatives can contribute across the whole range of food supplies as well as in the important area of agricultural credit. A new body has been established in Britain entitled the United Kingdom Co-operative Council, and it now exists thanks largely to an initiative of the former registrar of industrial and provident societies, Mr. Keith Brading. It was formed, as I say, almost by accident when the Co-operative Development Agency was prematurely wound up by Her Majesty's Government. But now the United Kingdom Co-operative Council has its own role. It embraces all types of co-operative, which is very important; that is to say, consumer, agricultural societies, producer societies, credit societies and housing co-operatives, with representatives from national organisations in each case.
At the moment the council is mainly concerned with revising the 1965 Industrial and Provident Societies Act which is a near mammoth task, not least because of some of the difficulties in getting agreement between the parties as to what changes they would wish to see. I feel, however, that with modest help and encouragement the United Kingdom Co-operative Council could assist the ministry for overseas development in the promotion of agricultural societies

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and other types of co-operative, especially in Commonwealth countries. The need for this is there. The expertise is undoubtedly there and the ministry for overseas development could, I think, by acting as a kind of marriage broker, convert this body into a very important organisation, not excluding the status of a non-governmental organisation, on the world scene.
The year 1991 was the Food and Agriculture Organisation's conference year and some 161 member countries participated in that conference. They gave unanimous support for making people's participation a priority by reinforcing rural institutions, including, as mentioned in the report, farmers' unions and co-operatives. They commended the role of non-governmental organisations and promised an increase in the Food and Agriculture Organisation's collaboration with them. I applaud that. In this context, what help could the United Kingdom's national farmers' unions give to solve world food shortages in, say, third world Commonwealth countries? British farming is due to become less intensive. A 15 per cent. set aside, for example, with limits in certain cases on livestock headage, would seem to indicate, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, has said, some reduction in the intensity with which we farm in Britain.
Nevertheless the expertise of British farmers remains high and it would be a great pity in my opinion if, because of the solutions—if one can so call them—decided upon in order to solve common agricultural policy problems, this expertise were in any way to suffer as a result of under-use. I have never been able to decide, nor have ever heard anyone say very much, about what kind of farming policies third world countries should follow. Should they, for example, if they have a choice, farm intensively to boost supplies which are urgently needed in certain countries in the short term, or should they farm extensively in order to absorb labour and to stop the drift of population from the country to the towns? I must confess that I have yet to hear anyone say which of those policies is correct, or whether both are correct, but the circumstances in which they may apply are different and as a consequence it is impossible to be specific about the areas in which either policy should be applied. Nevertheless it is something which must be taken into account.
The United Kingdom, fortunately, has experience of both systems. We certainly know how to farm intensively and as a result, as I have said, of what has happened recently with the CAP, we are due to become—I am sure we will become—successful extensive farmers. Therefore I ask, could not this dual capacity encourage national farmers' unions to play some part whereby suitable British farms would take farm workers from developing countries, particularly Commonwealth countries, for, say, a year of practical training in basic farm work? I raised this as a supplementary question with the noble Earl the other day and he promised to have a look at it. I repeat it now in the hope of persuading him that it is worth an
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examination, even though one would be reluctant to claim that it represents either great originality or a suggestion of world-shaking importance.
Such workers, as I see it, could come to Britain, live on the farm and at the end, say, of a full year's cycle of farming return home with more basic skills than they came with. The cost of modest schemes of this kind would not overwhelm the overseas development ministry budget and even an experiment on a modest scale for two years would, I think, be worth while.
These are a few thoughts on this subject. No one is going to believe that this discussion tonight, or previous discussions, or future discussions, will come anywhere near solving a problem whose immense character is daunting and about which, if one were to think too much, the resultant mood would be one of bitter depression. Nevertheless, as I said at the outset, discuss it we must. We are in a position to assist and I hope the debate tonight will contribute towards that assistance. I look forward to the reply of the Minister.
6.37 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe): My Lords, this is a timely debate on a topic of importance to every man, woman, and child on this planet. We all need, and deserve, adequate access to food. Ensuring this is one of the major challenges currently facing the international community.
I begin with the world food situation. We must not be complacent. But the signs are that, following two bad years, things are beginning to improve. In a message to the recent session of the governing body of the World Food Programme in Rome, Dr Saouma, the Director-General of FAO, stated that,
"according to present indications world food production in 1992 would be higher than last year and cereal availabilities would be sufficient to meet the global demand".
This is confirmed by the most recent reports from the International Wheat Council.
Year-to-year fluctuations in production and stockpiles will continue. So far, technical improvements and economic incentives have defeated those who have repeatedly painted Malthusian pictures of overpopulation and famine. Many of your Lordships will vividly recall the despair that was felt 20 or 30 years ago about the prospects of India or Bangladesh feeding their people. Yet, thanks to its own efforts supported by aid from Britain and elsewhere, India has been on balance self-sufficient in cereals for some years, as the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, rightly mentioned. Bangladesh looks likely to be so for the first time this year. The Sahel also offers grounds for optimism, in that 10 years ago it seemed set into a pattern of permanent crisis, similar to that now affecting the Horn. Now, however, unless another climatic disaster occurs, prospects seem reasonable.
In the medium term, much will depend on the outcome of the GATT negotiations, as the noble Lords, Lord Geraint, Lord Palmer and Lord Gallacher, so rightly emphasised. Any increase in world prices that may result could encourage food production in importing countries, particularly in the developing world. But, at the country level, we cannot afford to be complacent. Chronic malnutrition is all

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too common, and acute food shortages persist, particularly in Africa. In many countries, particularly in the developing world, stocks of cereals have been sharply reduced in recent years and the expected levels of supplies this year will not be large enough to replenish these.
The Government remain deeply concerned about the risk of starvation in Africa and fully share the sentiments expressed by noble Lords this afternoon. No one can fail to be moved by graphic images of starving faces on the television screen of the kind referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie—the harrowing sight of hungry and malnourished children and helpless parents. My noble friend the Minister for Overseas Development, who has first-hand and recent experience in Somalia and elsewhere, is today chairing the EC's Development Council in Brussels, which is addressing some of these issues. I shall inform the House later of its conclusions.
We are all united in wishing to relieve hunger and suffering. Humanitarian aid is not subject to political considerations. Donors have made considerable efforts to help. For example, we have pledged more than 200,000 tonnes of food aid nationally this year and our total relief aid to Africa amounts to some £107 million.
The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, referred to the UK's record. In 1991 the UK had the fifth largest aid programme in the world. In a difficult financial climate the public expenditure outcome is good for overseas aid. The ODA's overall budget is set to rise in cash terms by 1995–96 by more than £200 million compared with this year. The European Community is also providing some 1.8 million tonnes of food aid this year to countries with severe food shortages. The NGOs too, with help from the British public, are untiring in their efforts to provide much-needed food.
The real problem in many of these countries—in Somalia, Mozambique, Angola—is not so much the availability of food as grave security difficulties and problems of food delivery. That problem was rightly highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. Ports are congested; there is frequently poor local infrastructure and transportation networks, a lack of sufficient vehicles and adequate fuel and spares. All these are aspects of poverty and underdevelopment. They take time and sensible economic policies to overcome, as well as aid and investment. Food aid operations are also complicated by the rapid movement and growing numbers of refugees—for example, in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia—and by the resettlement of demobilised soldiers, as in Mozambique. These factors all add to the pressure on already limited and near exhausted food supplies.
A significant development this year has been the establishment of a Department of Humanitarian Affairs within the UN, with a new Under Secretary General, Mr. Eliasson, in charge. This arose from an Anglo-German initiative within the General Assembly and reflected widespread concern about the need for improved co-ordination machinery to deal with emergencies.
The DHA and Mr. Eliasson have made a promising start, but much needs to be done. My noble friend the
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Minister for Overseas Development is flying to New York tomorrow to participate in this year's General Assembly debate on humanitarian assistance. She will be pressing, on behalf of the European Community as well as the UK, for the establishment of better lines of communication between the DHA and the executing agencies, closer co-operation with NGOs and the creation of a co-ordinated structure of relief and development.
I should like to commend in particular the contributions of the Global Information and Early Warning System of the FAO and the World Food Programme, which are of great value both to the developing countries and to donors in planning for food shortages. The Global Information and Early Warning System provides information on food needs and availability. The World Food Programme supplies a number of essential services to donors in the provision of relief food aid. An encouraging feature of 1992 has been the increased level of co-operation between FAO and the World Food Programme in, for example, the mounting of joint missions for crop assessment and relief needs. We very much welcome that development.
However, not all food aid is provided for relief purposes. We have considerable doubts about the value of much non-emergency food aid, which often seems a poor use of scarce development resources and which can in certain circumstances harm local production. In this connection I refer your Lordships to a speech made by my noble friend the Minister for Overseas Development to a meeting organised by the NGO CARE in London on 2nd November. In that speech she launched a campaign for "real food aid", arguing that greater priority should be given to meeting relief food aid needs and that, when non-emergency food aid is provided, much greater effort must be made to ensure that it is used wisely and well. Ministers and officials will be following up this speech, particularly within the European Community. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Geraint, in a most thoughtful and inspiring maiden speech, recognised that food aid is not necessarily the answer to food shortages. We need to accept first of all that, except in circumstances of an almost total breakdown of civil structures, as in Somalia, food insecurity is normally one aspect only of the overall poverty problem. Even in drought-stricken areas it is unusual for food not to be available to those who can afford it. The problem is that, bereft of their livelihood through drought, few have the resources to buy food. Thus poverty-focused development programmes, aimed at improving the incomes of the poor, have the most direct impact on access to food and malnutrition.
In this connection I draw your Lordships' attention to the EC Development Council which took place today under the chairmanship of my noble friend the Minister for Overseas Development. As well as considering particular emergencies in Somalia and Mozambique, the Council is agreeing a substantial statement to guide development policy in the Community during the 1990s. That statement will

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ensure that the poverty focus throughout the Community's development programmes is strengthened.
It is also important to encourage governments of developing countries to introduce policies aimed at encouraging local production of food in a free market. All too often in the past heavily subsidised food for urban areas, supported by food aid donors who should have known better, has meant that prices for locally produced food have become so depressed that it has not been worth while for local farmers to grow food. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, referred to that problem. Many of the structural adjustment programmes, supported by the World Bank and others, seek to correct this, and a successful outcome to the Uruguay Round which will reduce the dumping of agricultural surpluses on developing countries by the US and others will also help. Measures already being taken by the European Community under the recent reform of the common agricultural policy represent another helpful move in this direction.
The noble Lords, Lord John-Mackie, Lord Geraint and Lord Palmer, criticised the policy of set aside. We had a short debate on that subject recently following a Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. I made the point then that even when EC surpluses have been reduced there will be ample food in the world. I just make the further point that most of the food in surplus is unsuitable for use as food aid. The quality and type of food does not always match what recipients need. Also it may not represent the best value for money. Surely it is better to provide food which people are used to. The Government's aim, after all, is to feed the starving, not to offload surpluses in the Community.
Having said that, the stocks that we have in the Community are used where possible and where they are cost-effective. But we prefer to see more triangular transactions or local purchase which reduces the risk of creating dependency on imported foodstuffs and has benefits for the country from which the food is purchased as well as for the recipients.
That view is underpinned by many of the voluntary agencies, including Oxfam in its 1987 paper entitled Common Ground: How changes in the Common Agricultural Policy Affect the Third World Poor. Oxfam stated:
"it is in the interests of the third world to reduce eventually to zero the EC's surpluses, leaving land fallow, and promoting alternative non-competing crops, such as trees, would be best".
It explicitly recognised that setting up aid programmes was more beneficial to poor people than exporting EC surpluses.
I now turn to the FAO. This is the largest of the UN specialised agencies and has a vital role to play in assisting countries in their endeavours to eradicate poverty. It is involved at every level of agricultural development from demonstrating to subsistence farmers new techniques for cultivating food crops to advising governments on how to achieve more stable and equitable trade in agricultural commodities.
It is not an aid agency, or an agricultural bank or indeed a global ministry of agriculture. The FAO is,
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however, a unique source of expertise and information. In addition it gives direct and practical help in the developing world through technical assistance projects in all areas of food and agriculture. It has four main tasks, and it is worth reminding ourselves what these are: to provide technical advice and assistance for the agricultural community; to collect, analyse and disseminate information; to advise governments on policy planning; and to provide an opportunity for governments to meet and discuss food and agricultural problems.
Britain joined the FAO in 1945 at its foundation. We pay an annual contribution to the FAO's regular budget of some £11 million. We will continue to provide such support.
We have also provided additional financial assistance to FAO to help it spearhead a campaign in North Africa to halt an invasion of the new world screw worm fly, the most dangerous insect pest of livestock in North America. This has been a highly successful programme to which we were pleased to have contributed.
At the same time, we have concerns about the effectiveness and management of the FAO. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, expressed his concerns. Our concern, in common with his, is that it should do better what it was set up to do.
In 1989 the FAO undertook an extensive review of goals and operations. The resulting resolution and decisions did not in our view go far enough. There is still a need for the FAO to prioritise its programmes in line with the agreed priorities identified by the FAO conference and to curtail or stop completely those activities that are not identified as a priority or those which would be better undertaken by other organisations or institutions both within and outside the UN system. We, along with other like minded countries, continue to work towards those ends.
The FAO has the expertise and skilled people required to carry out those essential functions. Its expertise is not reflected sufficiently in its policies; for example, in the Tropical Forestry Action Plan where considerable improvements are required to allow it to fulfil the hopes placed in it. We want to ensure that, through effective leadership, it does so. We are working with other member states to pursue these objectives. The FAO needs to look again at its priorities in the follow-up to the Rio Earth Summit. It can only do so through the guidance, imagination and foresight of its new director-general, whoever he or she may be. We want to see Doctor Saouma whose term of office ends next year, followed by a new director-general who will rise to those challenges and lead the FAO effectively and imaginatively into the 21st century.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. It was more satisfactory than many replies from that Bench. I should like to say again that the people of the world are very fortunate in the noble Baroness who leads the overseas aid programme. I hope that she will receive all the backing

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that she needs, both financial and otherwise, in her excellent work. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken.
My noble kinsman produced his expertise and the nice old story which I have used many times, just as he did. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, spoke enormously good sense. They agreed on set-aside. I also am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, who gave us the benefit of his expertise on the absolutely essential role of co-operation in agriculture. My noble friend's maiden speech impressed me greatly. One can always trust the Welsh to make a polished and rounded contribution. It is the envy of stuttering chaps like me when I hear a speech such as that delivered by my noble friend.
It has been a good debate. I thank all who took part in it. I wish that there had been more contributors. Nevertheless, I shall now do what I have to do and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Gas (Exempt Supplies) [H.L.]
6.57 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Cochrane of Cults.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[THE VISCOUNT OF OXFUIRD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Prohibition on unauthorised supply]:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 1:
Leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause:
Prohibition on unauthorised supply: exception and exemptions
For section 5 of the Gas Act 1986 there shall be substituted the following section—
"Prohibition on unauthorised supply.

5.— (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3) and sections 6 and 6A below, a person who supplies gas through pipes to any premises shall be guilty of an offence unless he is authorised to do so under section 7 or 8 below.

(2) Subsection (1) above is not contravened by a person supplying, for use in a building or part of a building in which he has an interest, gas supplied to the building by a person authorised to supply it by or under section 6, 6A, 7 or 8 below.

(3) Subsection (1) above is not contravened by a person supplying to any premises gas which consists wholly or mainly of propane or butane if—

(a) the contract for the supply contains provisions empowering a person authorised by the supplier to enter the premises where in his opinion it is necessary to do so for the purpose of averting danger to life or property; and

(b) those provisions are in terms approved for the purposes of this subsection by the Secretary of State.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.

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(5) No proceedings shall be instituted in England and Wales in respect of an offence under this section except by or on behalf of the Secretary of State or the Director."").

The noble Lord said: With permission I shall say a few words before I formally move the amendment. This Bill was read a second time on 8th July. The Committee stage was therefore caught by the unusually long and early Summer Recess.
First, I should declare an interest. I am chairman of a small private company which is authorised to supply gas under the terms of Section 8 of the Gas Act 1986. That supply of gas is, at under 2 per cent. of our turnover, incidental to our main business which is a caravan holiday park.
Former Clause 1 of the Bill has been divided and, with some changes which I shall explain shortly, has become new Sections 5 and 6A of the Gas Act. Those changes are before the Committee as Amendments Nos. 1 and 3, to which I shall return later. This amendment stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, who regrets that unfortunately he is unable to be present tonight. We are therefore deprived of his wise counsel.
I venture to remind Members of the Committee that my Bill as it stands replaces Section 5 of the Gas Act 1986 with a new clause. The amendment makes a further alteration at subsection 5(3) which provides that the supplier of propane and butane must have power to enter the premises supplied if:
"in his opinion it is necessary to do so for the purpose of averting danger to life or property".
That power to enter will be drawn from a specified condition in the gas supply contract—that is, the contract between the supplier of the gas and the user of the gas.
This provision replaces condition 4(b) in the Ofgas authorisation granted to suppliers under Section 8. However, the wording is taken from the Gas Act at Section 18(c). That condition in turn is based on Section 4(c) and Schedule 5, paragraphs 13 and 14 to the same Act, read together.
This new power is required because the exemption of the supplies means that the power so derived needs replacing. These changes fill that need. Subsection 5(3) (b) of the amendment provides for the contract term by means of a clause or clauses approved by the Secretary of State for the purpose of the preceding subsection. That procedure is often referred to as using model clauses. I beg to move.
7 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 2:
Line 12, at end insert:
("()) It shall be a condition precedent to the lawful exercise of an exemption granted under subsection (2) above that the exempted person shall provide the Health and Safety Executive not less than eight weeks' notice of any premises to be so supplied;").
The noble Lord said: It is a long time since the Second Reading of the Bill and a great deal of water has passed under the bridge. Not only has my noble friend been busy with—I am not quite sure what—perhaps his word processors but my noble friend the

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Minister has consolidated her hold on the Department of Trade and Industry. I must now declare an interest as a consultant to British Gas.
Members of the Committee will be grateful to my noble friend for his brief summary of the activities which took place on the word processor to which I have referred. He has split his original Clause 1 into two new clauses, the second of which is the subject of Amendment No. 3. The way in which that has been done is eminently suitable.
However, we need to know a little about subsection (3) (b); namely, that the provisions in the model clauses are in terms approved for the purposes of this subsection by the Secretary of State. The Committee will recall that on Second Reading it was agreed by all speakers that safety should be the main issue as regards this part of the Bill. My noble friend Lady Denton said:
"it is important to emphasise that, in deregulating this aspect, there will be no diminution in safety standards. Safety will remain of paramount importance".—[Official Report, 8/7/92; col. 1240.]
We were told that all would be well because the Health and Safety Executive would be in charge of that aspect. That is all well and good as far as it goes but I believe there is a problem. How, unless it is told, is the executive to know that a potential or existing supplier has supplied or intends to supply propane or butane gas? Presumably that will be one of the conditions referred to in my noble friend's provision in subsection (3) (b), to which I have referred. With the best will in the world, unless the executive is told it will not be able to investigate systems which clearly by definition they do not know about.
We know that the Bill cannot come into effect before the new health and safety regulations are in place. It would be useful if my noble friend could tell us the current state of play and confirm whether a draft has been circulated for comment. Indeed, will there be a second set of regulations on the subject of entry under the Health and Safety at Work Act?
It has been suggested to me that my amendment would be better placed at the end of line 23—that is, at the bottom of page 1 on the Marshalled List. That is quite likely the case. That said, however, I should be more that satisfied if the provisions to be approved by the Secretary of State under subsection (3) (b) included the concept embodied in my amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I assure my noble friend that we believe that the conditions for notification are perfectly adequate and do not need another layer of bureaucracy. Under Section 2 of the Pipe-lines Act 1962, caravan site owners wishing to construct a pipeline system to their properties must submit a notification to the DTI four weeks before construction is due to commence. That is then notified to the Health and Safety Executive to decide whether it can issue a safety notice.
The Health and Safety Executive plans to issue consultative documents in 1993, which I am delighted to say is not too far away. It hopes that during that year it will be able to bring the matter forward.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am grateful to my noble friend. It is a pity that during Second Reading that we were unable to appreciate that the Pipe-lines Act 1962 would govern the propane suppliers. We could have saved time tonight but that was not to be. I hope that my noble friend has no hard feelings about my moving the amendment which I now beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 1 agreed to.
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Exemptions from prohibition on unauthorised supply
(" . After section 6 of the Gas Act 1986 there shall be inserted the following section—
"Exemptions from section 5.
6A.—

(1) The Secretary of State may, after consultation with the Director, by order grant exemption from section 5 (1) above, but subject to compliance with such conditions (if any) as may be specified in the order.

(2) An exemption may be granted either—

(a) to persons of a particular class; or

(b) to a particular person;

and an exemption granted to persons of a particular class shall be published in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate for bringing it to the attention of persons of that class.

(3) An exemption, unless previously revoked in accordance with any term contained in the exemption, shall continue in force for such period as may be specified in or determined by or under the exemption."").

The noble Lord said: The amendment replaces Sections 5(4) and (5) of the Bill as it stood after Second Reading. It inserts a new section 6A into the Gas Act to allow the Secretary of State to grant further exemption (at his discretion) from Section 5 of the Gas Act. That reflects similar terms in the later Electricity Act 1989 and will avoid the need for certain gas suppliers, which in this context may well mean producers and manufacturers of gas, to be authorised under Section 8.
Typically, such exemptions could be sought for landfill gas, pithead gas from coal mines, by-product gas and even perhaps in the future that foundation of the gas industry, which I mentioned briefly on Second Reading, coal gas. It is now in eclipse but I am sure that it will shine again one day. Among the effects of Section 8 is the discovery that the Visiting Forces Act does not allow them to distribute gas and the US Air Force is now a registered gas supplier. If they distribute propane, they will be exempt under the earlier subsection with which we have dealt. If they distribute another gas, Section 6A could be applicable.
Clearly, Section 6A(2) (a) will be of great use where supply is by several persons in similar circumstances, whereas Section 6A(2) (b) will apply in unique or original circumstances. The rest of the section deals with publishing class exemptions suitably and with the duration, if required, of the exemptions. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 3, Amendment No. 4:
At end insert:

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("() Subsection (1) above shall not apply to natural gas got in pursuance of a licence under the Petroleum Production Act 1934 (including a licence under that Act as applied by section 1(3) of the Continental Shelf Act 1964;").
The noble Lord said: On Second Reading, and again today, my noble friend made it quite clear that there are to be three distinct sections of the Gas Act 1986: one dealing with propane and butane, which under this Bill are to be deregulated; one dealing with North Sea gas; and one, which is the subject of Amendment No. 3, dealing with any other sort of gas that one might possibly think of, not only coal gas but also methane from landfill sites and so on.
We all know that but anybody reading the amended Gas Act in the future will not know. I believe that it would be at the very least helpful to future readers if it could be made quite clear if the new clause after Clause 1 embodied in Amendment No. 3, were to state quite firmly that it did not apply to North Sea gas.
I have lifted that phrase from Section 29(11) of the 1972 Act, which I am sure is now out of date. Therefore, if my idea of clarity is to be adopted, I have no doubt that the words of the amendment are wrong. However, that does not detract from the force of my argument. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Elvel: We are debating the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Cochrane of Cults. I have great difficulty in understanding what Amendment No. 3 means. Subsection (3) states:
"An exemption, unless previously revoked in accordance with any term contained in the exemption, shall continue in force for such a period as may be specified in or determined by or under the exemption".
I do not understand the word "previously". I could understand that there may well be an exemption which is specified and there may be a violation of the terms of the exemption. However, that is not "previous". I do not understand the drafting and perhaps the noble Lord will help me on that.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: I shall do my best to answer that question. The amendment certainly makes sense to me. It merely states that an exemption will continue in force for such a period as may be specified unless previously revoked.
Lord Williams of Elvel: What is the use of word "previously"?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: This is not a field in which I have any expertise. It may assist the noble Lord if I suggest that we may be looking for the word "already".
Lord Williams of Elvel: I suggest that the noble Lord might leave out the word "previously" from his amendment because that is causing the problem. It cannot be "previously" revoked. That is absurd.
Lord Skelmersdale: Before we pursue this argument further, it may be helpful to the Committee if we hear from my noble friend on the Front Bench.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps my noble friend will look at the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, and consider the matter before Report stage.
The proposed new Section 6A of the Gas Act is designed to provide power for the Secretary of State to alleviate future problems akin to the problem here without the necessity of troubling Parliament with primary legislation as and when any new problems emerge at the margins of Section 8 of the Gas Act. The amendment attempts to improve and tidy matters so that it will not then be necessary to take up the time of Parliament.
On Second Reading I assured my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale that we had no plans to utilise such powers. Since Second Reading the chairman of British Gas has approached my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade for an assurance that the Government do not intend to use that power to grab wide-ranging exemptions which would frustrate the purpose of Section 8 of the Gas Act and undermine the position of British Gas which it enjoys by virtue of that section. My right honourable friend has assured the chairman that we do not intend to use that power in that way and I freely repeat that assurance today.
I join my noble friend Lord Cochrane in urging the Committee to resist Amendment No. 4. While the amendment may cover potential problems—for example, as regards landfill gas and coke oven gas—it does not recognise that energy is a changing field and that more technology will create more answers.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am grateful for that answer but I am not sure that I totally understand it. It is fair enough to say that my right honourable friend has written to the chairman of British Gas saying that there is no intention to invalidate Section 8 by the use of new Section 6A. I understand that point. However, my noble friend goes on to say that she does not know by what methods gas will be produced in the future; nor does anyone else. The object of my amendment is to ensure that Section 6A could not be used for what is loosely and colloquially described as North Sea gas. I do not believe my noble friend answered that point.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I shall try to reinforce the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. It is all very well for Ministers to give assurances from the Dispatch Box and to say that the Secretary of State has no intention of doing this or that. However, that carries absolutely no force in law. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, argues that, if that is the Government's position, why should it not be written on the face of the Bill?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I remind the noble Lord and my noble friends that I am trying to be helpful. I am trying to be helpful on behalf of the Government. This Bill aims to tidy up the situation as regards the supply of gas to caravan sites and similar operations. It is not a Bill to change energy policy. It is simply that methods of supplying the sites have changed from bottles to pipeline and we should

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recognise that and take away the bureaucracy of applying for a licence every single time. It is difficult to be absolutely certain that a mix of gas does not include some source or other. We believe that the flexibility here will be to the benefit of users on sites. That is what my noble friend Lord Cochrane is trying to achieve. That is the situation.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: Perhaps I may explain further. My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale has suggested that a restriction should be placed upon the origin of gas coming into the country. However, he proposes to apply that restriction at the point of use of the gas; that is, as downstream gas. I made careful inquiries yesterday and was told that, for example, propane or butane originates from at least two distinct sources. It arrives in its natural state as associated gases with a flow of oil or gas from an oil field or gas field. It is also a by-product of oil from oil refineries or similar undertakings. The oil used could have come from anywhere. Therefore, downstream it is impossible to say whether it came from the northern, southern, eastern or western hemisphere. There can be no knowledge of where it came from. That causes considerable problems in dealing with it as my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale suggests. I have a measure of sympathy with his proposals but, for the reasons I have outlined, the method appears to be wholly impractical.
Lord Skelmersdale: This is not the first time that I have been damned with faint praise in your Lordships' House, but that is certainly the case today. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Cochrane for saying that he thinks that there may be a need to distinguish between the three future sections of the Gas Act 1986, but clearly we cannot go any further on this distinguishing feature tonight. Perhaps we had better leave it for another occasion. I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment No. 3 agreed to.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Keeping of register]:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 5:
Leave out Clause 2 and insert the following new clause:
Keeping of register
(". In section 36 of the Gas Act 1986 (keeping of register), for subsections (1) and (2) there shall be substituted the following subsections

"(1) The Director shall keep a register of notifications and directions under section 6 above, exemptions granted under section 6A above to particular persons, authorisations under section 7 or 8 above and final and provisional orders at such premises and in such form as he may determine.

(2) Subject to any direction given under subsection (3) below, the Director shall cause to be entered in the register the provisions of

(a) every notification or direction under section 6 above;

(b) every exemption granted under section 6A above to a particular person and every revocation of such exemption;

(c) every revocation made otherwise than by order of an exemption granted under that section to persons of a particular class;

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(d) every authorisation under section 7 or 8 above and every modification or revocation of, and every direction or consent given or determination made under, such an authorisation; and

(e) every final or provisional order, every revocation of such an order and every notice under section 28(6) above."").

The noble Lord said: This amendment stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. This clause replaces Clause 2 with a new clause which makes the necessary alterations to accommodate the new Section 6A, about which I spoke earlier. This is a consequential amendment caused by earlier changes. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale: Perhaps it would be appropriate for me to ask a simple question. My noble friend will move Amendment No. 8 to the Title of the Bill which is to:
"Leave out('sections 5 and 36') and insert ('section 5')".
However, the amendment which we are now discussing is an amendment to Section 36 of the Gas Act 1986. Why then in the Title does my noble friend need to leave out Section 36?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: I understand the reason for it, because I asked the same question. The reason is that it does not replace the whole of Section 36 of the Gas Act; therefore reference to it is not required. I trust that that answer is satisfactory.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am sure that it is right and I am grateful to my noble friend.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 3, line 3, after first ("may") insert ("by order made by statutory instrument").
The noble Lord said: This amendment provides for the Secretary of State to make commencement orders for different parts of the Act on different dates. It is a usual provision in legislation of this kind and is the same as in Section 68(5) of the Gas Act 1986. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I do not wish to oppose the amendment, but has it gone through the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee of this House which has recently been set up?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: I have not the slightest idea. It may be that I have a let-out on the basis that this Bill was commenced before the committee was established. However, it is a new idea to me and I fear I was not present in your Lordships' House on the day when this new idea saw the light; otherwise I should undoubtedly have made suitable inquiries. I regret that I am unable to assist the noble Lord.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps I may be of assistance to the noble Lord. I understand that the committee does not yet have a membership, therefore it would have been impossible to put the amendment to it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Skehnersdale Lord Skehnersdale moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 3, line 4, at end insert:
("() The first order made under section 6A of the Gas Act 1986 shall be made by statutory instrument and no such order shall be made unless a draft of it has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament; subsequent orders shall be made by statutory instrument subject to annulment.").
The noble Lord said: I must apologise for putting down a rather complicated amendment to the Bill. However, it gives me the opportunity of drawing to the Committee's attention a subject which I believe is long overdue. The problem is that during any Parliamentary Session, time has to be allocated for the debate of affirmative instruments in which no parliamentarian has any longer any interest whatever. For all I know, my noble friend may have experienced debating one of these with the noble Lord, Lord Williams, in recent months. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, has certainly spoken so briefly that he might not have spoken on various orders during the time that he has been the shadow spokesman in your Lordships' House for the Department of Trade and Industry, because I have watched him do it.
That said, the issue often in question was topical at the time when the parent Bill was being debated, but over time this topicality has waned. I used to think that it would be sensible to have a quinquennial Act downgrading affirmative instruments to negative ones, but it has been pointed out to me, quite rightly, that no one would agree on which orders should continue to be affirmative and which orders should not.
That means that Parliament should be able to decide, during debates on a particular Bill, whether it wants affirmative or negative instruments for all time or whether, after a decent interval, the instrument can be debated only if an individual parliamentarian so wishes.
In the case of this Bill, the issue of the first Secretary of State's exemption under the new Section 5(3) would, I believe, be of great interest in the consumer, the safety and the gas worlds and must be debated the first time round. Any orders made after that would, I believe, be of considerably less interest and would probably need to be debated only if there were significant changes in the conditions attached to the exemption. I am sure that if that were the case, even if parliamentarians were not self-motivated, there would be plenty of advisers to tip them off and to get a particular subject debated.
It is a little unfair to spring this amendment on my noble friend. Nonetheless, she is speaking for the Government and before I pursue it with the committee that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, has just spoken about, I should like to hear the Government's view on it as a concept. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, feels that I have not given proper attention to orders which are placed before your Lordships' House. I hope that I scrutinise them with my usual diligence and ask questions. I should like the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, to listen to my argument before intervening. The problem is that it is difficult—and I use the word advisedly—to amend orders. We can have a debate; we can say what we feel about an order, but unless the Government—if it is a
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government order—withdraws the order and decides to amend it on the basis of the argument, it is difficult to move amendments.
There is a self-denying ordinance on behalf of the Opposition and, I think, the other Opposition party, on voting against orders on affirmative procedure. Under those circumstances, I have always taken the view that when orders come to our House under the affirmative procedure they should be analysed and properly debated; nevertheless there is not much one can do about them when they happen. So we can do the same thing under a prayer for annulment against a negative instrument procedure. I do not think that the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, is entirely justified.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: While as a Back-Bencher I have a measure of sympathy with the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale, I do not think it is practical. It creates that dreadful thing called a precedent. The Committee will know that a Private Member's Bill is at the best of times a frail ship. It depends on a fair wind from the Government and not annoying this person or that who may know a great deal more about the matter than oneself. One then has to recruit enough of one's friends to make the subject look as though a great many people believe in it.
The affirmative resolution procedure is normally used where a charge or a cost is involved to those affected. In this case the words used have been cribbed from the Electricity Act 1989
Lord Williams of Elvel: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. Unless I heard him wrongly, he seemed to be saying that the affirmative procedure was used only when there was some kind of cost involved. That is not my experience. Can he justify what he has just said?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: Perhaps I omitted the words "quite usually". I am sure that anybody with experience of Whitehall street fighting will realise that it would not require much thought among officials to devise a first statutory order of impenetrable boredom and minimal importance. One could easily be moved to be adopted for this Bill. Therefore, I feel that it would perhaps overload this frail ship. Accordingly I hope that my noble friend will see his way not to press the amendment.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps I may express the Government's view on this matter. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Williams—although I doubt that he needs it—that in the very limited time in which I have been a DTI Minister I have never doubted that he scrutinises everything which we are about to discuss. His questions indicate that he does that more than well.
My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale and the noble Lord, Lord Williams, have much more experience in this Chamber than I have. My noble friend may well be right that there are occasions when debates on consumer matters and safety are important. As consumer affairs Minister I would always welcome debates on the issue. However, I believe that this Bill

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is not the vehicle for it. As the noble Lord said, it is possible to pray against negative resolutions. As my noble friend Lord Cochrane said, it is unlikely that the first amendment will be a major matter and will just be a very straightforward regulation which would not be something on which to waste the time of the Committee. That would be our view.
Lord Skelmersdale: I never expected to get the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, smarting quite so loudly. I never accused him of not studying instruments which are to be debated in this Chamber before speaking. I suggested that, having so studied them, his speech could on occasions be only three lines long, or whatever.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I do not believe in wasting your Lordships' time.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am surely relieved to hear it, as will be other members of the Committee around the Chamber this evening, and perhaps wider than that. Nonetheless, I fully accept that this Bill may be the wrong place in which to pursue my particular proposal. But over time this is an issue which is not going to go away and should be referred to your Lordships' new Scrutiny Committee. I have referred the matter to various Members of the Procedure Committee over the years in various ways, to which answer has there come none.
I believe that the work of Parliament is beginning to get very clogged up. Unless we spend longer hours at the work of Parliament, then some measure such as that which I have suggested in this amendment will have to come sooner or later. Having said that, I take to heart the words of my two noble friends that the matter is not appropriate for this Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
In the Title:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 8:
Leave out ("sections 5 and 36") and insert ("section 5").
The noble Lord said: This is the last amendment in tonight's proceedings. Before I finish, I would like to thank noble Lords for their support of this frail ship. I hope that the forces of inertia do not pull the bath plug out on it and that it then gurgles away down into a dusty box labelled "a good idea but …". I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Title, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed, Bill reported with amendments.

Ashworth Hospital
7.37 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take following the report of the Committee of Inquiry on Ashworth Hospital.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, following the report on Ashworth Hospital of the committee
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presided over by the eminent Queen's Counsel, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, I am happy to know that I shall be followed by experts such as the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod and others. I must apologise if I stick rather more closely to my notes than I believe is graceful, because I have to record some views which the authors will probably want to ensure are reported accurately.
The committee presided over by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper was set up in April 1991. It followed a Channel 4 television report in which very grave allegations were made about the maltreatment of several patients in the special hospital at Ashworth. The Special Hospitals Service Authority, which is often referred to as the SHSA, asked the Government for a full inquiry. The Secretary of State duly appointed the committee under Sir Louis.
The committee reported in August this year. It included many adverse comments, although it did pay a well justified tribute to those who gave much devoted work. There were 90 recommendations, nearly all of which were accepted by the management, which is now under the inspired leadership of Mr. Peter Green, who is a qualified social worker with 20 years' experience. I will not attempt to summarise the 90 recommendations.
I shall say a few words about Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's attitude to what I propose to say. I showed him the gist of my remarks and, although others may well expand his comments—I believe that he has made his views known to others—he thinks that at least six of his recommendations should be highlighted. I shall mention only their headings; others may well develop them. The first is, "the establishment of a patient advocacy service". The second relates to seclusion. Sir Louis and his committee were utterly opposed to the supervised confinement of a patient alone in a locked room. Thirdly, he makes important detailed recommendations in regard to medication. Fourthly, he wants the date announced by which slopping out will be abolished. Fifthly, he wants the removal of hateful literature. No one is more opposed to this hateful literature, of which there has been all too much in the recent past, than the leaders of the Prison Officers Association. Finally, he wants a much more effective method of what he calls "incident reporting".
I mention those because I think that Sir Louis would wish them to be mentioned. I should also say that nearly all the recommendations that I have mentioned have been adopted, except for that on seclusion. That recommendation has not been accepted. Sir Louis, however, thinks that insufficient priority has been given in several places. I asked him what he though about my attitude as revealed in the remarks that I proposed to make. He said, "Too optimistic". In speaking from these Benches it is not always my role to be too optimistic, but by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's standards—and they are high ones—I am. I shall, however, remain too optimistic and shall set out the situation as I see it in a spirit of hope.
Although this is mainly for the record, I also believe that the House should know a little about the Park Lane Hospital. The House is probably aware that

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Ashworth Hospital was originally two hospitals: Park Lane, which is the more recent hospital, and Moss Side, which is the older hospital. I have often been to Park Lane to visit particular patients—in fact, nearly always one particular patient, who, I am sorry to say, now does not want to see me. The House may understand that. At any rate, I have visited the hospital often. In preparation for this debate, I had prolonged discussions with Mr. Green, his colleagues and a number of patients. In that sense, therefore, I am up to date. Although I am sure that all your Lordships will understand, perhaps I should repeat, in case other people do not, that we are talking about two hospitals dating from different periods. I think that one can say that Park Lane is much more up to date than Moss Side but they are now rolled into one, the Ashworth Hospital.
Again this is for the record, although it may also be interesting to the House if I describe the nature of the patients there. The patients in Ashworth are people who are suffering from mental disorders who require treatment in conditions of special security because of their dangerous, violent or criminal propensities. I shall not go into more detail about that, but the great majority have been convicted of crimes—in some cases, of very serious crimes. There are also some patients who have not been convicted of crimes but who are considered so dangerous and at the same time so disordered that they could not be safely left in an ordinary mental hospital.
Ashworth is a hospital with high ideals. It has always possessed high ideals which, according to the Blom-Cooper report, have not been realised in practice in all too many cases. It exists and its aspiration is to provide a safe therapeutic environment and a centre of excellence in forensic and other branches of psychiatry, psychiatric care and treatment with—I stress this next point—equal priority being given to the care and treatment of patients and the safety of the public. One is dealing with men who are ex hypothesi dangerous. One is aware of that but, at the same time, they are human beings. Each is possessed, like the rest of us, of an immortal soul of infinite worth in the sight of God and the hospital exists to carry out that terrible, difficult double task of treating them with humanity and of preserving the interests of the public.
Ashworth Hospital has an average patient population of 650 people. As I said earlier, all have mental problems and the majority are offenders. I need not describe all the various categories of mental illness, and I shall give just one illustration, although I could give many. On the last occasion when I visited the adolescent unit I met a very fine-looking young man. If I said that he looked like one of the younger members of the opposite Front Bench, they will understand what I mean. One would have thought that he was an hereditary peer, full of promise, young and vigorous. He was very good looking, well grown, and all the rest of it. In fact, he had been sexually abused when he was a small child. I asked him whether it was by his father and he said that it was not, so I do not know who was the abuser. At any rate, he had been sexually abused. He waited a long time—a dozen
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years or so—and when he reached his full stature (and he was a big young man, bigger than me) he decided to get his revenge. He tried to strangle his assailant, the man who had raped him when he was a small boy. He is now about 22 and he is just one of many patients who, in many cases, have had the most horrible background but who have also done horrible things. I hope that the time will come—there is no reason why it should not—when he will be set at liberty, and I hope that he will be looked after in one way or another when he is set at liberty. That is just one example of the kind of person with whom the staff are having to cope.
I come to the staff. It should be mentioned that nearly all the staff are nurses and nearly all are members of the Prison Officers Association as a result of what I think can be called an historical accident. They are not, therefore, like prison officers, who often have a short period of training before becoming prison officers. These are qualified nurses. They face the most difficult human problems imaginable and they need to be nurses who are also trained in proper prison security. I could not imagine being able to cope with their problems at any time in my life. I do not know whether many noble Lords think that they could make a good job of it. If so, they are fortunate, because they must have a lot of self-confidence.
I find it incredible that anybody undertakes this task at all, but somebody has to and these people dedicate their lives to this service. Every now and again they fall below the proper standards and then we have allegations of misbehaviour—perhaps justified—and then there is a big inquiry. We must all agree that, on the whole, good results follow such an inquiry, but we must always remember that when we talk of the staff we are talking about people who are coping with these human problems.
I am therefore very glad that the point of view of the staff will be put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick —and no one could do it better. I shall mention just a few headings that were given to me by someone whom I have mentioned before in this House (someone for whom I have special regard), Mr. David Evans, the General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association. He has given me four headings. The noble Lord, Lord Dean, is well qualified to explain them more carefully. Mr. Evans has asked me to explain the kind of thing that he has in mind. The staff is to be renamed to emphasise the role of care in a secure environment; they will set out to work with other nursing bodies; they will try to ensure that the association initiates a working forum with other trade unions; and they will seek to develop a forum for discussions on the clinical needs of patients in the special hospitals. I ask the House to listen carefully to what Mr. Evans has to say. As I told Sir Louis—I do not think that he liked this comment but he swallowed it—his impressive report has fallen short in only one respect. The committee tried very hard to be fair to the Prison Officers Association but I do not feel that it quite managed it.
I now come to what Mr. Green told me in my long discussions with him and what he has set out in letters to me since. This is where I must rely on my notes, because I want to be sure that Mr. Green's views are

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accurately placed before the House. Sir Louis may say that I am too optimistic. He did not say that I was much too optimistic—just too optimistic. I shall set out Mr. Green's aspirations, and from what I saw on the ground he has already taken some considerable steps to give effect to these aspirations.
Mr. Green was the first to recognise that many of the recommendations required an improvement in management ability. One cannot place the whole responsibility on the nurses if anything goes wrong. One has to think of the management and the medical staff. All concerned must share the responsibility for any shortcomings. Out of the many recommendations—I said earlier that the authority concerned, Mr. Green and the others have accepted nearly all of them—Mr. Green mentioned these priorities. Ashworth must become a hospital able to offer 24-hour care. He recognises that this has considerable financial implications. In all the discussions about improvement in the social services, we always come back to finance. One can mention improvements but one cannot expect them to happen overnight. At any rate, it must become a hospital able to offer 24-hour care. According to Mr. Green, this has considerable financial implications for night regimes but also carries with it the ending of slopping out.
Mr. Green agrees that there should be an active programme for the improvement of the so-called "culture". We know the word "culture" in this connection. It is very vague but one can call it "atmosphere" or "ethos". Everyone agrees that it could be very much improved. Speaking for myself, and without total knowledge but having been close to this in various ways, I think that most people would agree that the culture of Park Lane was a great deal more advanced than the culture of Moss Side. It should be said that Mr. Green has taken one step already in stopping the wearing of uniforms in Moss Side. They were not worn in Park Lane.
One can use many general expressions regarding improvement in the culture but I wish to put a few of them on the record. Ashworth is now setting out to provide a good therapeutic and secure working environment. The management now recognises that patients are people first and foremost. The fact that they are very difficult people to cope with does not stop them being people. Another aspiration which is very close to the heart of Mr. Green and his present colleagues is that every individual should be encouraged to develop realistic aspirations of his or her future opportunities and life style. There should be a comprehensive range of activities. There should be new and effective methods of communication and individuals should be trained in life skills and assured of adequate community support. In case I have not made it plain, it is also accepted that the staff require and deserve much more effective training than they have hitherto received. Mr. Green says that security should never be used as an excuse for not meeting any of the above objectives. Mr. Green summed up his ideal in this way. I am convinced that he means to realise it if he is given the chance. He said:
"If the appropriate finance is made available to Ashworth Hospital, we will become a true centre of excellence and provide a service in which the public can have confidence".
Before I conclude my remarks I must return to the question of the culture. One cannot do more than reiterate the phrase "a great improvement in the culture". If all these aspects of the ideal were given effect to, we should find a completely different atmosphere. It will take time and it will not happen unless the Government and all those who have any influence in the matter back up Mr. Green and his colleagues.
I shall not belabour the Minister with compliments tonight. I paid some last night and noble Lords might think that there was something sinister going on if I kept on congratulating her. I cannot imagine anyone who is better qualified to handle these difficult problems and I can only hope that she will have as big an effect on her colleagues as I know she would wish to have. I hope that the House will send out a message of encouragement to Mr. Green, his colleagues, all the staff and all the patients. I realise that in a way this is just the beginning of a long discussion and that there will be other debates. I am most anxious that the Government should be given the chance to say that they are placing themselves firmly behind the main recommendations of the Blom-Cooper Report and are determined to do all they can to support the present management in their efforts to bring about a great improvement in the future.
7.58 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, the hour is late but, despite that, all Members of your Lordships' House who have listened to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, will be grateful to him for the wise advice he gave the Government and those who are interested in the field. The noble Earl cares. He goes and he sees the hospitals and the prisons. He knows the people. He is one of the most caring people in your Lordships' House. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get to Ashworth, but it was very interesting to hear what the noble Earl found there.
I congratulate Sir Louis Blom-Cooper and his team on their detailed report. When I tried to bring the report into your Lordships' House I found that I could not carry it. I tried to read it. It was very long. I cannot therefore pretend, as some noble Lords may pretend, that I have read, marked, learnt and inwardly digested the whole of the report. But I found it of great interest. Only a highly-qualified lawyer could have led such an expert team and brought out such an impressive and immensely interesting document.
I shall be brief because, as I say, the hour is late. However, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to two sentences in chapter XXXII, Recommendations. It has a bearing on something else I wish to draw to your Lordships' attention. It reads:
"the consequences that might be indicated as flowing from findings of criticism of individuals. Recommendations which are prompted by findings of misconduct might either constitute the foundation of a criminal charge or invite disciplinary action."
Many years ago I was national chairman of all the leagues of hospital friends and I had about half-a-million people working all over the country for

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the hospitals. I was asked to go down to Rampton Hospital because two-and-a-half years earlier, as a result of a discussion in the other place, the government of the day had ordered the police to go into Rampton Hospital. They were there for two-and-a-half years, overlooking the work of the dedicated staff. Needless to say, after two-and-a-half years the morale in the hospital at all levels was as low as it could possibly be. The chairman of that league of friends asked me to go down to see if by any chance I could talk to them.
I went there many times. Each time I was more impressed by the work that the staff of all grades at the hospital do for their patients. But the result of the inquiry that was started as a result of a television programme made by Yorkshire Television was that 22 nurses were suspended on full pay for two-and-a-half years. All 22 were taken to the local court at Retford. They went from there to the Crown Court, charged in every case with doing an injustice to their patients. At the Crown Court every one of the nurses except one was exonerated. After two-and-a-half years they were allowed, if they so wished, to return to their jobs. This was not only a terrible waste of precious nurses' time and effort but of course the cost to the country was naturally immense.
It took a long time for Rampton Hospital to recover from that disastrous episode. I am now told that they have recovered, that the board of management is doing very well, and that the morale, which was so low, is now up to the norm, which is high. I am interested in this aspect of it because, as I understand from the report, seven of the nurses at Ashworth have been suspended. Can my noble friend the Minister tell us what is happening to those nurses? I think the services of one were immediately withdrawn, but I am more interested in the seven nurses who might possibly face charges similar to the ones that I have described.
Chapter XIII, as the noble Earl also told us, is about the patients' advocacy service. There again, I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister could let us know when this is likely to be implemented. It is vital that patients should have people they trust—not necessarily staff, whom I am sure in the majority of cases they would trust, but people from outside the hospital. Perhaps, as has been hinted, members of that good organisation, MIND, might go in to listen to any problems that can be brought out by the patients. I wanted also to touch on chapter XIV, which deals with training the police in investigating and interviewing people who have grudges against each other. Special training is needed because one is dealing with people who do not always tell the truth. They can also elaborate on the truth, and do not always tell even a vestige of the truth, but it all boils up to problems within the hospital.
Ashworth and the other two special hospitals are ordinary hospitals. They are there to cure patients. If they are lucky in their cures then the patients go out of the hospitals. They are there to be treated and, we hope, cured. But the regime for these special patients whom I have met at Rampton on many occasions has to be different from the ordinary hospital because of
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the special needs. Ashworth is not just for special patients. All members of the community of Ashworth are special people. I want to emphasise that, because the nation owes them a great debt of gratitude for taking on this particularly arduous work of nursing and caring for people who, as the noble Earl said, are not the easiest to care for.
I was enormously impressed by the dedication of all the personnel in Rampton from the board of governors, the management teams, the medical staff, the nursing staff, the auxiliaries, down to the gardeners and everybody that I met. Can we from this House say a big thank you to all of them for undertaking and carrying out this particular branch of medicine, which is so vital to all of us.
8.8 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, I am particularly grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for initiating this debate and thus prompting me personally to read this superb report of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper and his colleagues. Unlike both the noble Earl and the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, who both have enormous personal experience in this field, I have never as yet visited any of the special hospitals and have thus no personal knowledge of the regimes that apply in any of them. But as a member of the Bar, I have on a number of occasions in the course of my work come to know—sometimes well—people who have subsequently been sent on to them under hospital orders made by the courts.
Accordingly, I have often wondered about the way of life which lay ahead of them, the quality of treatment they would receive, and the nature of the care which our society provides for some of its most difficult and dangerous people. The answers to those questions as provided by this detailed and disturbing report are what I had hoped not to hear. The allegations of ill-treatment that were made in the "Cutting Edge" programme broadcast in March 1991, which the report deals with in some detail, have led to an inquiry which has laid bare in respect of this particular special hospital underlying difficulties which are clearly of long duration and which require a major review of the approach to the work of special hospitals and not merely cosmetic alterations in procedures.
The essential problem which seems to me to lie at the heart of what is wrong is an historical one. The special hospital system has its origins in the early 19th century with the foundation of the criminal lunatic asylums; and, later, the opening of Broadmoor in 1863. Those institutions—hospitals in name—have sadly remained outside the mainstream psychiatric services of the NHS. Whatever brave pronouncements of their objectives have been made over the years by governments, the prison service, the NHS and the special hospital service itself, those running them, and those responsible for staffing them, have never it seems to me—I shall be told if I am being unfair—made an unequivocal commitment to see them as hospitals and not as prisons.
I had hoped that the disturbed people whom I have seen in the courts over the years would be committed

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to hospitals where they could hope, in view of the seriousness of their conditions, to receive the best available treatment which would, if possible, fit them for eventual return to the community. So far as concerns Ashworth, the report shows—at any rate, at the time at which the inquiry took place—that that was a hope that was likely to be a vain one.
As a layman, the aspects of the committee of inquiry's findings which caused me the greatest anxiety were, first—despite all the tributes the report pays to many dedicated staff—the unacceptably low level of patient care. I found it frankly shocking that the report should feel it necessary to recommend that higher sights should be set in medical, social, psychological, nursing, education and occupational assessments when a patient is admitted. In other words, just about everything.
The general approach, according to the report, to a patient's prospects of recovery are pessimistic. I find it distressing that, contrary I understand to experience in other countries and with notable exceptions (thank goodness!) the more experienced and better qualified psychiatrists are not attracted into the special hospital service here. Further, I find it staggering that a hospital of this importance, dealing as it does with severely disturbed patients had—and, as I understand it still has —no pharmacist on its permanent staff. Surely, following the report the recommendation for a hospital-based clinical pharmacy service, suitably staffed with specially trained staff, must be a priority.
Secondly, I find it profoundly disturbing that conditions in a hospital into which a third of the patients are admitted, not because they have committed crime but through the civil process, should have living conditions which are, in some respects, worse than those in many of our oldest prisons. The continuation of slopping-out is a disgrace. So far as I am aware, no date has been given for an end to that practice in special hospitals. If the prison service can do it, then surely so must the hospitals.
Thirdly, I am worried about the staffing levels in so far as they affect the way in which staff can carry out their work and also the effects on patients. The absence of any proper night call system, with often one nursing assistant only readily available on duty, has serious implications for staff and patients in an emergency.
The continued use of seclusion—in effect, it is clear as a punishment—may, as the report illustrates in one case which was investigated, have tragic consequences. Yet I suspect that higher staffing ratios, as in the new unit at Broadmoor, would render that treatment unnecessary. I hope that the recommendation that it be discontinued will find favour as soon as possible.
I find it shocking too that a report in 1992 should have had to make a recommendation that mechanical restraints be no longer used. To retain the use of restraining garments and yet have no pharmacist on the permanent staff is all too clearly an illustration of what is wrong. Those procedures and practices are surely more fitted to the 1800s than to the 1990s, and graphically illustrate the prisoner rather than the patient philosophy.
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If attitudes are to change, hospital patients, even disturbed or dangerous ones—perhaps I should say particularly disturbed or dangerous ones—must have a voice which is heard in the running of their hospital, and access to advice which is independent and readily and promptly available to them. A properly staffed patients' advisory service would not merely enable misunderstandings to be overcome and avoid escalations into wholly unnecessary bitterness and resentment—especially between patients and staff—it would enable genuine complaints to be articulated properly and thus acted upon swiftly.
A proper system of reporting all untoward events is clearly essential for the protection of patients and staff alike in such an environment. Together with a proper complaints system, I hope that those improvements will go a considerable way towards dispelling the feelings which were widely expressed in patients' letters written to the committee of inquiry that they were treated as sub-human.
Nothing that I have said is intended to overlook or minimise the difficulties which management, nursing staff and doctors must face in hospitals such as this. I do not envy them their work. I can readily see how, faced with staffing difficulties, antiquated facilities and sometimes inadequate training for difficult tasks, what the report describes as the culture of denigration and devaluation of patients may develop, but it needs to be addressed urgently, if that has not been done since the report was published.
I am especially worried by that part of the report which deals with women patients where the current regime was described as, "infantilising, demeaning and anti-therapeutic". In ordinary language, it seems that by its culture instead of helping to make patients better and more independent, the way that the hospital tended to treat women patients may well have worsened their condition.
It may be that the actions of the committee of inquiry and the publication of this report in August of this year have already gone some way towards addressing some of the problems that were highlighted in it. I hope that that is so, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that that is the position.
Next spring, when I understand Dr. Reed's working party and the special hospital task force will report, I hope that we shall see a full review of the way our special hospitals will be run in future. I hope that the House will have an opportunity to debate fully the issues raised.
Those who have to be confined in special hospitals and deprived of their freedom should surely have a right to expect to receive the best treatment that we can offer them, and as good a quality of life as is compatible with the need to restrain them. The report has shown that much is wrong, but it has done more: in its recommendations, it shows vision and it points the way to begin to put those things right. I hope we shall hear from the Minister that the Government will be following its guidance and proposes to do so as soon as possible.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I should like to join those who have thanked my noble friend Lord Longford, not just for asking the Question but for being his invaluable self. My noble friend does the visiting that some of us know we should do but do not do. He has the personal experience, while some of us—here I speak for myself—speak from what we have read or have been told. My interest in the matter has been sporadic.
When Frank (as I like to call him) asked me whether I would participate in the debate tonight I hesitated to do so because of my lack of close knowledge of the matter. But, as he knows, I came into contact with it fairly early in my political career in the other House when I had a constituent named Mr. Peter Thompson. Mr. Thompson had the misfortune to he (as he puts it himself in his book) mad at a certain period in his life. That is not a word we use now but Mr. Thompson was not afraid to use it about himself so I do not hesitate to use it here. He was mentally disturbed for a period. During that period he committed a grave offence. As a result he was found to be mentally unstable and went to Broadmoor. I am not sure whether Mr. Thompson would agree with what I am saying, but it must be something in the nature of a tribute to the institution, and above all a tribute to Mr. Thompson himself, that, having emerged from that institution he has become the director of a very valuable organisation called the Mathew Trust.
The Mathew Trust takes a close interest in these matters and has made recommendations concerning what action should be taken in relation to the current examination. I will not go into those in detail; they can be read. What I will say is that one of the chief concerns of Mr. Thompson and the trust is what happens to the prisoner on discharge. At the moment there is no satisfactory provision. There is no half-way house, which has been suggested as one possibility, between a person being in public life and being in close confinement. The idea that there should be a half-way house existence is one that I find attractive and interesting. I hope that when the noble Baroness comes to reply she may be able to say whether it is one that the Government are ready to accept.
The history of the attitude of mankind to the mentally ill among us has been pretty appalling, has it not? When one looks back in history discovering how people who were "mad" were treated sometimes makes one almost ashamed to be a member of the human race. But we went through a period of reform. I am told that at one time we were in the lead in improving the situation and beginning to cope with this difficult problem, but I understand that we are falling behind and are still operating systems and adopting attitudes—the report confirms this—that belong to the past rather than the present. There are many other more progressive countries which have overtaken us in that respect and are already implementing the kind of recommendations that the Blom-Cooper report highlights.
I must agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, said about the difficulties raised by the
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report. I have the report with me. I had to stagger in with it. The most readable and horrifying part of the report is volume II, which details what happened to four people in this establishment. One cannot read this part of the report without coming to the conclusion that matters are very grave and must be changed. That does not take away from the appreciation one also has of the fact that people who work in these establishments are doing work which most of us would neither be capable of doing nor would wish to do. Therefore they cannot be denigrated as a whole. That does not mean to say that we must not also concern ourselves with what happens to four patients and what happens to some other patients. My noble friend has referred to the "culture"—it is referred to in the report—which means there is a tendency to treat mentally ill patients as less than human.
If we come to the document itself, it is long, important, distressing and difficult to read. It raises many vital questions, one of which is what has happened since the publication of the report in August. I hope that when the noble Baroness comes to reply she will concentrate on that question. Have we made a start? I think we have. We want to know whether we have made a start on tackling those problems and how we are getting on with it. I believe my noble friend knows more about that than we do. Has a new procedure been introduced to deal with patients' complaints? Those questions have been raised by another valuable organisation: MIND. Is there a new system to ensure that there is proper monitoring of complaints so as to deal with issues that are of continuing concern to patients? Is there now the proper implementation of an incident-reporting mechanism to ensure that complaints see the light of day? Has an effective system been set up to monitor how the recommendations of the report are being implemented? The inquiry made a number of other detailed recommendations, some of which have already been mentioned. I hope that when she comes to reply to the debate the noble Baroness will be able to tell us that at least some of the problems are already beginning to be tackled. Is the hospital-based pharmacy being looked at? That must be important. There is also the question of the culture.
Since I do not know enough about the subject myself I have been studying what other organisations who do know about it have to say. The conclusion reached by the Royal College of Nursing is the following:
"Action is urgently needed to bring change in these special hospitals. Resources are needed to provide the highest standards of nursing care in a secure environment. A cultural change needs to be encouraged, alongside changes in nursing practice, education and industrial relations. The need for change demands resources and commitment. What happens at Ashworth will affect the future not only of the special hospitals, but of psychiatric nursing in every area of health care".
I believe that that shows the very great importance of the report, and I am sure that the noble Baroness and her colleagues are dealing with it with that sense of importance.
On page 84 of the report it is stated:

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"… it is the unqualified right of a patient to make a complaint about anything to do with his/her care and treatment and to obtain redress".
Again, that is important. It seems to he suggested in the report that there is difficulty in getting complaints heard. I wonder whether that point too has been looked at.
Mr. Blunkett, the Labour spokesman on these matters, referred to the review following the report. I am glad to say that that review is now taking place. I am sure that the noble Baroness will have something to say about it when she comes to reply. Mr. Blunkett urged that the review should consider the whole structure and management of the special hospital and prison medical service to avoid the narrow perspective of previous inquiries.
I am half way between the view which is taken that this problem is so grave that reform is almost an impossibility and the more optimistic view taken by my noble friend Lord Longford in introducing this subject. There are grave problems and grave difficulties here. There are grave difficulties which are tackled by people who on the whole do their best to tackle them within the culture and the environment in which they exist. We must ask ourselves about that culture and that environment. I am sure that in replying to the debate the noble Baroness will address herself to these problems. Once again I wish to say that all of us here and others outside this Chamber owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Earl for raising this issue this evening.
8.31 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I, too, wish to express appreciation to my noble friend Lord Longford for tabling this Question on the subject of this important report. My noble friend does us a profound service in doing so. However, the report is so long and protracted that I think we are only slightly opening the door on the subject today and we shall have to return to this matter to discuss how it has progressed, as it must progress.
I cannot approach this subject on the same basis as my noble friend Lord Longford, who has a tremendous history of showing interest in this field and working within it. He has long been interested in the fate of people who are in trouble and who have to be held in custody. Nor do I have the background of my noble friend Lady Mallalieu, who is a distinguished QC. I approach this matter totally from a layman's point of view.
During my political life, by a geographical accident I represented areas that contained two of the largest prisons in the United Kingdom. The report, in my view, concerns the prison service as a whole. When anything goes wrong, the nearest guy to kick on the backside is the one at the sharp end of the operation. Apparently it is not the Home Office which has made the mistakes, or the Government—whether Tory or Labour—who have not provided adequate funds. The guy who is kicked is the one who is trying to do his job.
I, for my sins, was the Member of Parliament representing Leeds, West where Her Majesty's Prison Armley was situated. I have visited that prison and I
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have seen prison officers in tears because they had to look after kids of six and seven years of age who were remanded in juvenile custody because the government of the day, whatever their colour, had not provided a proper facility in which those children could be held.
When I moved back to Manchester I was aware of the situation at Strangeways. I am perhaps speaking a little wide of the report we are discussing tonight. Before I left Leeds I was told that the overcrowding and the conditions at Armley prison were so bad that it was a power keg that could explode at any time. I went back to Manchester and the power keg exploded with a consequent cost to the taxpayer of £60 million. The people who had the least input in terms of dealing with that situation were the prison officers who worked there. They assured interested people like myself that they could take control of the prison in two days but that they were stopped by the Home Office. The Home Secretary who was responsible for that decision is now, I believe, sunning himself in Bermuda as the governor there.
It is essential that the people at the bottom of the structure should be able to express their point of view. I liken that situation to an industrial dispute. According to this Government, the faults in production in this country lie always on the shopfloor. According to the Government the fault never lies with management. I think one should also speak up for the staff.
I think there is a misconception as regards the type of patient that is held in the hospital we are discussing. I am told that about 60 per cent. of the patients are dangerous not only to themselves but also to other people and to the staff who look after them. I have discussed this matter with three members of the Prison Officers' Association, who incidentally are certificated nurses. They are not "screws" in the old fashioned sense. They are fully qualified medical staff. I do not think any of those three people would look amiss in the front row of a rugby team. I asked them whether they would be happy with nursing the inmates of the hospital on a one-to-one basis. They replied that they would not be happy with that situation and that they would not feel at all secure.
A short time ago I chaired a meeting in Manchester. The meeting concerned the privatisation of prisons. A Roman Catholic bishop, the Bishop of Salford, was on the platform at that meeting. He discussed the matter of society deciding to incarcerate people. Once the door is locked on prisoners, society is finished with them, but for other people the problem starts. In the normal course of events the staff of prisons will have to spend 12 hours a day incarcerated with the people they have to look after. That is not an easy job. In some prisons the position may be better than in other prisons according to the resources that are made available.
Only a few days after I visited Strangeways a headline in the paper said, "Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, Judge Tumim, condemns Strangeways". I assumed that the judge had visited Strangeways, but that was not the case. He had relied on reports from his staff who had visited the prison. Some two days' later he published a report of a prison

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that holds only 200 inmates. When Strangeways is rebuilt it will accept once again 50 per cent. more prisoners than it was built to accommodate. However, when things go wrong in a prison the authorities always blame those at the bottom end of the structure.
I do not accept that Sir Louis Blom-Cooper is right in every instance. I believe he infers, for example, that the staff are in the wrong trade union. I have been attacking this Government for the past 13 years for telling people which trade union they should join. Most of the staff employed in the hospital we are discussing are qualified psychiatric nurses and they chose to join the Prison Officers' Association. To try to equate the hospital we are discussing with what I would term a normal mental hospital in the widest sense is absolute rubbish. Most of the inmates of the hospital we are discussing are, unfortunately, murderous people to themselves and to the community at large and they must be incarcerated.
I was interested to hear the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, about Rampton. She said that a television documentary had been appallingly unjust in its treatment of the staff at Rampton. However, the other night a programme was shown about the House of Lords and noble Lords who featured in the programme were made to look like characters from "Spitting Image". Therefore one cannot take seriously a television programme made about any subject. Television programmes are just a joke.
The Prison Officers' Association—and I have no financial connection with the association—has made it quite clear that it is not prepared to defend members who behave badly. It is asking for a special complaints procedure. I am told that, since the report was issued, if a patient makes a complaint, whoever he may be and however serious or frivolous his complaint, a member of the staff is immediately suspended. So much for British justice. The Prison Officers' Association has assured me that it would be quite prepared to become involved in a complaints procedure so long as it had an input in order to protect the rights of its members. What is wrong with that in a democratic society? I am sure that noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper himself, realise that the defendant is also entitled to the fullest protection. If he is able to be attacked, he should be able to be defended.
I do not believe that the present situation can continue indefinitely. I could give a list of the charges that have been made. There are underlying charges, which have been withdrawn from the report, about the political role of the POA. It is said that it is loaded with Fascists. I have a letter written by the secretary of that association, David Evans, in August which makes it quite clear that the Prison Officers' Association is totally opposed to any such people being in its ranks and that if they could be identified it was the duty of their branch to report them to the executive to deal with the matter.
The Prison Officers' Association is not insular. Perhaps I may mention some of the organisations with which it has affiliations. It is affiliated to the TUC. It holds the chairmanship of the European Justice Trade
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Group and of the Council of Civil Service Unions. The Prison Officers' Association structure includes a race committee and an equal opportunities committee. Its external activities include membership of the Trades Union Congress health committee, Liberty, the NACRO Committee for Minimum Standards in Prisons, the NACRO Community for Racial Equality and the Penal Consortium for Reform, which includes among others the Howard League, the Prison Reform Trust and NACRO. All the POA asks is that in any changes that take place it is consulted.
It is no good thinking that people can be stamped in the same way as an egg is stamped for inspection. They should not be told that although they used to be prison officers now they are members of another union and they must behave differently. That is grossly resented by the prison officers involved. As I said, most of the people involved are fully qualified medically.
Previous speakers have mentioned slopping out. That does not affect Ashworth alone. They have only just started getting rid of slopping out at Strangeways and Armley. It should have gone years ago, irrespective of whether it was a mental institution or one of Her Majesty's ordinary prisons. It is all a question of resources. Slopping out is part of the normal prison service. You could always tell when you were near Armley or Strangeways: your nose told you. You could smell it. But it had nothing to do with the prison officers. They worked for 12 hours with that situation. They suffered as well, and their families suffered.
I make no special plea. I ask simply that prison officers are respected for the job they do. Most of us would not want to do that job. Society has a right to remove from society people who go before the courts if they are a serious danger. We know that people who have been released from prison after committing rape have committed rape again. People have been released after committing murder and have committed murder again. What do the general public say? They say that we are too soft on crime. One should not get the idea that the general public are overwhelmed by passionate appeals such as the one Sir Louis Blom-Cooper has made. He may well be right, but the general public would view the matter with some disdain. People believe that prisons are for punishment, not for rehabilitation. I take the view that they are for rehabilitation, but in the case of Ashworth I dare to say—and I have no medical knowledge —that the possibility of rehabilitation of most of the people incarcerated there is virtually nil.
I understand that three of the ringleaders of the Strangeways mutiny are now incarcerated in Ashworth. Why were they ever in an ordinary prison such as Strangeways and looked after by prison officers whose own security was at risk? Prison officers were injured and people died as a consequence. That was an issue which the Government could not get away from.
I do not want to join the mutual admiration society for the Minister on the Front Bench tonight, dear though I think she is, but I know that she is a sympathetic listener. It is not the fault of this

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particular Government that such a situation exists. But, nothing will happen until we as a nation support a government, of any colour, which is prepared to see substantial sums of money spent on eradicating what has happened in this particular establishment. But they must take the staff with them. The solution must not be handed down as a diktat based on an independent report.
I hope that the Government will look at what Sir Louis Blom-Cooper has said. I do not agree with all of it but I go along with most of it.
I end by thanking my noble friend Lord Longford for giving us the chance of debating this subject tonight.
8.46 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I should like to join my noble friend Lord Dean and other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Longford for giving us this opportunity to discuss the report on Ashworth Hospital. I thank him particularly because, unlike other noble Lords who have spoken, I have even less experience of the subject. I have not been a prison visitor; I am not a barrister; I have not been a Member of Parliament with either a hospital or a prison in my constituency; and I am not a voter who has had such a problem.
When I read the report it was truly a great education. At the core of the report, leaving aside the beginning and the appendices, there are about 200 pages which could be released in the popular bookshops. People could learn a great deal by reading the report. It is an eye-opener.
Many noble Lords have spoken of the details of the report. Perhaps I may quote from the report what I believe to be the crux of the matter. Of the four case studies which are laid out and which, as my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney said, make very serious reading, the report begins by saying:
"From our studies in depth of these four cases there is a wealth of evidence to demonstrate how, from the moment when society intervened in the lives of each of these four mentally disordered persons, there has been failure upon failure to care for and treat them properly".
Therefore, before we discuss what happened in Ashworth Hospital and what may be done, let us remember the broader social context in which such reports must be placed. It is not just one special hospital; nor is it even a system of special hospitals which is at issue here.
The problem of how to treat mentally disturbed patients who may have criminal tendencies and may have offended is one which starts long before those people come to such hospitals. No one is born a criminal. There is plenty of evidence to show that, if some of those people had had viable alternatives of treatment, analysis, diagnosis and advice, they would not have ended up so tragically. So, first, let us remember that the whole issue that we are discussing has a much broader social context. Indeed, not just our society but every Western society so far as I know has failed to treat the problem in a proper, broad
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social context. We are learning, but it still remains the case that far too often patients are treated like prisoners. That is the essence of the problem.
Many details of the report's recommendations have already been mentioned. I should just like to raise three issues. One is the issue of culture. Many people have already alluded to the problem of culture. What is it? It is not just a problem of ethos, broadly speaking, or a problem of attitude. The report makes disturbing comments—not being an expert in this matter I have to take the report's evidence as valid—about racism, sexism and homophobia. I take on board everything that has been said about the dedication of many members of staff. They do difficult work and are very committed people. I criticise no one individual or even the Prison Officers' Association. The issue clearly concerns the very disturbing attitudes of racism, sexism and homophobia.
In saying that the culture needs to be changed, we mean that it is those aspects which must be removed. They cannot be eradicated easily; after all, they exist in society generally and not just in Ashworth Hospital. We must make a start on whatever is needed to be done by way of education, retraining or whatever to ensure that, to the extent possible, those aspects of the culture are removed as soon as it is feasible to do so. That is my first point.
My second point concerns procedures. Many of the recommendations, such as advocacy for prisoners or a complaints procedure and so on, are matters of improvement to procedure. Improvement of procedure is not very costly. It is a matter of changing practices. It may cost something to implement but does not involve great expenditure. It will be interesting to hear from the noble Baroness what has been done about improving procedures, especially those concerning complaints. As other noble Lords have pointed out, when a person can complain any time that he feels that he has a complaint, for whatever reason, without fear and with the support of an advocate, then we shall be treating people as patients and not as prisoners.
Lastly, and this is tricky, there is the matter of resources. It is quite clear, for example, that if seclusion treatment is to be properly carried out, if slopping out is to be stopped and if many other matters are to be dealt with properly, there is a need for a 24-hour service with more than one person in attendance at night. That has already been mentioned.
The staff provision is clearly inadequate. It would be interesting to know, given all the stringency that is always present, how much in the form of additional resources will be put into this special hospital and special hospitals in general. We should like to be assured that such things will not happen again. I do not want to take up any more of your Lordships' time. Once again I thank my noble friend Lord Longford for having given us the opportunity to discuss this matter and for having given me the opportunity to educate myself.
8.55 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, as other Members of your Lordships' House, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for drawing attention to the report of the Ashworth Hospital inquiry. There can be no greater authority on this issue in your Lordships' House and few people in the country who have carried out so much research into the subject. We are indeed fortunate to have the noble Earl among our number. I should also like to thank him for his courtesy in sharing with me his approach to this debate and for his thoughtful speech.
The debate gives me the opportunity to explain to your Lordships how we are addressing the important issues raised in the wide-ranging and searching inquiry which was chaired by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper. I should like to pay a tribute to him and his colleagues for the enormous amount of time, energy and care they put into conducting the inquiry and into producing the final report. The findings have implications which go far beyond Ashworth itself and beyond the special hospital service. In replying to the concerns which the noble Earl and others have raised, I hope to demonstrate how seriously these are being regarded.
The inquiry report reflected some very disturbing aspects of life at Ashworth Hospital. Both the Government and the Special Hospitals Service Authority (which manages all three special hospitals) are resolved to deal with these as a matter of urgency. On publication in August, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health announced that the authority would immediately draw up a detailed action plan for tackling the report's recommendations. That action plan was submitted by the authority and subsequently approved by my right honourable friend. At the same time the authority set up a task force at the hospital which was charged with implementing the agreed action.
The task force is chaired by the hospital's acting general manager, Mr. Peter Green, who has obviously impressed the noble Earl. Mr. Green's commitment is beyond question and he is determined that the hospital should provide treatment, care and a quality service where patients' needs are paramount. The other four members of the task force are well qualified and experienced people from outside the special hospitals: a consultant forensic psychiatrist, a nurse manager, an industrial relations expert and a representative of patients' interests. They report to an authority-level steering group, which in turn keeps Ministers in regular touch. It is through this mechanism that progress towards achieving the report's recommendations will be charted. Like the noble Earl, I too have recently visited Ashworth and was able to see and hear at first hand the positive action that is being taken.
The overriding aim in following up the report must be to ensure that staff, patients and the public at large see Ashworth and the other special hospitals as hospitals. They are not part of the penal system and they do not exist merely to promote containment. The public quite rightly expects to be protected—that
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protection is one of the key objectives of the authority—but high security must be provided in the context of an essentially therapeutic environment.
We are anxious to promote professionalism in special hospitals and are committed to developing and maintaining the highest possible nursing and clinical standards. We do not underestimate the demands on those who work on a daily basis with extremely difficult and challenging patients; but abuse, degrading treatment, or neglect cannot he tolerated under any circumstances. The Special Hospital Service Authority has made it clear that disciplinary action will be taken in such cases. Indeed, that has already happened.
It is also important to recognise that, while the inquiry report illustrates some obvious failures in what should be a compassionate and therapeutic service, much good work has been and is being done by committed staff at management and ward level. The authority had already taken important steps to tackle many of the problems which confronted it when it was set up only three years ago. Indeed the creation of the authority itself stemmed from a determination to replace the over-centralised and bureaucratic management structure which existed before by a more open model on health service lines. The task ahead is a challenging one, but undoubtedly the introduction of general management and the identification of clear goals has generated an energy and enthusiasm which are accelerating the pace of change.
I would like to address some of the specific points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and other noble Lords. First, I shall deal with the question of a patients' advocacy service. That issue was raised also by my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu. This was one of the key areas highlighted by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State when she announced the publication of the report. In particular, she welcomed the proposal for a patients' advocacy service, which the Special Hospitals Service Authority strongly supports. The authority is working enthusiastically with the Ashworth task force to identify different options for advocacy and expects to make a choice early in the New Year. The preferred model will be piloted in Ashworth and, when established, the good practice spread to the other two special hospitals. A member of the task force, Miss Lindsey Dyer, from the patients' advice bureaux at the North-western Regional Health Authority and formerly of MIND, is taking a lead role in this area.
With regard to the grim practice of slopping out raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, I assure her that the Government share her view and that of the committee of inquiry that the practice should be discontinued as soon as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, was also concerned about that. I am sure that they will he pleased to learn that the Special Hospitals Service Authority has successfully piloted a scheme at Rampton Hospital demonstrating the practicality and benefits of increasing the level of night staffing and allowing the patients free access from their rooms to toilet facilities and, more importantly, to have regular contact with nursing staff

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during the night hours. It is the authority's intention from existing funds to introduce the same regime in a limited number of wards, at both Broadmoor and Ashworth hospitals before the end of March 1993. It would also be aiming to extend the arrangement throughout all 79 wards, but it is aware of the significant resource implications in the trebling, or in some cases the quadrupling, of the number of staff on duty at night.
I should now like to turn to the issue of seclusion. Your Lordships will be aware that the subject of seclusion is controversial. Those who support its total abolition tend to work outside the special hospitals, whereas those who have to deal with these difficult patients on a daily basis favour its reduction and strict control. The Government doubt whether the proposal to end seclusion entirely is realistic but they welcome the encouraging trend of its very selective use. I understand that the practice of secluding newly-admitted patients has ceased and over the past two years the number of seclusion hours has been reduced at Ashworth by one-third and the number of patients secluded halved. The authority is actively looking at ways of accelerating that change, a development very much welcomed by the Government.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, were concerned that there was no hospital-based pharmacy. The authority and the department support the establishment of a hospital-based pharmacy, and that will be implement-ed as soon as the necessary resources are available. I shall come to resources in a minute.
Perhaps I may raise the question of alternative literature. There has been a great deal of concern about the dissemination of unacceptable literature within Ashworth. At the request of the Special Hospitals Service Authority the retired deputy chief constable of the Cleveland Police Authority is conducting a thorough investigation into the circulation of this offensive and obscene literature. His inquiries are still in progress but his first report is due to be received by the authority in the very near future.
I should now like to turn to the issue of the complaints system, which was raised specifically by the noble Lords, Lord Jenkins of Putney and Lord Dean of Beswick, and other Members of your Lordships' House. A new complaints system was introduced by the authority on 1st April 1992 and I am pleased to be able to tell your Lordships that independent investigators have been appointed and are handling serious complaints. An initial review after six months shows that the new system has been effective in all key aspects. My noble friend Lady Macleod—
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way on the question of the complaints procedure. It may be acceptable to everyone except the person who is being complained of because there are circumstances in which frivolous complaints can be made. A marvellous example was given by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, about a group of nurses who suffered substantially both financially and professionally by virtue of a television
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programme. I am saying only that the Prison Officers' Association is prepared to support any complaints procedure provided that it is given an undertaking that it can be part of it so that it is able to defend nurses who are members of the association. I think that that is only common justice.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I entirely endorse that view and I would be totally opposed to trial by television, which I think takes place in some instances. However, I have to say that in this particular case many of the reforms which I am now citing and which have been adopted by the task force were introduced before that Channel 4 programme. We should endorse the new complaints system, monitor it very carefully and, if there are shortcomings in it, clearly we shall have to make certain amendments to it. But I understand that after a review of the first six months it is proving to be very effective.
My noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve spoke from the considerable knowledge that she has gained over many years as a former president of the National League of Hospital Friends. She illustrated so vividly, as the noble Lord has outlined, the impact which inquiries can have on institutions. She went on to ask what has happened specifically to the nurses who were the subject of disciplinary action. Five nurses have resumed duty following disciplinary action where that was appropriate; one has been dismissed; and one is still suspended pending a disciplinary hearing next week. The cases are not being allowed to drag on as in the case of Rampton, which she quoted. They are being dealt with speedily under the procedures which the Special Hospitals Service Authority has developed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, expressed her deep anxiety about the poor quality of medical staffing. That is an issue which is addressed in the Special Hospitals Service Authority's action plan. Medical members of the SHSA—Dr. Taylor, Dr. Higgins and Dr. Dick—are carrying out a personal review with all the medical staff to ensure that roles are clearly understood and support given where needed. Moreover, a medical audit is also being developed throughout the hospitals.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, cited one of the many successes of the special hospitals. I am grateful to him for stressing the positive aspect of much of the work which is undertaken. The noble Lord asked specifically about discharges from special hospitals. The report of the mentally disordered offenders review emphasises the importance of follow-up action and care. I shall be referring to that in a moment. That report has been chaired by Dr. John Reed. Action to speed up development of the regional secure units is one of the great keys to getting patients moved from special hospitals. The care programme approach, which is explicitly included for special hospitals, follows through a new placement in the community so there is a continuing responsibility that is going to be exercised in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, outlined graphically the retribution meted out to those at the sharp end who trespass and transgress. It is right that sloppy practice, neglect, poor care or worse—abuse

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and brutality—at all levels are detected and speedy action taken. I make no apology for that but I do concur with the noble Lord that those who have let such a culture take hold must also bear their share of responsibility, as they have in this case.
It is untrue to say that members of the staff are suspended whenever a patient raises a complaint. That would happen only if the initial management investigation established a prima facie case of misconduct by a member of staff.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that this is a most difficult area and, in some respects, as society's attitudes change, it becomes uncharted territory. Forensic science is a relatively new medical specialism but I am extremely pleased that talented and committed people are entering the specialty. I hope that the leadership that they give will enhance that challenging area of care.
I turn now to the question of resources. Over the past three years resources have considerably increased for the funding of special hospitals. In 1989–90 £80.1 million was spent on this service. In 1992–93 £118.4 million is to be spent so that considerable investment has been made in special hospitals.
Your Lordships will be aware that it is essential that the special hospitals should be viewed not on their own, but as part of a much broader range of care for mentally disordered people, in the NHS and in the community. Because they have locked doors and many of their patients are referred from the prisons or the courts, they run the risk of isolation from mainstream health services. This clearly must be avoided for the very reasons which have been highlighted today about the poor quality of care which previously existed at Ashworth. The authority's priority is to strengthen outside links by building closer working relationships with the wider NHS, the universities, local probation and social services departments. It is also forging partnerships with the voluntary sector. We welcome these developments.
Because the special hospitals are just one part of a much wider pattern of services, my right honourable friend recently announced the formation of a working group to look in detail at the needs of people who need treatment in conditions of high security. As I said before, this is being chaired by Dr. John Reed, who also led the joint Department of Health/Home Office
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review of services for mentally disordered offenders that completed its work in July. It will report next Spring.
Earlier this year, the noble Earl commented in his book Prisoner or Patient on the interim report of the mentally disordered offender review. As he said, this was a "major document". I am pleased to say that the final summary report of that review is being published later this month. This report will pull together the key features of the nine earlier consultative documents, the broad thrust of which have already been widely supported by the various bodies involved in this field. At the same time we shall be publishing two further discussion papers; one on the needs of offenders with learning disabilities; the other, on racial and cultural issues.
One of the main points in the review is the need to provide services for mentally disordered offenders as near as possible to their own homes. This principle has implications for the centralised pattern of special hospitals—and my ministerial colleagues and I are aware of alternative models that have recently been suggested. Dr. Reed's working group will be looking closely at all the issues, including the level of need for high security and the implications for related services. The working group will be keeping in close touch with another group, also chaired by Dr. Reed, that is looking at services for people with psychopathic disorder. This has long been a difficult and contentious area, but one in which we are determined to see practical progress made. I am confident that both working groups will be able to build constructively on the good work already done by the main review.
I thank the noble Earl once again for his continuing and humane interest in the needs of this relatively small but often problematic group of patients. As he put it in his recent book:
"We owe a duty to those suffering from these grave handicaps and to those who dedicate their lives to helping them".
My right honourable and honourable friends and I are determined, for our part, to do all we can to ensure that these patients receive the best care and treatment in the most suitable surroundings for their individual needs, always bearing in mind the need to protect the safety of the public.
House adjourned at fourteen minutes past nine o'clock.

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