Sitting of 15 June 1993

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    CITIBANK INTERNATIONAL BILL [Lords]
    Read a Second time, and committed.
Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION

    Nursery Education
    Mr. Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education when he last met the Association of Metropolitan Authorities to discuss the provision of nursery education.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr. Robin Squire): No such meeting has been held recently.
    Mr. Burden: May I welcome the Minister to his new appointment? When all the evidence, even from the Government's own tests, suggests that children perform better if they have received a nursery education, is he not ashamed that Britain is still the bottom of the European league in nursery provision? Will not he admit that the Secretary of State's comments about the so-called Mum's Army are actually more about devaluing the skills of those who teach children in those vital early years and avoiding the investment that is necessary in nursery education?
    Mr. Squire: Given the warmth of the first part of the hon. Member's question, I am sorry to disagree so fundamentally with him on the rest. We believe, as we have restated many times, that the very diversity of provision for under-fives remains the best option. It recognises the various needs of children and their parents and makes the best use of what are inevitably limited resources. On the hon. Member's latter point, the recent consultation paper reflects our interests in extending the opportunities for capable people with considerable previous experience of working with young children to train to be early-years teachers.
    Mr. Hawkins: May I warmly welcome my hon. Friend to his new responsibilities? Is it the case that when the last Labour Government left office only some 69 per cent. of under-fives received some form of pre-school provision, and now the figure is more than 90 per cent? Is not that a powerful confirmation of the progress that the Government have made in nursery education?
    Mr. Squire: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, first, for his kind personal comments and secondly for underlining why the subject is so embarrassing for the Labour party. Labour Members say one thing when in opposition, but they invariably do something else when they are in government.
    Mr. Steinberg: Is the Minister aware of the anger among parents and teachers at the proposals for diluting the primary training of teachers? Is he aware that, from an early age and at that early stage, children need professional teachers and not the dilution of the teaching profession? Will he please listen to teachers and parents before he makes a further stupid mistake to add to what the Government have done to education in the past 14 years?
    Mr. Squire: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman rejects out of hand proposals that are designed to enhance rather than damage. If I may quote from the Yorkshire Post:
    "I think that the professionals should give some thought during the coming weeks to dropping their prejudices and giving people the opportunity to test out the old saying: teachers are born—not made."
    That comment was from a lady who is a graduate teacher and is also a playgroup leader.

    Special Schools (Testing)
    Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what consideration he has given to the testing of pupils in special schools.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Eric Forth): Children with special educational needs should follow the national curriculum and participate in its associated assessment arrangements wherever possible, so that they have access to the same education as other pupils. The School Examinations and Assessment Council has given guidance to schools about ways in which the tests for both seven and 14-year-olds might be modified or adapted for those pupils. It is, however, possible where appropriate to disapply the national curriculum and assessment and testing for pupils with special needs.
    I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and his constituent, Mrs. Anne Hardman, head teacher of Queen's Croft school in Lichfield, to discuss these important issues.
    Mr. Fabricant: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful answer. However, will he concede that special schools are, by their very nature, special, and so are the children who are taught in them? Will he consider, perhaps at the meeting that we are to have later this month, placing greater emphasis on continual assessment and slightly less emphasis on exam results? But will he continue to press that exam results for all schools, including special schools, should continue to be published for the benefit of parental choice?
    Mr. Forth: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend's last point and I emphasise that, whereas it is important that children in all schools, including special schools, are given the maximum opportunity to enjoy the benefits of the curriculum and regular testing, teachers have a great deal of scope to judge to what extent pupils are appropriate for particular testing. In that regard, I should mention the possibility and potential of the national record of achievement, which can be used at the discretion of schools

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    and teachers to sum up the achievements of pupils of all kinds from all schools when they have completed their education.
    Mr. Spearing: The Minister mentioned the special needs of pupils, some of whom are statemented and some of whom are in special schools, and the need for the adaptation of tests. Does he agree that any reduction in the resources now available to those pupils, whether statemented in ordinary schools or in special schools, will not be approved by Her Majesty's Government?
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. It is important that resources throughout education are properly directed to where they can be best and most effectively used and to those with the greatest need. The mechanisms that we now have and, more importantly, those being developed in the Education Bill in another place, go a long way to doing that. I look forward to the support of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in developing the thoughts and the mechanisms in the Education Bill which will be of enormous benefit, particularly to pupils with special educational needs.
    Mr. Alexander: But surely it cannot be right to list the results of pupils in special schools without, at the same time, showing that they come from special schools? What incentive can there be for teachers or pupils if they know that they will be lumped in with everyone else without any recognition of pupils' learning disabilities?
    Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend makes an important point to which we have given a great deal of thought. It is important to regard schools of all kinds as being well within the education system within which all pupils should be treated even-handedly and fairly. But we have gone some way, and we shall continue to go as far as we can, towards recognising the special nature of special schools and of units within mainstream schools in order to identify how their results can best be treated and reported so as to reflect fairly their special circumstances. That is our intention and we are prepared to continue to consider the matter and to continue to develop the reporting system in order to make it as fair as possible.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: Given the Minister's last remarks, will not he admit that there is an insuperable problem here because many children in special schools can be categorised as moving towards level one, even at key stage 1, and that what we really need is some guidance from SEAC on how to develop levels of attainment in the period moving towards level one for which at the moment there are no guidelines? Does not the fact that parents want to know how their own children are doing, not necessarily what is happening in the whole school, underline the foolishness of league tables? This would be a good opportunity for the Minister to announce that league tables are out and more sophisticated ways of assessment are in.
    Mr. Forth: There is always a tension between those who ask, as the hon. Gentleman just has, for more sophisticated methods of assessment and those who often complain that the system has become unwieldly and over-bureaucratic. That, among other things, is exactly the problem that Sir Ron Dearing, is considering in his review at the request of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I am conscious of the problem that the hon.
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    Gentleman has outlined, but I believe that the arrangements for key stage 1 and the work leading up to it are broadly satisfactory. It is right that we continue to look at the arrangements to see whether they need be and can be improved, but we must be careful not to throw babies, or pupils, out with the bathwater in our eagerness to provide a more sophisticated approach to cover every category of pupil and, in this case perhaps, every individual pupil. We must keep faith with the principle of testing and ensure its integrity.

    Student Unions
    Mr. Riddick: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he intends to take to reform student unions.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education (Mr. Tim Boswell): We have already made it clear that we intend to introduce the voluntary principle for student unions. We are currently completing our consultations on the role of campus unions and the National Union of Students, and their use of public funds. In the light of these consultations, we are considering proposals for action which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State expects to announce very shortly.
    Mr. Riddick: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that the vast majority of university students find that they have to belong to a student union, which may do or say some extraordinary things in their name. Should not students have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they wish to belong to a student union? Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government will take action to give students that freedom of choice?
    Mr. Boswell: Yes, Madam Speaker.
    Mr. Don Foster: Will the Minister convey to his hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire) my congratulations on his first appearance on the Front Bench as an education Minister?
    Does not the Minister agree that the growing problems of student hardship, graduate unemployment and the increased need for welfare services should be a far higher priority for him to tackle in higher education than the partly political—I cannot speak today, Madam Speaker —the party-politically motivated attacks by the Conservative party on individual student unions?
    Mr. Boswell: The hon. Gentleman may not be able to speak today, but he can whinge, and that he has done. I am surprised by what he has said: he gives no credit for our recent publication of the draft further and higher education charters, which are designed to give new rights and an information revolution to students. I am surprised that he did not acknowledge the huge increase in the total amount of student support which has been achieved through the success of the student loan scheme—which has even been acknowledged by The Times. I am also surprised that he did not acknowledge the 46 per cent. increase in student numbers over the past four years.
    Mr. John Marshall: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the system of student support in the United Kingdom is more generous than that of any other country in the European Community? Will he further confirm that since

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    student loans were introduced there has been an increase rather than a decrease in the numbers applying for higher education?
    Madam Speaker: Order. The question relates to student unions, not the support of students.
    Mr. John Marshall: Those who apply for higher education then have a right to join a student union.
    Madam Speaker: Order. I am very tolerant generally, but the hon. Gentleman was out of order.
    Mr. Rooker: Will the Minister confirm that for the overwhelming majority of student unions the amount of public support for their activities is sometimes only one fifth or one sixth of their total expenditure? Will the Minister join me in welcoming the work of student unions in welfare, counselling and job finding? Will he take it from me that, having made nearly 20 visits to universities this year, I found that not one Vice-Chancellor had a bad word to say about the running of the student union in his university?
    Given the obvious stress that many students are under and the many tragedies that we have read and heard about this year, should not this work be better supported? Would not the Minister do better to ignore the bile and spite from the duds on the Conservative Back Benches, and take a positive view and give a firm commitment that the Government will not publish consultation papers during either the recess of the House or that of the universities?
    Mr. Boswell: The hon. Gentleman seems to have got out of bed on the wrong side today. I am surprised at the language he has used. I am equally surprised at his apparent wilful failure to recognise the importance of the principle of voluntary membership, the importance of proper accountability for public funds and, not least, the vital importance of avoiding victimisation of individuals. The hon. Gentleman, in his consultations, may not have heard about some of the things that have taken place in the past. If he has heard about them, I hope that he will not condone them. In return, I will concede one point: we recognise through our consultations the importance of proper services for students, and our proposals, when they are announced, will reflect that fact.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend confirm that a great deal of money could be saved if paid student sabbaticals for officers of student unions were ended and if the presidents of student unions did that job without pay or a sabbatical, as they always used to?
    Mr. Boswell: I recall that in the days when I was a president of my college junior common room I received no remuneration for it. That should essentially be a matter for the student union and the institution. I have heard my hon. Friend's trenchant comments and I can assure him that the voluntary principle will make these matters much more accountable to the student body as a whole.

    Primary Schools (Class Sizes)
    Mr. Byers: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the percentage change in the number of primary schoolchildren being taught in classes of more than 40 between 1991 and 1992.
    Mr. Forth: Twenty-four.
    Mr. Byers: Is the Minister concerned that there has been a 24 per cent. increase in just one year in the number of primary school children being taught in classes of more than 40 and that thousands of primary school children are in that position? Will the Minister accept that, at a time of rising primary school population, we will need to employ more teachers to stop things getting even worse? Can he tell the House whether the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is likely to agree to such extra spending? Will he accept that when a teacher stands before a class of 40 10-year-olds, one is talking not about a valuable learning process but crowd control?
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman is making heavy weather of this. Yes, the figure has gone from rather a few to very few, but we are talking about 225 classes out of 137,000, or 11 pupils out of more than 3·5 million. That gives the House some idea of the proportions. The reality is that most of those classes are not representative even of the schools that reported them. The interesting point is that, at the same time, those schools also have one or more small classes. It must be a matter, rightly, for schools and authorities to decide the distribution of their teaching resources within schools. That is where the decision should be made. I am satisfied that the resources are there for class sizes. The average primary class size now is 26·4 pupils compared with 25·9 as long ago as 1979. It is not a cause for the sort of concern that the hon. Gentleman has expressed.
    Mr. Pawsey: The concern expressed by the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) about children and class sizes would carry more weight if he would join Conservative Members in condemning the irresponsible acts of trade unions in boycotting tests.
    Mr. Forth: That must be the case. We are concerned consistently with achieving and maintaining the highest possible standards in education. I sometimes wonder whether Opposition Members share that concern, given the fact that even now we believe, but we are not sure, that many Opposition Members supported the teachers' boycott. I should be glad to hear that confirmed by the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman today.
    Mr. Jamieson: Is the Minister aware that the implication of an answer that he gave recently to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) is that there are 500,000 children in state schools in this country in classes of 41 or more? Has the Minister had time to read an article by David Woodhead, who is a national director of the Independent Schools Information Service? He says—
    Madam Speaker: Order. I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to quote directly during Question Time.
    Mr. Jamieson: Has the Minister had time to read the article in this magazine—[HON. MEMBERS: "Which one?"] The magazine from the Independent Schools Information Service. Will the Minister note that the article says quite clearly that the size of classes is important for children's education? Is the Minister saying that Mr. Woodhead is wrong or right?
    Mr. Forth: The original premise of the hon. Gentleman's question was wrong; and not yet.

    Grant-maintained Schools
    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what assessment has been made of the advice given to head teachers by local education authorities in relation to ballots on grant-maintained status for schools.
    The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten): I am not aware of any general advice given to head teachers by local education authorities in relation to ballots on self-governing status.
    I am aware, however, that Merton LEA has written to heads, telling them that they owe what is referred to as "a duty of loyalty" to their employer and suggesting that to be seen actively to be in conflict with the policies of their employer would put an employee at risk of breaching that obligation. That is nonsense.
    I deplore action from any quarter that might be construed as intimidating heads, deputy heads or teachers or as muzzling their freedom of expression.
    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: Will my right hon. Friend recognise that there is all the difference in the world between impartial advice issued by local authorities to head teachers and the flagrant political pressure, to which he referred, from Labour councils such as Merton, implying that loyalty to the authority takes precedence over choice for parents and pupils?
    Mr. Patten: The decision whether to go for grant-maintained status is one for governors and parents. It is undoubtedly their choice, not one for the local education authority. I hope that the London borough of Merton will soon join London boroughs such as Wandsworth, Sutton and Hillingdon, half of whose secondary pupils are already being educated in grant-maintained schools. That is the future for Merton and boroughs like it.
    Ms Short: Will the Secretary of State also deplore the actions of teachers organising opt-out ballots who intimidate and pressurise children to get their parents to vote as those teachers require? What view does he take of schools organising opt-out ballots when they have a massive over-provision of places, as in the case of George Dixon school in my constituency which is chosen by very few parents, in order to prevent Birmingham rationalising its over-provision of places?
    Mr. Patten: The way in which Birmingham local education authority treated the head of the school during the ballot to which the hon. Lady referred was absolutely disgraceful. That is why in the Education Bill presently in another place we have moved swiftly to ensure that there is a level playing field so that both sides can put their arguments fairly about whether a school should become grant maintained. More than 900 schools have now voted yes to grant-maintained status, and about 350,000 pupils are already being educated in grant-maintained schools in England as a whole.
    Mr. Dunn: Given that local education authorities controlled by Opposition socialist parties are declaring their hostility to the concept of grant-maintained status, is not it time that we introduced legislation to require schools to opt in to local education authority control instead of opting out?
    Mr. Patten: We have done so in an amendment to the Education Bill. My hon. Friend is a stalwart supporter of grant-maintained schools and he will know that the Bill will ensure that every school in the land shall once a year consider whether to go for grant-maintained status. It is very important that every year governors give parents the opportunity to vote in favour of grant-maintained status.
    Dr. Wright: Would the Minister like to congratulate the parents at the Church of England primary school attended by my children who yesterday discovered that they had succeeded overwhelmingly in rejecting grant-maintained status? Will he further admit that the exercise of balloting in such primary schools is a monstrous waste of time for head teachers, teachers and parents and that it is causing discord and division throughout the school community? Will he now get on with the education tasks in hand?
    Mr. Patten: As I said, some 900 schools have voted yes to grant-maintained status. It is a right of parents to vote in favour. Since the process began, eight out of 10 schools in which ballots are held vote firmly in favour of grant-maintained status.

    Further and Higher Education
    Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what targets the Government have set for the number of students entering further and higher education by the end of the decade.
    Mr. Boswell: The public expenditure plans announced by my right hon. Friend last November assumed that the proportion of young people entering higher education—which is now well over one in four—would remain broadly constant over the next three years. The plans also provided for the number of students in further education to increase by 25 per cent. over the next three years.
    Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that response. Will he confirm that he intends to ensure that any reduction in tuition fees that a particular institution may suffer will be matched by an increase in the block grant and will he assure the House that he does not intend the process of consolidation in pupil numbers to put undue strain on institutions such as the university of Essex, in my constituency, which have hitherto planned for growth?
    Mr. Boswell: I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He will appreciate that we operate through the funding councils in the several countries of the United Kingdom, but I can confirm that, in making their funding dispositions, those bodies have had regard to the need for stability of the individual institutions. I also confirm that reductions in tuition fees for band 1 students have been exactly matched by an increase in the overall block grant. What is happening represents no more than a reorganisation of the system of payment to deal with the problems where students are taken on at the margin.
    Mr. Bryan Davies: But does the Secretary of State accept that unless there is a change of Government—for which the country hopes and yearns—by the end of the decade, students at that time will be able to look forward to pursuing their courses in poverty in order to train for a life of poverty and unemployment under a Tory Administration, as present students do?
    Mr. Boswell: All that I can say to the hon. Gentleman, who goes back quite a long way, is that he might examine the record of the Labour Government, which he will remember. The fact is that the real amount of money available to the individual student—the total resources —is exactly comparable with what was available when the Government came to power in 1979. Since then, student numbers have risen from one in eight of the population to between one in three and one in four. The hon. Gentleman may want to be an elitist, but I do not. We are offering higher education to a greater proportion of our young people than have ever taken part in it; that will be of great value to the nation and will stand young people in good stead in their future careers.

    Education Reforms
    Mr. Patrick Thompson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to visit schools in Norwich to discuss education reforms.
    Mr. Patten: My ministerial colleagues and I have visited more than 120 schools since taking office.
    I and other Ministers from the Department are continuing our programme of visits to schools across England to hear the views of teachers and governors at first hand and we hope that this programme may include Norwich in due course. It is an oversight that we have not been there yet.
    Mr. Thompson: When my right hon. Friend has the opportunity to visit Norwich, he will find approval for his determination to reform teacher training, a reform which has been long overdue since some of the trendy nostrums of the 1960s and beyond. His emphasis on subject knowledge, on practical skills and on discipline in the classroom must be the right way forward. Does my right hon. Friend also accept the need for particular emphasis on the training of primary school teachers, as their job is in many respects difficult, challenging and possibly undervalued?
    Mr. Patten: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I respect his views because, as I remember, he was a classroom teacher for more than 20 years. The reforms proposed for initial primary teacher training in the consultation document issued last week concentrate on a number of important things. The first is the need for less theory and more practice; the second is to ensure that student teachers spend more time concentrating on the basic core subjects; the third is to ensure that they are given much more help in maintaining discipline in the classroom.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: When the Secretary of State is discussing the so-called reforms in Norwich or elsewhere, will he apologise for his appalling proposals to dilute the professionalism of teachers in our schools by introducing a semi-trained mums' army? That proposal is again uniting parents and teachers against the Government. Does not the Secretary of State recognise the critical importance of education in the early years and the fact that if things go wrong at that stage they may never be put right? Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the highest possible level of professionalism is required for the unique responsibility of introducing our children to formal education? Is he really seeking more confrontation?
    Mr. Patten: That was a laundry list of complaints. With regard to the consultation document, the hon. Lady has overlooked entirely that we wish to bring into the profession a greater diversity of people from a wider range of backgrounds, including parents, who have experience in dealing with and educating young children. Many parents who wish to help with the teaching of five to seven-year-olds have good-quality A-levels and much experience in bringing up children. It is exactly such people that we want to bring into primary teaching.

    Staying-on Rates
    Sir Michael Neubert: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on staying-on rates at 16 years.
    Mr. Boswell: I greatly welcome the increase in the participation rate of 16-year-olds in schools and colleges —up to 80 per cent. in the current year in England, compared with 56 per cent. in 1979–80. Our expenditure plans for further education will give a further substantial boost to participation, lifting us towards the top of the international league table in staying-on rates for 16 to l9-year-olds within the next three years.
    Sir Michael Neubert: Is my hon. Friend aware that, as a result of this welcome rapid and long-overdue increase in the number of 16-year-olds in Havering staying on at school, the new sixth form college is short of full capacity? In the circumstances, would not it be good sense to allow the grant-maintained Frances Bardsley girls' school in my constituency to keep its sixth form and, at the same time, maintain diversity of parental choice, including the opportunity of single-sex education for girls up to the age of 18?
    Mr. Boswell: I can confirm that all Ministers in my Department are interested in the great themes of diversity, choice and quality in the provision of education in schools and colleges just as much after the age of 16 as before the compulsory leaving age. My hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot comment on the specific set of proposals concerning the Frances Bardsley school, but I will ensure that these are carefully considered by my right hon. Friend. Of course, any representations made by my hon. Friend, or by any other hon. Member or interested party, will be considered most closely.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: Is not the sight of the Minister preening himself while firmly burying his head in the ground intriguing? Why does he not address the facts? According to the Audit Commission, between 30 and 40 per cent. of 16-year-olds who entered further education courses this year will not succeed and fewer than two in five of our 18-year-olds are still in education. By any measure, Britain lags behind the rest of the industrialised world. What does the Minister intend to do about it?
    Mr. Boswell: I might start by giving the hon. Gentleman some basic knowledge of anatomy. It would be quite difficult for even the highly skilled team on this Bench to preen themselves while burying their heads in the sand. However, I shall leave aside that minor infelicity and deal with the substance of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
    My right hon. and hon. Friends and I have said that we are by no means happy with the level of drop-out from further education or other post-16 provision or with the

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    educational standards of those involved in that process. We are very grateful to those, including the adult literacy and basic skills unit, who have helped to expose the deficiencies. We are anxious to repair those deficiencies, just as we are tackling the staying-on rate, to which I have referred. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will support our proposals for the national curriculum and the testing regime, as the deficiencies should be tackled at source and not left to the stage of post-16 provision.
    Mr. Devlin: Is not it the case that, hand in hand with the increased staying-on rate at age 16 goes the 35 per cent. increase in the number of students attaining a first degree in the past 10 years? Is not that a truly tremendous achievement, brought about by the Government and something which deserves praise at every turn?
    Mr. Boswell: My hon. Friend is entirely right; it is a great achievement and deserves praise, although it rarely gets it from the Opposition.

    Grant-maintained Schools
    Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many staff in his Department he intends shall be mainly occupied in dealing with grant-maintained schools; and where they will be located.
    Mr. Robin Squire: There are currently 145 Department staff dealing mainly with grant-maintained schools policy, of whom around 95 are based in Darlington and the remainder in London. The total is likely to increase to some 250 to 300, with most of the increase taking place in Darlington and York, before the transfer of certain responsibilities to the Funding Agency for Schools in April 1994. Thereafter, Department for Education staffing will reduce.
    Mr. Beith: But is not what is being built up here—in the Department and then the funding agency—just another bureaucracy, which will be further away from the schools, which is not accountable to the local electorate and which schools have no opportunity to opt back out of? Does the Minister agree that it is not therefore so surprising that the large majority of schools show no sign of wanting to go for grant-maintained status and prefer to stick with the devil they know?
    Mr. Squire: As the right hon. Gentleman has already heard from the Dispatch Box this afternoon, the number of schools applying is nearing 1,000 and we expect that figure to be reached before the end of the year. Let me make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman that grant-maintained schools are self-governing and are not run from Whitehall. More important, those schools, by their very nature, are bringing decisions closer to parents, teachers and local people. I am surprised that a party that used to claim that it was in favour of developing power is now so opposed to the concept.
    Mrs. Lait: Does my hon. Friend agree that some special schools such as George Rainey school in my constituency would benefit from grant-maintained status as set out in the Education Bill that is now in the other place? Will he assure me that staff at the Department for Education and
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    the Funding Agency for Schools will do everything in their power to help those schools to opt out in the difficult circumstances in which they find themselves?
    Mr. Squire: My hon. Friend will understand if I say that all cases will be assessed on their merits. I am certain that most schools in the country would benefit from moving to grant-maintained status, as those that have already done it have found.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: How many officials in the Department will be involved in allocating budget for grant-maintained schools? Is the Minister aware that one of the consequences of schools opting into centralised control is that some grant-maintained schools still do not know their budget for the current financial year and therefore cannot plan staffing levels of curriculum development? Is not it a sign of the Government's incompetence that grant-maintained schools have to complain to the Labour party that this Government cannot set their budget properly?
    Mr. Squire: The only thing that the House is awaiting from the hon. Lady is a clear statement of her party's attitude to grant-maintained schools. We heard at the last election that she planned to abolish them. It will be interesting to discover whether we have to wait another couple of years to find out whether that will still be Labour's policy at the next election.
    Mr. Bellingham: Is the Minister aware that, in the past few weeks, I have visited a number of grant-maintained schools in my constituency and that all of them pointed out to me the fact that the service that they were receiving from the GM S unit at Darlington was absolutely first-class —that nothing was too much effort for it? Will my hon. Friend ignore the nonsense spoken by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and pass on our gratitude to his officials?
    Mr. Squire: I am delighted that my hon. Friend found that his schools have had excellent experiences. All hon. Members visiting grant-maintained schools across the country will find that they have a better atmosphere and are enthusiastic. I urge hon. Members who have not yet taken advantage of opportunities to make such visits to do so.

    National Vocational Qualifications
    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will estimate the number of students accepted for NVQ courses who have withdrawn for financial reasons; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Boswell: This information is not collected centrally. However, we have no evidence to suggest that withdrawals are a major problem. NVQs are normally taken by people already in employment and tax relief is available to help meet the cost of course fees.
    Mr. Kirkwood: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. I am also grateful for the announcement, made yesterday in a written reply, that increased money had been put into access funds for the current financial year. But that answer made it clear that only £4·6 million was being made available for further education access funds. Does the Minister believe, having regard to the downward pressure that central Government are exerting on local

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    authority discretionary education budgets, that that fund of money will be enough to give national vocational qualifications to those qualified enough to have access to courses?
    Mr. Boswell: First, may I make two brief points of qualification relating to the hon. Gentlemans' remarks. The first is that the announcement related to England. The second is that his assertion that the Government are putting downward pressure on the level of money available for discretionary awards is not the case. We continue to fund them. The incidents, effects and current practice of discretionary awards are now being considered by two independent foundations which will report shortly.
    Sir Giles Shaw: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the NVQ award system is of great importance to employers and local industry and forms a clear relationship between the education system and the craft system of old? Will he ensure that every encouragement is given to NVQ awards in the development of his education policy?
    Mr. Boswell: Yes and yes.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Ql. Mr. Chisholm: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Chisholm: What progress did the Prime Minister make at his meeting this morning in rewriting his election manifesto and rewriting the rules on invalidity benefit? In particular, will he say who else he intends to exclude from invalidity benefit, apart from the retired builder with heart disease mentioned in the leaked document? Will he also say why on earth those still receiving it should have to pay, through benefit cuts, for the Government's unsurpassed economic incompetence?
    The Prime Minister: We were not rewriting our manifesto this morning. We were reviewing invalidity benefit and it would be irresponsible of us not to do so.
    Mr. Viggers: I am grateful for the chance of hearing my right hon. Friend's comments. Does he agree that our troops in the former Yugoslavia have done an exceptionally difficult job with great skill and courage and that they have consistently carried out the policy of distributing humanitarian aid for as long as it has been possible for them to do so? Does he further agree that the person to emerge from the recent crisis with the least credibility is the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), who demanded further troop deployments and then immediately demanded that they be pulled out—[Interruption.]
    The Prime Minister: I must first congratulate my hon. Friend on his narrow escape and his capacity to swim. We are delighted to see him here today. He is right to say that British forces are doing an outstanding job in a dangerous situation. They are inevitably running risks as the
    730
    difficulties on the ground become more serious. I wish to ensure that those risks are kept to a minimum and I assure the House that the necessary contingency plans exist should there be a further deterioration in the situation. As my hon. Friend intimated, I believe that the policy that we have followed in Bosnia has been right and any other policy would have been reckless of the lives of British soldiers.
    Mr. John Smith: What changes in the law is the Prime Minister considering with regard to the disclosure of secret donations to political parties, given the continuing scandal over the £1·5 million donated to the Conservative party by Mr. Asil Nadir?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. and learned Gentleman may occasionally care to comment on some of the people who may in the past have donated money to his party—[interruption.] I have no present proposals for changes in the law.
    Mr. John Smith: Why does the Prime Minister refuse to introduce legislation requiring the public disclosure of all substantial donations made to all political parties, so that the political parties that receive them have to declare them? In addition to putting political contributions on an open and honest basis, would not that also prevent the breaches of company law which occurred in the case of Mr. Nadir, whose companies apparently made seven illegal donations amounting to £440,000 to the Conservative party?
    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, the requirement to declare company donations to political parties under the Companies Act falls on the directors of the donor company, not on the recipient. He is wrong in his later comments—the payment itself would not be unlawful. Only the failure to declare it in the company accounts would be unlawful and that is a matter for the company, not the recipient.
    Mr. John Smith: Does not the Prime Minister understand that, if the Conservative party had had to disclose the payment, the breach would have been revealed when the company acted illegally? Does he not realise that he cannot sweep the matter under the carpet and that there are people in the United Kingdom who believe that it is wrong that political parties should be financed in a furtive way or by excessively large donations from those who are not prepared to be publicly identified? Those are the words of concerned members of the Conservative party. Why cannot he act in this matter to get a level playing field that will encourage honesty and equality?
    The Prime Minister: Donations to the Conservative party are freely offered and they are accepted on that basis, unlike the way in which so much is donated to the Labour party.
    Mr. Garnier: Will my right hon. Friend welcome the visit of the President of Azerbaijan later this month and confirm that it underlines the strong diplomatic links between our two countries and confirms the existence of strong commercial links to the mutual benefit of our two countries?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I certainly share the view expressed by my hon. Friend. There is no doubt that there are huge markets opening up in that part of the world which I believe will be satisfactory for the United

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    Kingdom, provided that we are prepared to take an interest in them at an early stage. Undoubtedly, we are prepared to take that interest and I very much welcome the vist here.
    Mr. Canavan: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Canavan: What exactly is the Prime Minister going to do now that Lady Thatcher has effectively given him the kiss of death, Asil Nadir is overtaking him in the opinion polls and Sir Bernard Ingham tells us that the Tory party is behaving like a headless chicken? If the party is too chicken to take the necessary steps—[Interruption..]— would not it be more honourable for heads to roll voluntarily and let the people decide on a fresh menu?
    The Prime Minister: More rehearsal needed, I think.
    Mr. Dover: Has the Prime Minister noticed that, during the recession, the private sector has frozen wages and earnings, reduced earnings on many occasions and had massive job reductions? Are not there lessons to be learnt by the public sector, especially if the burden on the private sector is not to continue increasing?
    The Prime Minister: I believe that the private sector has taken dramatic action in order to keep its costs down. The implications of that are now being seen in the extent to which many companies are now recovering. As far as the public sector is concerned, as my hon. Friend knows, we have held strict control over public sector wages over the past year.
    Mr. Hoon: Last week, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) suggested that the Prime Minister ordered interest rate cuts for purely political reasons against the advice and better judgment of his then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is that true?
    The Prime Minister: It is not what my right hon. Friend said and it is not so.
    Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Jenkin: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a further 1·8 million people so far have registered an interest in applying for the third British Telecom share flotation? Is not that the clearest evidence possible that, far from running out of steam, the British people cannot get enough popular capitalism?
    The Prime Minister: I believe that my hon. Friend is right about that. Today, almost one in four adults owns shares compared with about one in 20 a decade or so ago. People want to build up a stake in Britain. They want to own a part of it. That is very much part of our philosophy and we will continue to encourage it.
    Mr. Davidson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Davidson: Will the Prime Minister accept my delayed but sincere congratulations on his decision to sack his Chancellor of the Exchequer? Will he come to Govan soon, while he is still Prime Minister, and tell the people there that he will sack any Minister who proposes a drastic reduction in the already inadequate level of invalidity benefit?
    The Prime Minister: As I indicated earlier to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm), we are considering invalidity benefit and I believe that it is entirely right that we should do so. Expenditure on invalidity benefit has risen from about £1·5 billion 10 years ago to more than £6 billion this year. No responsible Government could ignore an increase of that order. We have a duty to consider whether all that taxpayers' money is being wisely spent. The number of people receiving invalidity benefit has more than doubled during the past 10 years from 700,000 to more than 1·5 million. Frankly, it beggars belief that so many more people have suddenly become invalids, especially at a time when the health of the population has improved. I make no apologies for looking at this area of expenditure.
    Mr. Peter Ainsworth: When my right hon. Friend goes to the European Council meeting in Copenhagen, will he take the opportunity to impress on our partners that all of us in Europe operate in an intensely competitive international market and that the costs of bureaucratic regulation, particularly the social chapter, represent a severe disadvantage to Europe's competitiveness in world markets?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I undertake to raise that matter at the European Council at the weekend. The president of the European Employers Federation recently appealed to Community employment and social affairs Ministers to
    "stop taking measures which unnecessarily destroy jobs".
    I agree with that. I have made it clear in the past. I believe that the social chapter falls into that category and I shall reiterate that view at the European Council meeting this weekend. It is not just a problem for the United Kingdom. All of Europe is facing increasing competition from Japan, the Pacific basin and the United States. Unless all Europe keeps its costs down, we shall not create jobs, but export them.
    Mr. Hanson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hanson: When the Prime Minister visited Wales last week did he have a chance to see the report showing that in the last year of the Labour Government family incomes in Wales were 87 per cent. of those in southern England, whereas in the first year of his premiership those incomes fell to 64 per cent. of those in southern England? Is that a record to be proud of? How, tell me, will the abolition of the wages councils help to improve that situation?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman in his litany unexpectedly neglected to mention that in recent years unemployment in his constituency has fallen by 49 per

    733
    cent. That is because of this Government's policies. It will probably fall even further as a result of the abolition of wages councils, which themselves cost jobs.
    Mr. Heald: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the proposed European Community ban on large engined motor cycles, which would have damaged the British Triumph, has been successfully resisted by the Government? Will he accept the congratulations of motor cyclists throughout the country, including the North Herts Motor Cycle Action Group, on that achievement? Does he agree that that achievement will enable the British Triumph motor cycle to be successful throughout the world, knocking spots off the opposition, something, which my right hon. Friend has done since he became Prime Minister?
    The Prime Minister: I can confirm to my hon. Friend that the Government received a derogation from a Community directive relating to motor cycle engine size. That has had some beneficial effects for the United Kingdom and it means that our industry can continue to sell motor cycles with a large engine in the United
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    Kingdom until at least the start of the next century. That is excellent news for Triumph and British motor cyclists. I am delighted at that outcome.
    Mr. Pope: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Pope: Does the Prime Minister recall the recommendation last year from the Select Committee on Health that maternity services should be community based and close to a woman's home? How does the Prime Minister square that with the decision to close the maternity unit at the Accrington Victoria hospital in my constituency? He claims to be a listening Prime Minister; when will he listen to the women in my constituency who want their maternity unit kept open?
    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to take up his particular constituency point with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, I am sure that she would be prepared to listen to him.

Points of Order
3.30 pm
Mr. Peter Hain: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Do you have any information about an impending statement from the Prime Minister about his answer to me contained in Monday's edition of the Official Report, at column 433, that Downing street office costs have trebled since 1981? What sort of example is that to the old and those on invalidity—
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not raise arguments with me. The answer is no, I have not received any such information. That was a most bogus point of order, and I hope that other hon. Members will not follow that example, because the House is getting very weary of such points of order.
Ms Joan Walley: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Given that the Department of Transport has today published its plan for the first private toll road, the northern Birmingham relief road, will you make inquiries about the circumstances under which the environmental assessment, which goes with the statement of plans, could be placed in the Library of the House so that hon. Members could have an opportunity to take on board the environmental considerations, which are most important?
Madam Speaker: I think that the hon. Lady might take that up with the Department herself.
Mr. Tony Banks: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I suspect that this is a genuine point of order. Will you please rule that, when the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) is standing to your right, with his back up against the Box where the civil servants sit, he should not participate in the debate by
736
haranguing and shouting at Members on the Front Bench or anyone else in the House, since he is outside the confines of the House and, as a Government Whip, he should, of course, not say anything?
Madam Speaker: That is almost a genuine point of order, because I find that many hon. Members, who are outside the confines of the Chamber, are also doing a lot of shouting when Front Bench spokesmen are at the Dispatch Box. I hope that that will cease from now.

Statutory Instruments, &c.
Madam Speaker: With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to statutory instruments.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(3) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).

PARALYTIC SHELLFISH POISONING
That the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) (No. 3) Order 1993 (S.I., 1993, No. 1476) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) (No. 4) Order 1993 (S.I., 1993, No. 1483) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DRUG TRAFFICKING (PROCEEDS)
That the draft Confiscation of the Proceeds of Drug Trafficking (Designated Countries and Territories) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1993 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

OVERSEAS FORFEITURE ORDERS
That the draft Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990 (Enforcement of Overseas Forfeiture Orders) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1993 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Wood.]
Question agreed to.

National Health Services (Amendment)
3.33 pm
Mr. Mike Hall: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision as to the functions of Family Health Services Authorities in relation to the rights of general practitioners' patients; and to amend section 20 of and Schedule 7 to the National Health Service Act 1977 to ensure that such patients are consulted by Family Health Services Authorities when substantial variations are proposed to their medical services.
The need for the Bill arose because of recent events that took place on the Windmill Hill estate in the Runcorn part of my constituency. Those events demonstrate the ineffectiveness of both the Department of Health and the patients charter to protect the interests of the general public.
On 29 April 1993, the doctor's surgery that serves the Windmill Hill estate district of my constituency was closed, and 703 patients of Dr. O'Connor were given only five days' notice of the decision. They were confronted by the news that they had only five days to find another general practitioner.
A number of my constituents in that district are elderly, a number of them are disabled and some of them are both. The district contains many families with young children who live on the estate. The decision to close the local doctor's surgery meant that they would now have to travel even further to the nearest general practitioner.
It will be a difficult journey for a number of my constituents, for a number of reasons. First, there is an inadequate bus service to the next doctor's surgery, and many of my constituents are not car owners, which means that they will have to walk the two miles to the doctor's surgery through open park land, which, when the climate is bad, will mean a difficult journey. It will mean that, every time that those constituents need to see a general practitioner, they will have to make the journey on foot to and from their doctor's surgery.
The provision of locally based general practitioners and their surgeries is a fundamental and essential part of proper care in the community. Indeed, it is probably the starting point of care in the community, but my constituents have had the facilities at that starting point removed. My constituents' reaction to the decision was one of anger that they had not even been consulted by the family health services authority. They were anxious that the provision of services to them was to be removed, and they were concerned that the level of health service provision in that part of Runcorn would be diminished.
It is the role of the family health services authority to consult on such issues, but it did not consult my constituents. It did not even give them warning that the decision was on the way. It simply sent them a curt circular letter telling them to find themselves another general practitioner within five days. It gave a list of the surgeries which my constituents could use. My constituents were not asked whether or why—they were not consulted, but were told what they would have to do. The decision had an immediate impact on the services of the local hospital.
A number of my constituents said that they were unable to find a doctor's surgery within five days and that if something was wrong with them they would go to Halton general hospital for their medical needs. I was confronted
738
by my constituents on the day that the decision was taken and I promised them that I would raise the matter in the House of Commons in any way I could.
I raised the issue during business questions, and asked for a statement, but was told that, as I had informed the Department of Health that day, I would be receiving a letter. I tried unsuccessfully to catch your eye, Madam Speaker, at Health questions, but was unable to do so. I now have the opportunity of the ten-minute Bill procedure to raise the issue on the Floor of the House.
When I realised that my constituents had been presented with a fait accompli, I was not sure what to do, as I had already raised the issue with the Department of Health. I turned to that champion of citizens' rights, the citizens charter, published in July 1991. Page 5 states:
"The public sector should provide choice wherever practicable. The people affected by services should be consulted. Their views about the services they use should be sought regularly and systematically to inform decisions about what services should be provided".
Page 10 of the document states:
"Health Authorities must seek local citizens' views on their services."
I also looked at the patients charter, as I thought that it might provide back-up and further instructions from the Government. In the foreword to the patients charter, the then Secretary of State for Health wrote:
"The Government is also firmly committed to improving the Service—to creating a better National Health Service. This means a Service that:
—always puts the patient first, providing services that meet clearly defined national and local standards, in ways that are responsive to people's views and needs."
I was encouraged by those words, which seemed to give me hope that the views of my constituents on the Windmill Hill estate, who had not then been consulted about the removal of their medical services, would be entitled to have their voices heard.
The Government's commitment in the citizens charter and the patients charter led me to contact the Department of Health to seek its intervention, even at such a late stage, to ensure that my constituents were provided with the adequate medical facilities that they wanted in their locality. It was their view that the surgery should stay open, and that view was in line with the views expressed in the citizens charter and with the supposed rights contained therein.
Unfortunately, I need to present the Bill because the response by the Department of Health was less than adequate. I was advised in writing by the Secretary of State
for Health that the legal position on matters of this kind is that the Cheshire family health services authority should consult the Halton community health council about the proposed closure of the doctor's surgery on Windmill hill.
The Minister further advised me that the decision about whether to replace the outgoing doctor rested with the medical practices committee, which is an independent public body. The Minister stated that that committee bases its decisions on reports from the family health services authority, following its consultation with the community health council. The letter stated:
"The decision of whether to dispense or advertise a vacancy is a matter entirely for the Medical Practices Committee and is not subject to Ministerial intervention."
The Minister said that the Cheshire family health services authority had been consulted about the closure of the doctor's surgery on Windmill hill, and that the legal procedures had been followed. That means that the hopes

739
and aspirations contained in the citizens charter, which were said to be at the heart of Government policy in the 1990s, have not materialised, and that the views of my constituents have been totally ignored.
In terms of the National Health Service Act 1977, the promises in the citizens charter and the patients charter to consult people affected by services counts for nothing. Even if the Government wanted to act in this case, they would be prevented from doing so by current legislation. If that legislation remains unamended, the citizens charter and the patients charter are merely expensive paper tigers. They will remain a political gesture which, when put to the test, will be shown to have no teeth and no means of effecting the change that they desire.
That is another example of the Government failing to deliver their promises to the people and of people being misled into believing that the citizens charter is something that it is not.
The matter that I raise is not an isolated incident, because doctors' surgeries are being closed throughout constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) raised the problem 12 months ago in the House. He was told the legal position, which means that the citizens charter counts for nothing in such cases.
In the light of such events, the 1977 Act needs to be changed. My constituents in Windmill hill deserve to have their views heard, and they are entitled to the minimum consultation about their family needs for health service provision in Runcorn.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mike Hall, Mr. Neil Gerrard, Ms Ann Coffey, Mr. Colin Pickthall, Ms Estelle Morris, Mr. Jim Dowd, Mrs. Bridget Prentice, Mr. David Hanson, Mr. John Heppell, Mr. Greg Pope, Mr. Doug Hoyle and Ms Janet Anderson.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICES (AMENDMENT)
Mr. Mike Hall accordingly presented a Bill to make further provision as to the functions of Family Health Services Authorities in relation to the rights of general practitioners' patients; and to amend section 20 of and Schedule 7 to the National Health Service Act 1977 to ensure that such patients are consulted by Family Health Services Authorities when substantial variations are proposed to their medical services; And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a second time upon Friday 2 July, and to be printed. [Bill 203.]
Orders of the Day

  Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill
  Lords amendments considered.
  Lords amendments Nos. 1 to 7 agreed to.

  Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill

    New Clause
    ACTION SHORT OF DISMISSAL: NON-INFRINGING ACTIONS
    Lords amendment: No. 8, before clause 13, to insert the following new Clause—
    (". In section 148 of the 1992 Act (consideration of complaint of action short of dismissal), after subsection (2) there shall be inserted—
    "(3) In determining what was the purpose for which action was taken by the employer against the complainant in a case where—

    (a) there is evidence that the employer's purpose was to further a change in his relationship with all or any class of his employees, and

    (b) there is also evidence that his purpose was one falling within section 146,

    the tribunal shall regard the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a) (and not the purpose mentioned in paragraph (b) as the purpose for which the employer took the action, unless it considers that the action was such as no reasonable employer would take having regard to the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a).
    (4) Where the action which the tribunal determines to have been the action taken against the complainant was action taken in consequence of previous action by the employer paragraph (a) of subsection (3) is satisfied if the purpose mentioned in that paragraph was the purpose of the previous action.
    (5) In subsection (3) "class", in relation to an employer and his employees, means those employed at a particular place of work, those employees of a particular grade, category or description or those of a particular grade, category or description employed at a particular place of work.".")
    3.45 pm
    The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. David Hunt): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    I shall commence by making two important points. First, I shall explain how the amendment will restore to the law the meaning that it was intended to have before two recent Court of Appeal cases. Secondly, I strongly reaffirm that the law must protect all employees from any action by their employer that is designed to force them to give up membership of, or to join, a trade union. Against the background of those two important points I shall seek to put the record straight, in the light of some recent comments, which were based on a number of misconceptions.
    During the debate, it is important for all hon. Members to differentiate between the right to belong to a trade union and that of collective bargaining. Trade union membership must not be confused with the law and practice relating to collective bargaining, and I hope to explain why.
    Amendment No. 8 concerns the law on action short of dismissal, which is contained in section 146 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, but dates back to the legislation of a previous Labour Government, and that aspect of the law has not been changed since 1975.

    741
    Section 146 protects employees against action by their employer that is intended to deter or compel the employee either to become or to cease to be a trade union member. That is why I stressed at the outset that the Government believe that the decision whether to be a member of a trade union must be a matter of free choice for the employee. Once again, I reiterate that employees ought to be protected against any action by their employer that is designed to force them either to be, or not to be, union members.
    Mr. Richard Burden: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, and wonder how he feels about having this as his first job. Does his logic apply to Government Communications Headquarters, Cheltenham and if not, why not?
    Mr. Hunt: I am delighted to have this as my first job, because I am explaining why that principle lies at the heart of the Government's stance on trade union legislation. Indeed, an examination of the Government's step-by-step approach, which has been so successful in transforming industrial relations, reveals that that principle has consistently lain at the heart of the Government's legislation, and I am happy to reaffirm it. Government Communications Headquarters, Cheltenham is a very different set of circumstances. The greatest challenge is for the Labour party to give that principle the same unequivocal support.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Why does the Minister, who claims to be a Tory wet, not have the guts to admit that the Government are all about allowing people to be members of a trade union but not to be effective members, so that they are unable to join with others to negotiate with employers? The truth is that the Government rattle on about a classless society, but they are going to give the bosses a chance to deduct wages from people who are members of a trade union, while the blue-eyed boys and girls will get more money. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
    Mr. Hunt: I am not prepared to join the hon. Gentleman in his own individual class war. Those days are fast and far behind us. What he looks back to are, in his words, the good old days; in my words, they are the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s, when a few trade union leaders could dictate to the Government and we had the worst industrial relations record of any country in the world. The Government have transformed that bad industrial relations record into one in which everyone in the country can take pride. I am determined to stay wedded to the principles which brought that about.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the underlying point that has just been raised by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)? Is he not proposing a restriction of the exercise of the right of which he has just spoken—the right to be a member of a trade union? Will he explain to the House how it is not a breach of article 11 of the European convention on human rights to introduce that proposal?
    Mr. Hunt: It is an interesting dimension to have Bolsover interpreted by Montgomeryshire. I do not think that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) needs any lessons from the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) on how to put his points.
    Mr. Carlile: Answer the question.
    Mr. Hunt: I shall come to his question, but I do not think that the hon. Member for Bolsover needs any lessons from those on the Bench behind him. In my experience in the House, the hon. Member for Bolsover has given many lessons back the other way to those on that Bench.
    The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery has once again confused the two issues that I tried to caution the House not to confuse right at the outset—the principle of collective bargaining and the issue whether an individual has the right to belong to a trade union. If one can separate those two issues—[Interruption.] Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to respond to his point, instead of trying to be a barrack-room Commons lawyer, which he does not do very well?
    It is very important not to confuse the issue of collective bargaining with that of trade union membership. That is why I can answer so vehemently the hon. and learned Gentleman's latter point. We are respecting the right of an individual to belong to a trade union of his or her choice and the right not to belong to a trade union.
    Ms Dawn Primarolo: The Secretary of State may be aware that, in my constituency, an employer called Arrowsmith issued new contracts to its work force, all of whom were members of a trade union. The contract specifically required that they were not to be members of a trade union. When they refused to give up their trade union membership, the employer sacked all 120 of them. Will the Secretary of State suggest what action they should take against an employer who is breaching the principle that he said he adheres to—the right to choose to be a member of a trade union?
    Mr. Hunt: Any action taken by an employer which is designed to force an individual employee not to join a trade union or to give up trade union membership is contrary to section 146. I am happy to look at all the details of the contracts, but I think that the hon. Lady must be mistaken in two important respects. She must not confuse the question of collective bargaining, but it has always been possible for employers, under the law as it stood—
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Sir Michael Neubert: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the problem is that those self-same unions that he mentioned in reply to the hon. Member for Bolsover, which disrupted and undermined good industrial relations back in the 1960s and 1970s, are still the essential support and financial prop of the Labour party today, which may account for them wanting to take all the day on this one issue?
    Mr. Hunt: I gave way to my hon. Friend because I knew that he would make a good point, and he did not neglect to do so.
    As I have explained on many occasions to many trade union colleagues of mine both now and in the past, it is important that the British trade union movement should give up its stranglehold on the Labour party. It undermines its case in industrial logic for seeking to cling on to its power over the Labour party.
    It is important to recall that, as my hon. Friend's point bears out, it was not that long ago that Mr. John Edmonds, the leader of the GM B—Opposition Members

    743
    may well shift uneasily in their seats when I remind them of this—said, "We pay for the Labour party, so we have a right to democracy in the Labour party." That point made by my hon. Friend is important. If the Labour party wishes to escape from the accusation—
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Hunt: I am answering the point. It may be embarrassing to hon. Members, but I am answering the point made by my hon. Friend.
    If the Labour party wishes to escape from the accusation that it is a fully paid-up subsidiary of the trade union movement, it must take steps on this point.
    Mr. George Howarth: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you rule whether a discussion on links between the Labour party and the trade union movement has anything to do with the amendment?
    Madam Speaker: A number of hon. Members who are questioning the Secretary of State are leading him down that road. If that is the case, he must reply. I am sure that we shall soon return to the amendment, so that other hon. Members who wish to speak will be able to do so.
    Mr. Hunt: I feel strongly that it is time that the trade union movement gave up shouting that he who pays the piper calls the tune. [Interruption.] I know that it is uncomfortable, but I make this point. Mr. John Edmonds let the rat out of the bag. What he said is the true state of affairs in the nation today. Opposition Members are indeed spokesmen, spokespeople, spokespersons and spokes for the trade union movement. It is about time that they started to represent the real interests of union members rather than some trade union leaders.
    Mr. Ron Leighton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Hunt: Of course I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, then I shall return to the point made by the hon. Member for Bolsover.
    Mr. Leighton: I know that this must be embarrassing for the Secretary of State, but will he please return to the point under discussion and not waffle round all these other matters? Let me try to clarify what he has said. Has he not said that he does not mind a worker holding a trade union card privately, but if that worker wants to use the facilities or good offices of the union—for example, by getting the branch secretary to write to his employer about wages or conditions—that worker can be penalised? Is that not the essence of the matter?
    Mr. Hunt: I was trying to explain that that is not the case. For many years, I was a solicitor acting for a number of trade unions and for one in particular. I became aware of the importance of the trade union movement in areas other than collective bargaining. It has never been part of the trade union case that, without collective bargaining, there is no such thing as a trade union movment. The hon. Gentleman is confusing those two issues, which I pleaded with the House not to confuse in order to avoid a disjointed debate.
    Mr. Ronnie Campbell: What is the difference between Lords amendment No. 8 and the Union
    744
    of Democratic Mineworkers receiving a bigger wage increase than the National Union of Mineworkers a few years ago, which we had to go to court to stop?
    Mr. Hunt: I am making a point relating to union membership. It has always been possible for an employer to give an employee an incentive to engage in individual contracts rather than to negotiate through collective bargaining. The amendment seeks to take the law back to where people believed it was before the Court of Appeal cases. It is perfectly in order for an employer to negotiate directly with individual employees and to offer them an additional pay increase if they will negotiate on an individual basis. I can produce a number of comments made by Labour Ministers which clearly show that this provision was never intended to affect collective bargaining, which is the issue before us today.
    I emphasise that the cases that have made the amendment necessary do not concern union membership: they arise as a result of employers wanting to change the methods by which they negotiate their employees' pay. It has always been generally understood and accepted that the statutory provisions with which we are concerned do not extend beyond issues of union membership, and certainly were not intended to cover collective bargaining.
    4 pm
    Ms Angela Eagle: I welcome the Secretary of State to the Dispatch Box and congratulate him on his appointment. As to the distinction that he appears to be drawing between membership of a trade union and actually using the good offices of that trade union, the employment appeal tribunal, under Mr. Justice Knox, considered this question and rejected it with the following words:
    "We find ourselves unconvinced of that distinction. In our judgement, the activities of a Trade Union officer in negotiating and elucidating terms of employment is, to use a prayer book expression, the outward and visible manifestation of Trade Union membership … and we see no genuine distinction between membership of a Union on the one hand and making use of essential services of a Union on the other." Would the Secretary of State care to comment on that?
    Mr. Hunt: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her kind words in welcoming me to the Dispatch Box.
    The words that I would add are "not collective bargaining issues". I have already referred to this. In a debate in the other place on 23 September 1975, Lord Jacques, who was then a member of the Labour Government, when dealing with clause 45—which is now essentially clause 146—said:
    "Clause 45 deals with individual rights of employees, not collective bargaining issues."
    It is important that we should bear that difference in mind. It is clear that it was the intention of the Labour Government in 1975, in introducing the provision, that the clause should deal with individual rights of employees and in circumstances with collective bargaining issues.
    Lord Jacques went on to explain:
    "A prohibited action must be for the purpose of prevention, deterrence or penalisation. Actions aimed at other purposes, such as helping recognised unions, which have the incidental effect of restricting some employees' rights comparatively, do not infringe these rights."
    Nothing could be clearer. It was on the basis of that understanding of the law that two separate companies,

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    Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports, acted when they decided to change their negotiating arrangements.
    Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, when it came to the meat of the matter, Lord Jacques, for the Labour party, in the same debate said:
    "The clause provides, negatively, that the employer must show tolerance and not prevent participation in union activities"?
    On behalf of the right hon. Gentleman's party. Lord Gowrie—who some time later gave up being a Minister in the House of Lords because he could not get by on £33,000 a year—said:
    "In dealing with individual rights, we were anxious that negative rights—the right not to be forced into doing things —should be part of such laws."
    Lord Jacques said the alternative to passing the measure would mean that
    "The individual employee has no rights to take part in any of his union's activities at work".—[Official Report, House of Lords. 23 September 1975; Vol. 364, c. 189–92.]
    But this clause was passed, and they are so entitled.
    Mr. Hunt: I shall savour this, as it may be the only occasion on which I agree with every word that the hon. Gentleman has said. I have those quotations at my disposal as well, because they prove my point, which is that this clause does not concern collective bargaining issues. Anybody who knows anything about trade union membership will know that many other benefits of such membership exist side by side with, but separate from, collective bargaining issues. That is an important point to make.
    Another debate in the other place on 28 July 1982 again expresses the point that I am seeking to make. Earl Ferrers said:
    "it would not be unfair to have a differentiation between rates of pay".
    If one looks at the context in which he said that, one will see that the situation about which we are now talking has been thrown into considerable doubt by the two Court of Appeal cases.
    When the companies that I have mentioned decided to change from collective bargaining to personal contracts and to reward those employees who agreed to accept personal contracts, they had every reason to believe that they were acting lawfully. They have made it clear throughout that they were in no way seeking to prevent their employees from remaining union members. Had they done so, they would have been acting unlawfully. That was never the purpose or the effect of the action that they took.
    Mr. Dobson: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the 1982 debate involving Earl Ferrers. Will he confirm that, at the end of the paragraph from which he quoted, Earl Ferrers went on to say—it is the reverse of this situation, but we can assume that it applies both ways—
    "What would be unfair would be to say, 'We shall negotiate a wage increase for union members and union members will have a wage increase, but meanwhile non-union employees will have no increase.'"
    It appears from that debate that Earl Ferrers did not know whether he was talking out of his hat or his elbow.
    Mr. Hunt: I was quoting from the end of the paragraph. The hon. Gentleman said that he was quoting from the end of the paragraph, but he did not. That is a matter of detail. The quotation used by the hon. Gentleman continues:
    746
    "However, it would not be unfair to have differentiation between the two."
    The end of the next paragraph says:
    "That would be unfair, but it would not be unfair to have a differentiation between rates of pay, provided that they are consistent."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 July 1982; Vol. 434, c. 331.]
    It is simple to understand, but the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) obviously has some difficulty with it.
    I shall explain in another way. Cases were brought against the two companies in question under what is now section 146 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. In each case, the industrial tribunal found that the employer had contravened section 146, but in each case that finding was reversed by the employment appeal tribunal. The latter's rulings were fully in line with what had been generally accepted as the intention of the section and were in line with the words of the Labour spokesman—which I have already quoted—in 1975.
    Mr. Eric Martlew: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
    Mr. Hunt: I am still dealing with the point raised by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras.
    On 30 April, the Court of Appeal reversed the decision of' the employment appeal tribunal and ruled that the employers had acted unlawfully in both cases. As a result, it is clear that section 146 can be interpreted in ways that go far wider than was ever intended when Parliament originally adopted this provision in 1975. When the law has become so confused on such a fundamental matter, the case for amending the statute is overwhelmingly persuasive.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: I join other hon. Members in welcoming my right hon. Friend to his new position, but I wish that his first debate was not on such a subject.
    The Court of Appeal said that the employment appeal tribunal was wrong to find any complication in the law. The Court of Appeal made it very plain that the industrial tribunal had been right to rule that the employers had acted unlawfully. There was nothing in the Court of Appeal judgement to suggest that there is any need for clarification or that the industrial tribunal ruling had changed the law. Having heard my right hon. Friend's speech, and bearing in mind what I call section 23(1)(a) of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 but which my right hon. Friend will call by its updated consolidation number, the House will want to consider whether the industrial tribunal ruling did in fact change the law from what it was held to be by most employers, all trade unions and people who have been industrial relations and personnel specialists for decades.
    Mr. Hunt: I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming me to the Dispatch Box in my new position.
    I have thought very long and hard about this aspect of the law. I am convinced that the Government's proposal and the Ullswater amendment in another place are absolutely right, and will do much to make the position as clear as it was before the Court of Appeal judgment. I ask my hon. Friend to reflect for a moment, because I believe that he is referring mainly to what are findings of fact by the tribunal.

    747
    I in no way seek to diminish the tribunal's ability to reach findings of fact and to do so robustly, but I am seeking to return the law to where I believe it was generally believed to be before the Court of Appeal interpreted the law in a way in which I, those in another place, and I hope this House believe brought confusion to a matter which had previously been very clear indeed.
    Mr. Derek Enright: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recall that the judgment was announced on 30 April but that the Government announced that they were going to introduce amendments before the full transcript was available? In panic, at a very late stage, they subsequently included the amendment, which I do not believe will stand up in court because it is so incoherent. Is it not a fact that the Government's friends were found guilty, and that the price of support for the Prime Minister was to table the amendment?
    Mr. Hunt: The hon. Gentleman does nothing to assist his case by fogging the issue with such emotive phraseology. I strongly believe that, if one dispassionately considers the law as it is after the Court of Appeal judgment—it was, of course, necessary for the Government to move swiftly, because the Bill was in another place, and it was the final opportunity to make—
    Mr. Martlew rose—
    Mr. Hunt: May I finish my response?
    As it was the final opportunity to make changes, one will see that the law needed clarification. That is what we are putting to the House this afternoon, and what my noble Friend Viscount Ullswater proposed in another place.
    Mr. Martlew: Does the Secretary of State think it right that an employer should pay an employee more because the employee decides to give up his trade union rights?
    Mr. Hunt: That, as I have explained, is contrary to the law.
    Mr. Tim Devlin: I am very interested in what my right hon. Friend is saying, but will he clarify one point? Is it his contention that, prior to the three cases being brought, it was legal to discriminate between employees who were in a union and those who were not? What was his understanding of the law before those cases were brought?
    Mr. Hunt: As I have already said, it is contrary to section 146 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 for an employer to make it conditional on membership or non-membership of a trade union—trade union membership is the important point, and I am not talking about collective bargaining—[Interruption.] I understand that the hon. Member for Bolsover believes strongly that, without collective bargaining, it is impossible to have properly effective trade union rights, but that is an individual rule—
    Mr. Skinner: Then membership means nothing.
    Mr. Hunt: And membership means nothing. However, that is his individual view but, as I shall now explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr.
    748
    Devlin), not the law prior to the two Court of Appeal decisions. The hon. Gentleman knows that, because he has argued against Government proposals many times, saying that they drew the teeth of the trade union movement. It is possible for an employer to derecognise a trade union.
    In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South. I must say that it is perfectly possible for an employer to offer a pay inducement or an additional pay rise to an employee who chooses to make an individual contract with the employer rather than through the collective bargaining processes. To return to the direct point that my hon. Friend made, it is still perfectly possible for that individual member to remain a trade union member and still benefit from that pay rise. The pay rise and the inducement must not be conditional upon membership or non-membership of a trade union.
    That will do a great deal to reassure my hon. Friend because there has been an enormous amount of distortion outside the House. I hope that we can now return to the debate, which is about trade union membership—that is the subject of the amendment—and collective bargaining, which must be viewed separately.
    Mr. Harry Barnes rose—
    Mr. Alex Carlile rose—
    4.15 pm
    Mr. Hunt: May I continue with what I was saying about the two cases? Then I shall, of course, give way again.
    On 30 April, the Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the employment appeal tribunal and ruled that the employers had acted unlawfully in both cases. I have explained that, when the law has become so confused on so fundamental a matter, the case for amending the statute is overwhelmingly persuasive.
    The section was intended to prevent employers from victimising individual employees on the ground that they were or were not trade union members. It was not intended to apply where an employer changes arrangements, such as pay negotiating arrangements, for organisational or business purposes. The fact that section 146 has now been interpreted as having a wider meaning shows that the law is unclear, and is no longer achieving the purpose for which it was intended. I have read out in the Chamber the words of Lord Jacques—
    Mr. Alex Carlile rose—
    Mr. Hunt: Let me finish my point.
    If the section is no longer achieving the purpose for which it was intended, it is necessary—indeed, I contend that it is imperative—that the amendment be made.
    The amendment clarifies for the benefit of tribunals and courts the way in which an employer's purpose should be determined in cases such as those that have occurred recently. It provides for the situation in which a case comes to a tribunal and, as happened in the cases in question, the employer and the individual put different arguments about the employer's purpose in taking a particular action.
    Let me explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) what will happen before the tribunal. The tribunal will consider the evidence that both parties bring before it, and will determine whether that evidence is credible. Then it will decide the case on the basis of that evidence. When credible evidence is brought forward, on the one hand that the employer's purpose was

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    to bring about a change in the way in which he conducted his relationship with his employees, or with a class of them, and on the other hand that his purpose was one falling within section 146, the tribunal is to take the bargaining purpose as the relevant purpose.
    That is not to say that any tribunal's hands are to be tied. The tribunal must always have regard to the reasonableness of the action taken. If the action is such as no reasonable employer would take in the circumstances, the tribunal will still be able to decide that the action amounts to action short of dismissal, in the terms of section 146.
    Mr. Andrew Miller rose—
    Mr. Hunt: I shall give way in a moment.
    The amendment will restore the proper distinction, drawn in section 146 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, between individual matters and collective matters. Section 146 will continue to give individuals protection against victimisation—that is, action short of dismissal—because of their trade union membership or non-membership, but it will not prevent employers from making and implementing legitimate decisions about how they wish to negotiate with their employees.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Does the Secretary of State take the view that Lord Justice Dillon was stating the law correctly when, in the Wilson case, he said that the employer enters a potential danger area—in other words, he breaks the law —if he offers a douceur to employees for supporting his policy of derecognising a union and making consequential changes in the terms and conditions of employment? If that is a correct statement of the law, as I certainly believe it to be, is not the Secretary of State now legalising the offering of what Lord Justice Dillon called a douceur to employees who will support his policy? Is not "douceur" a rather elegant alternative for "bribe"? How can the right hon. Gentleman justify such a change?
    Mr. Hunt: I thought that I had dealt already with that matter. Having read the judgments of the Court of Appeal in both cases, I believe that the clear distinction that was drawn between individual rights of employees and collective bargaining issues has been confused. Surely that was never the legislature's intention in passing the original provision. I have already referred to Lord Jacques's comment that the provision deals with individual rights of employees, not collective bargaining issues.
    It has always been possible for an employer to derecognise a particular trade union. It has always been possible for an employer to offer different rates of pay, to reward those employees who wish to enter into individual contracts rather than participate in collective bargaining. We could have a long argument, but I hope that hon. Members will accept that it is my genuine belief that the confusion between the individual rights of employees and collective bargaining issues has made the need for this amendment as urgent as I am arguing that it is.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: I should like to quote some words of an employer. As it may be for an industrial tribunal to judge whether the employer was being reasonable, or whether any reasonable employer could hold this view, I do not want my right hon. Friend to reply to the point. These are the employer's words:
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    "We believe that higher pay for those on personal contracts is essential if individuals are to be treated fairly."
    In other words, people doing the same work should be paid at different rates.
    The House ought to consider whether a reasonable employer could hold that view. My understanding is that, according to the Ullswater amendment, whatever else might be demonstrated before an industrial tribunal, it will not be possible in such circumstances to demonstrate that an employer has acted unlawfully, as there is a purpose in addition to the purpose of deterring trade union membership.
    Mr. Hunt: I am not disagreeing with my hon. Friend. Let him reflect on what I have just said. I have quoted from the speech that the noble Earl Ferrers made in another place in 1982. The noble Earl said that it would not be unfair to have differentiation between rates of pay. It has always been possible for an employer to offer additional money to employees who are prepared to enter into individual contracts. I have been trying to explain to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery that this amendment is necessary so that we may get back to the situation that existed not just before the Court of Appeal cases but since 1975.
    The amendment does no more than clarify this aspect of the law. It will apply only in a particular set of circumstances, similar to those that arose in the recent cases that I described. Only when an employer wishes to bring about a change in the way in which he conducts his relationship with his employees and in order to do so takes action that is argued to be in contravention of section 146 will the amendment come into play—and even then only if the action is reasonable in all the circumstances.
    It is an important amendment, but it does not amount to a change in the law as it was understood before the Court of Appeal cases. As I have argued, the Government believe that it does no more than to ensure that the law is applied in the way that was originally intended, by clarifying the distinction between bargaining arrangements on the one hand and membership of trade unions on the other.
    Mr. Martlew: Is the Minister saying that, if an individual employee for some reason did not wish to join a trade union, it would be legal for the employer to negotiate a contract allowing him to pay that employee less than the members of a trade union?
    Mr. Hunt: It is perfectly possible—indeed, it is part of normal practice—for employers to wish to enter into individual arrangements with individual employees and to provide additional rates of pay if that employee decides to move in that direction. It is perfectly possible to have differential rates of pay. That could mean more or it could mean less: it has always been possible to pay less or more in accordance with individual contracts with individual employees. The hon. Member for Bolsover pointed out that, in the UDM-NUM case, the issue was extra pay because of trade union membership. That is why I differentiated as I did.
    Mr. Leighton: We seem to be living in an age of macho management. The Minister says that it has always been possible to do this sort of thing. Can he give examples of precedents for employers offering such "douceurs"?
    Mr. Hunt: It is a recognised fact of life: it happens all the time in various industries. I find it extraordinary that, whereas the traditional case made by Opposition Members for trade union membership has been that trade unions force wages up, they now argue that companies all over the United Kingdom will actually pay people more when they renource collective bargaining arrangements. That is a paradox that I find it difficult to accept. Of course I will provide the hon. Gentleman with precedents, but I ask him to take it from me that the amendment merely takes the law back to where it is believed it was before the Court of Appeal cases.
    Moreover, I want to make it very clear—because I reckon that we may be treated to some wild assertions by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson)—that the amendment will not apply solely to cases in which the action taken by the employer is related to his decision to derecognise a trade union. The amendment means that, in any circumstances in which an employer wants to change his negotiating arrangements and takes reasonable action to bring about that change, he will not be acting in contravention of section 146 of the 1992 Act.
    Mr. Devlin: I accept what my hon. Friend says about the law always having been this way, but may I go back to the point made much earlier by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile)? I am not saying that my hon. Friend the Minister is wrong but, if —I emphasise "if"—it were found that the law as it is now being clarified was in breach of the European convention on human rights, would the Government then be prepared to change the law as quickly as possible to bring the clarification within the remit of the convention?
    Mr. Hunt: I would not bring forward the amendment if I felt that it would be in breach of international conventions or would affect the right of an individual to belong, or not to belong, to a trade union. I make that clear to the House. Obviously, the law is kept under review. If there is an argument that my hon. Friend can make, I shall look at it, but I present the case to the House on the basis that there is to be a clear distinction between trade union membership on the one hand and collective bargaining rights on the other.
    Several hon. Members rose
    4.30 pm
    Mr. Hunt: I shall finish dealing with the point before giving way, because I wish to make it clear that the amendment means that, in any situation in which an employer wants to change his negotiating arrangements and takes reasonable action to bring about that change, he will not be acting in contravention of section 146.
    I give another example. It means that if an employer wants to introduce a single-union deal—that is, recognition, for collective bargaining purposes, of a single union to represent the work force—he will be able to offer his employees a financial or other incentive to persuade them to agree to such an arrangement.
    It will, as I have emphasised, remain unlawful for any employer to take action against any employee on grounds of trade union membership or non-membership. But an employer would not be acting unlawfully if he took action to encourage his employees to be represented in negotiations by a trade union. The employer who judges
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    that a single union deal or collective agreement is the best option for his business will be protected by the amendment, just as much as the employer who opts for personal contracts. I hope that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras will bear that in mind.
    Mr. Oliver Heald: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, during the 1980s, there was a trend towards individualised contracts or single-union deals because of the efficiency and competitiveness that resulted from them, and because they allowed terms and conditions of employment to be tailored to the needs of the workplace? Does he agree that many modern businesses that are competing well in Swindon, Sunderland and elsewhere have those arrangements?
    Mr. Hunt: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A major achievement of Conservative Governments who have introduced legislation in this area since 1979 has been to remove the rigidities which inhibited competitiveness in the British economy. The statistics show that clearly. Opposition Members are always throwing statistics at the Government. I ask them to heed the statistics that show that, between 1974 and 1979, when we last had a Labour Government, the average number of working days lost per 1,000 employees was over 500. We are now down to 20, 30 or 40 working days lost per 1,000 employees. That is the greatest testimony to the success of Conservative industrial relations legislation.
    Mr. Barnes: Does the Minister believe that trade unions should be only friendly societies, providing legal services and pension funds for their members, and should not be involved collectively in bargaining to improve the conditions of their members? That seems to be the attitude surrounding the right hon. Gentleman's argument, particularly in relation to Opposition Members.
    Mr. Hunt: It is on that point that the hon. Gentleman probably has the biggest problem understanding the situation. It is for employees to decide whether or not they wish—[Interruption.] I thought that the hon. Gentleman referred to collective negotiation. I am differentiating between collective bargaining and individual trade union membership.
    I assure the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) that I have had the benefit of a great deal of experience of trade unions. To describe them as friendly societies—while, at the same time, the only alternative is collective bargaining—is ridiculous. Trade union membership means much more than just membership of a friendly society, even when the members of a trade union decide that they do not wish their trade union membership to be involved in any way in their collective bargaining issues.
    Only an employer can determine the negotiating arrangements that best suit his specific business, on the basis of his knowledge of all the relevant circumstances. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) said, if an employer comes to the conclusion that he wishes to move from collective bargaining to a more flexible pay negotiating system, why should the law prevent him from taking reasonable steps to encourage his work force to agree to his proposals and thus implement that decision? Why should employees who want to benefit

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    from moving to personal contracts be prevented from doing so, whether they are trade union members or not? Those are the questions that the House must answer.
    Mr. Frank Cook: Like other hon. Members, I welcome the Secretary of State to the Dispatch Box in his new position. I first recall him as a more junior Minister for Energy, and he was competent and proficient then. This afternoon, he is trying to make a fist of his job, under the guise of clarification of the law, to make a fairly radical change to it. The law did not need clarification in the first place. At least, if it needed clarification, it would appear to be only for the Secretary of State. He is simply trying to convince the House that many people out there want the change—the clarification—that he is offering.
    This afternoon, Cleveland county council faxed to me a clear statement that it is wholly opposed to the proposals, and asked me to bring that opposition to the attention of the Secretary of State. I am sure that he will not be surprised by that, and will tell me that it is because Cleveland county council is Labour-dominated. I want him to know that a unanimous decision was made at a fully attended meeting, so everyone is against his proposal.
    Mr. Hunt: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. I hope that his attempt to destroy my career by heaping me with praise will be unsuccessful.
    As far as Cleveland county council is concerned, many outside observers have had considerable concerns aroused by listening to media reports and reading some of the press reports and scare stories about this amendment. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to ensure that a copy of Hansard containing my speech and his intervention goes straight back to the council, and that the council reconsiders its decision in the light of the assurances that I have given.
    To allow a law that was created for different purposes to impede business decisions of the nature that I have described is wrong. I reiterate that amendment No. 8 will restore the law to the meaning that it was intended to have when it was approved by Parliament in 1975, and I commend it to the House.
    Mr. Dobson: I welcome the Secretary of State to his task. He comes to it with a newspaper reputation for liberalism and decency, and we look forward to evidence of that at some stage in the proceedings.
    I remind the House that, since I first stood for Parliament, I have been sponsored by what is now the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, formerly the National Union of Railwaymen. The union makes a substantial contribution to my election expenses and the salary of my agent. I am grateful to the union for its help. I am proud to be sponsored by the union of which both my father and grandfather were members. I am proud to be associated with the union that represents thousands of transport workers, especially the railway workers employed at King's Cross, Euston and St. Pancras main line stations and 16 other stations, mainly on the underground, which are all in my constituency. Those facts are well known to my constituents and have always been on the public record—and that is how it should be. Only those who are ashamed of the sources of their funds need to keep them secret.
    Let me make it clear that we are utterly opposed to amendment No. 8 passed by the other place. We object to it because it is wrong in principle and certain to be harmful
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    in practice. The proposal is a savage attack on the rights of individual employees. It undermines their right to freedom of association and to choose freely who will represent them. We also object to the way in which the amendment was bounced through the other place, without proper consultation or notice. Presented at the last minute, the amendment was an abuse of parliamentary procedure and the Government's powers. It was most ably resisted by Labour and other peers, but the Government used their majority to force it through.
    For those reasons, we pressed the Government to devote the rest of today's debate to this important amendment and we are glad that they have agreed. I hope, although I am not hopeful, that by the end of the debate they will accept that their proposal is wrong. By the amendment the Government propose to make it lawful for employers to bribe employees to give up the right to trade union representation. In other words, this corrupt Government want to make corruption part of the law of the land. Until now everyone has accepted that such action by employers was against the law.
    The law in question was first passed in 1975. It has remained unamended since then, through all the changing scenes of life at the Department of Employment—untouched by Tebbit or Thatcher and undefiled even by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). The Tories have passed five major industrial relations laws since 1979, but until now this law has been left intact. The present law is set out in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 which was passed as recently as 14 July last year. That Act makes it unlawful for an employer to dismiss an employee for being a union member or for joining in union activities. The Act also makes it unlawful for an employer to take "action short of dismissal" with the purpose of preventing or deterring an employee from joining a union and to penalise an employee for doing so. The Act also makes it unlawful to prevent or deter an employee from or penalise him for taking part in union activities. Such action is, rightly, against the law, yet this amendment would change all that.
    If we were to agree to the amendment, it would permit employers to prevent or deter employees from union membership or union activity and to penalise them for it. The amendment would not just permit employers to act in that outrageous way, but would encourage them by giving their action the seal of parliamentary approval.
    All this has come about because on 30 April the Court of Appeal made it clear that the law meant what it said: that it was unlawful for an employer to offer bribes or threaten fines to induce employees to give up trade union representation. The Court of Appeal took the commonsense view that bribes and fines meant that employers were out to prevent, deter or penalise trade unionists.
    It is worth reminding the House just who had been breaking the law. The two companies in question were Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail and by appointment principal media supporters of the Tory party, and Associated British Ports, by appointment of this Tory Government owners of Britain's privatised ports. Both companies had long-standing agreements with their employees to recognise trade unions and negotiate with them the terms and conditions of those of their employees who wished to be represented in that way. In the case of the Daily Mail, the agreement dated back to 1912. Under the agreements negotiations were conducted between the

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    employers on the one hand and the unions on the other, and the employers and employees each chose who would represent them in the negotiations. Both companies decided that they wanted to put an end to these arrangements and put their employees on individual contracts that ruled out employees being represented by their union. In other words, in future the employer would decide who represented both sides in the negotiations.
    Mr. Heald rose—
    4.45 pm
    Mr. Dobson: Just a minute. I may give way in a moment.
    In case anyone thinks I am exaggerating, I refer the House to the Court of Appeal judgment which records that at Associated Newspapers the group managing director explained that
    "henceforth staff would be represented by their Editors and Heads of Department."
    In other words, in future relations between staff and management individual staff would be represented by their boss who would in turn negotiate with his or her boss. The Tories have some strange concepts of representation, but that beggars all description.
    In an effort to induce employees to accept this one-sided bargain to give up the right to choose who represented them or the right even to seek such representation in future, both companies offered big pay increases to those employees who were willing under duress to sign away their rights. The companies denied such pay increases to any employees who refused to relinquish trade union representation. As I shall explain, the sums were not trivial.
    In the case of Associated Newspapers, Mr. David Wilson, backed up by the National Union of Journalists, challenged this as an unlawful action short of dismissal. Dock workers from Southampton, Mr. Teddy Palmer, Mr. Brian Stedman and Mr. Eddie Wyeth, backed up by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, made a similar challenge. In both cases the employees were supported by an industrial tribunal. In both cases their arguments were rejected in rather bizarre and certainly non-unanimous judgments of the employment appeal tribunal. In both cases the employees were backed unanimously and clearly by the Court of Appeal.
    Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Dobson: Not for the moment.
    The Tory Government, however, inhabit a world where big business can do no wrong. The Government decided that if the views of Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports did not conform to the law, it was right that their views should become the law, so we have this amendment.
    Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Dobson: I will in a moment.
    I ask the Secretary of State to make public all representations made to him, his predecessors or any of his colleagues or officials by Associated Newspapers or Associated British Ports or anyone on their behalf. Will he tell us what threats were issued and what promises were made? Will either company contribute in future to Tory
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    party funds? I admit that these companies and others like them may not have a vote at the Tory party conference, but they do not need one. By arm twisting in secret, they have got the Tory Government to change the law and strengthen their position by taking away the rights of their employees.
    Mr. Heald rose—
    Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman has a handout from his Front Bench.
    Mr. Heald: This is actually a letter asking me to phone my wife.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. I am sure that the message from the hon. Member's wife has nothing to do with the debate.
    Mr. Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that for Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports the decision has been made? There is nothing in this for them because the proposal starts from now. It does not affect the past.
    Mr. Dobson: There are plenty of times when I am glad that I am not a lawyer and I am even gladder, if there is such a word, having heard that contribution from one who is. That is one of the daftest interventions that I have heard in this place —and I have heard some daft ones.
    The amendment is before us now because the Court of Appeal upheld the position of people who had worked for many years at Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports. We are illustrating what will happen to others if the House agrees to the amendment, only in future such action will have the endorsement of Parliament. If the amendment is agreed and the Government make it lawful to bribe and fine employees for seeking to be represented by a union, will any action short of dismissal be against the law? Will there be no limit on what employers can do?
    In future, as a result of the amendment, employers will he able to promote and demote, not on merit but on the basis of an employee's willingness to sign away his rights. Employers will offer longer holidays or shorter hours only to those who conform. Non-conforming employees will be the ones who are redeployed from a good location to a bad one in an unpopular part of the country. They will be the ones set to work in the worst conditions, doing the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. They will be the ones who are made to work awkward shifts or permanent nights.
    The Tories are introducing victimisation by Act of Parliament. As a result of the amendment, employers will also be able to deny profit sharing or bonuses to people who want to be represented by their union. Unscrupulous employers will also be able to threaten the pensions and other benefits of employees.
    If employers are to be allowed, by law, to bribe and fine, is there anything that they will be prevented from doing in the future? Under the new Tory law anything goes. Employers will he able to exercise any duress on their employees to make them deal with their bosses on their own, without the help of their union.
    Mr. David Young: The Government's action causes great constitutional concern because it is clear that, if courts decide anything that is offensive to the Government, the Government will then

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    change the law. Are we not moving towards a one-party or fascist state, where the courts become the puppet of the state and the Government?
    Mr. Dobson: My hon. Friend has raised an extremely good point. The reason why the Government are so opposed to the European Community having any say in our employment legislation is that, in the case of laws that start with the Community, if the Government are found to be breaking them, they must put those laws right. They cannot just change court decisions on a whim, as they have done in this case.
    What is happening is part and parcel of the Government's move to derecognise trade unions. They started with GCHQ, as the Secretary of State said, with their step-by-step approach. They have kept up the pressure. Their object is to weaken not just trade unions, but the bargaining position of employees.
    Unions came into being because individual employees realised that they were in a poor bargaining position when up against a corporate body with enormous assets and legal privileges. That is as true today as it was in the past. The lack of parity between employers and individual employees was recognised as long ago as 1908 by Winston Churchill, who said:
    "Where … you have a powerful organisation on both sides … you have a healthy bargaining which increases the competitive power of industry and thus forces a progressive standard of life … But where you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad employer undercut by the worst."
    Putting people on individual contracts is to make a mockery of the idea of parity of bargaining. Just look at the bargaining position in the two cases that went to the Court of Appeal.
    Associated British Ports must be a wealthy organisation because it pays the boss more than £233,000 a year in salary alone. It has a turnover of £310 million and pre-tax profits of £97 million. Teddy Palmer, Brian Stedman and Eddie Wyeth did not have such resources at their disposal. All that they had to bring to the bargaining process was their skill and experience. If they did not accept the terms offered by Associated British Ports, the alternative was to try to get another job. I must point out to the Secretary of State that that is not much of an alternative in Southampton. where, even according to the Government's fiddled figures, more than 13,000 people are on the dole. That was not much of an alternative for three men, whose average age was 50, in a city where one in five men are officially out of work. There was no parity of bargaining there and the Secretary of State knows it, but he wants the newly privatised bosses to get their own way.
    Associated Newspapers is so wealthy that its highest paid director was paid more than £500,000 last year. It has assets of £500 million and pre-tax profits of £76 million. I am sure that very few people would believe that one solitary journalist had parity of bargaining with that company, which owns the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard and which supplies teletext to ITV.
    Those two companies are not, of course, the only ones that are derecognising unions. In the publishing industry, Reed Elsevier, the printing and publishing company, is busily trying to put all its British employees on individual contracts and to end union recognition. There is not much parity of bargaining there. Even before its merger with Elsevier, Reed International was so wealthy that it paid its
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    chairman £391,000 and had net assets in excess of £1·4 billion. It is ironic that the new combined company can pursue its course of action only in Britain. The Elsevier part of the operation is still based in Holland, where the company is required by law to recognise unions and operate works councils.
    Another major British company, Shell UK, is trying to put its employees on individual contracts and derecognise the unions. Shell is such a rich organisation that it pays its directors more than £1 million. Its net assets total more than £3,500 million. No parity of bargaining exists between Shell and its individual employees. Even with collective bargaining, such a company has always had the whip hand.
    Mr. Bill Etherington: I am enjoying my hon. Friend's speech. Has it occurred to him that one reason for trying to keep employees wages down might be so that many of the illustrious companies can add a little more to the Conservative party coffers, even though we do not know the exact amounts?
    Mr. Dobson: As far as I know, there is no evidence, yet, that Polly Peck is derecognising unions. I must admit, however, that I am not familiar with employment protection laws in northern Cyprus. The Lord Chancellor might be, however, because he paid it a special visit.
    Mr. Graham Riddick: Considering that the debate is about the position of trade unions and the rights of individuals, can the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether he believes a system of one man, one vote should be introduced for the election of the Labour leader and Labour Members?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The proposed one man, one vote for the Labour party or anywhere else has nothing to do with the debate.
    Mr. Dobson: The problem is that, in the companies I have mentioned, it has been decided that one man, the chairman, has one vote and he votes in both sides of the negotiations.
    If the amendment goes through, every company that wants to derecognise unions will he given a free hand by the Government. All forms of bribery and coercion will be made lawful. It is all part of the wretched Government's craven approach to international competition. They no longer believe that we can compete with Germany, Japan, Holland or Belgium on quality.
    Whatever personal ambitions may drive individual members of the Cabinet, when it comes to the future of our country the Cabinet Room has become an ambition-free zone. Instead of competing with the best on quality, the Tories have thrown in the towel. The future that they offer for Britain is to compete not with the best on quality but with the cheapest on price. The Tories want to drive down wages. They want British people to continue to work the longest hours in Europe and to take the shortest holidays.
    Mr. David Hunt: I am sorry to interrupt such a carefully prepared speech. I greatly appreciated the opening generous remarks of the hon. Gentleman. He asked me a specific question about Associated British Ports and Associated Newspapers, but he will recollect that I was not Secretary of State at the time when those cases came to court. I have checked, however, and I am advised that no representations of any sort were made by either ABP or

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    Associated Newspapers before the Government decided to act. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his accusation. Instead of relying on such a heavily prepared script, will he address the issues that I raised in my opening remarks?
    5 pm
    Mr. Dobson: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered all my questions or those that I asked on behalf of other people. He is getting a bit like the bosses of the companies: he prepares his speech, but apparently does not like it when I prepare one. We listened to him for three quarters of an hour and did not get one inch further forward. I am proceeding with my speech as I prepared it.
    Mr. Hunt: I will also use the words, "or any other persons on their behalf". Of course, the hon. Gentleman had a right to prepare his remarks. All I am asking is that, at some stage during his reply, he addresses the issues that I raised.
    Mr. Dobson: Although the right hon. Gentleman is a Secretary of State, he must learn that, to be in order, one addresses the subject of the amendment. One does not necessarily have to address all the issues raised by Conservative Members. I am addressing what I believe to be the major issues that arise from this disgusting amendment. I shall continue to raise such issues insofar as they remain in order.
    In order to reduce wages—which is the only way that the Government believe we can compete—the Government need to weaken the bargaining position of British people at work. They do not do that simply by threatening them with a dole queue of 4 million. The Tories are determined to casualise employment in Britain, and the proposals are part of that casualisation process.
    At present, people who want to work full time are being forced to go part time. Millions of people—mainly women —are left with no right against unlawful dismissal unless they have worked for five years. People with family responsibilities are being told that they face the sack if they do not work all the hours that God sends. People who thought that they had a career have been called in by their bosses and told that they can have a two or three year contract—and must take it or leave it. People have been told that, under their new contracts, they can find and fund their own pensions. As a result, people at work are feeling more and more threatened and insecure.
    I am talking not about any old people, but about the people of this country who are being treated worse at work than any other people in western Europe. It is disgraceful to have to say it, but they are being treated in that way by British-owned companies at the behest of the British Government. It is not Nissan or Toyota which behaves in that fashion—generally, the multinationals do not behave badly. They know the obligations expected of employers in Europe. They are accustomed, at least in Europe, to complying with international standards and are familiar with dealing with Governments who discharge their international obligations.
    The Opposition's next objection to the amendment is that they believe that the proposal will infringe the right to form or join a trade union set out in the European convention on human rights. We believe that it will
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    infringe the right to organise which was set out in the Council of Europe's social charter. We believe that it will infringe the guarantee of the right to collective bargaining set out in the treaty of Rome, and the obligation to develop a dialogue between management and labour required under the Single European Act, which was pushed through the House by the use of a guillotine motion by Mrs. Thatcher's Government. It will breach the International Labour Organisation convention, which provides protection against anti-union discrimination and specifically outlaws deprivation of wages or limitation on wages for taking part in union activities.
    Just in case the Euro-sceptics on the Conservative Benches are not impressed by the mainly European obligations that I have listed and believe that such protection is confined to Europe, I should add that, in Japan, the right of workers to organise, bargain and act collectively is guaranteed by the Japanese constitution. The Opposition believe that if workers in the rest of the European Community and Japan receive the benefit of decent employment protection laws. British workers should receive the same.
    The Government have come up with two justifications for the change in the law. They have argued that their proposal is not an attack on the right of employees to be members of a trade union. The Tories say that the proposal only prevents union members from trying to make use of their membership. That argument was rejected by the Court of Appeal, which quoted with approval an earlier decision quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). That decision, which is worth repeating, stated:
    "the activities of a trade union officer in negotiating and elucidating terms of employment is … the outward and visible manifestation of trade union membership."
    It also stated that the argument now used by the Government would emasculate legal protection. Later, the Court of Appeal described as unreal the argument that being a union member meant nothing more than having a membership card. How right it was: having a union card but not being allowed to use it would be as unreal as having a credit card, but not being allowed to use it. In those circumstances, both cards would he neither use nor ornament.
    Although Conservative Members may prefer to forget what they said at the general election, I am sure that my hon. Friends need not be reminded that the Tory party manifesto stated that the Labour party would disrupt industrial peace by weakening the courts. It is not the Labour party which is weakening the courts today. The Tories also said that the workers' rights in which they believed were those which enhanced individuals' status and opportunities. David Wilson, Teddy Palmer, Brian Stedman and Eddie Wyeth are all individuals. What about their status and opportunities? What about the status and opportunities of the thousands of individuals who will now be subject to lawful bribery and brow-beating if the amendment is passed?
    The Government have also claimed that the amendment is necessary to clarify the law. Presumably they would like us to believe that Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports were innocently misled into their law-breaking campaign of bribery and corruption. Most people would find that hard to believe. They would find it even harder to believe if they knew about the battery of lawyers that each company has deployed on the case.

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    The law is clear; the wording is plain. However, if for the sake of argument we were to conclude that the law needed to be clarified, that does not mean that it needs to be clarified For the benefit of employers and the disadvantage of employees. It could be clarified in another way. Parliament could make clearer still the fact that bribery is against the law. That is what was previously meant and what the law should mean now.
    We believe that British people should have more rights at work than they have now. In times of rapid industrial change, uncertainty and insecurity, people at work need more protection, not less. Their need for trade unions grows rather than diminishes in times like the present. When individual employees are being picked off at leisure by unscrupulous employers, the right of employees to act together to protect one another should be strengthened, not weakened. We believe that the Government should end derecognition by changing the law.
    We believe that, as in the rest of the European Community, employees in Britain should have the right to be represented through trade unions, and that that recognition should be obligatory where there is substantial support among the employees. That idea works as we can see from the rest of the EC. Decent employment laws do not hold back countries or economies. Decent employment laws apply in the seven EC countries which have a higher standard of living than Britain. Decent employment laws apply in the seven EC countries which export more per head of population than does Britain. Decent employment laws apply in every other EC country which have a better trade balance with the rest of the world than Britain has. Decent employment laws go with economic success, high pay and prosperity. The Government's policies of promoting casual employment and insecurity go with economic failure, low pay and poverty.
    The amendment shows the Tory party at its worst, capitulating to secret pressures from its rich and powerful supporters to the disadvantage of ordinary people who have to work for a living. It is wrong in principle, it will be harmful in practice, and it will add to the growing insecurity of everyone at work. It is an assault on free trade unions and seeks to shift Britain's industrial relations back to the previous century rather than move them forward to new, better and more productive relationships for the century to come. This elected House should represent the interests of people at work and tell the House of Lords, "We do not accept this amendment."
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: The amendment proposes to change the part of the Bill that is headed:
    "Rights in relation to union membership".
    It is clear that it has to do with wrongs in relation to union membership.
    It was recently said that
    "talk of undermining freedom of association was poppycock".
    I should like to share with the House the decision of the industrial tribunal. Paragraph 60 of its report states:
    "The Tribunal was satisfied that in the context of this case and on the facts we have found the respondents' purpose was so to reduce the power of the union as to negate it totally. If this had not been their purpose they would have recognised the union for matters other than wage negotiations if they had so wished."
    To say that what the amendment proposes is not an attack on free association is undermined by those words.
    On page 16 of his Court of Appeal judgment, after the quotation
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    "The purpose was not in dispute—it was to 'end collective bargaining'",
    Lord Justice Dillon said:
    "That was indeed the stated purpose of the employers, and it is common ground that 'collective bargaining' was not intended to be limited to collective bargaining about pay."
    We have on reasonable authority, on behalf of the Government, the statement that discrimination against individual workers on grounds of trade union membership will remain illegal. Paragraph 61 of the industrial tribunal's judgment states:
    "The Tribunal considered that the respondents were fully aware that by depriving the union of any function in the work place (save on health and safety) they were effectively rendering the union powerless and thus membership pointless."
    I remind the House that the case before the industrial tribunal was under a section dealing with deterring an individual from union membership. It is difficult to square that with the statement that discrimination against individual workers on the ground of trade union membership will remain illegal.
    My understanding of the words to be inserted before clause 13 of the Bill by what is referred to as the Ullswater amendment is that they would forbid an industrial tribunal to hold that an employer had acted illegally if the consequence of his action would be held by that tribunal to have the purpose of deterring an individual from union membership.
    Those of us who want to support the Government—as I normally do, though in this case I want to keep the law as it is—have been told that if an employer can show that it is reasonable to have another purpose, an industrial tribunal will not be able to hold that that which is now illegal will remain illegal.
    I could quote at length from the Court of Appeal judgment, which upholds without difficulty the industrial tribunal's findings of fact and law. I shall not do that, but shall merely quote from paragraph 62 of the industrial tribunal finding. It states:
    "The Tribunal did not consider that the respondents"—
    that is, the employers—

    "could hide behind their right to de-recognise the union so as to deny successfully their ultimate purpose which was to effect the wholly foreseeable consequence of deterring individual journalists from being union members."
    Of course, the case goes far wider than that because for "journalists" we could read "any employees".
    5.15 pm
    In his judgment, Lord Justice Dillon considers the four points that the employment appeal tribunal considered. He says that the employment appeal tribunal found a distinction or a difference that did not amount to much.
    The question was: what was the purpose of the employers in derecognising the union, ending collective bargaining and changing the terms and conditions of their employees? It was held, with the agreement of the other members of the Court of Appeal, that the industrial tribunal was entitled to find that the purpose was as stated in paragraph 60:
    "so to reduce the power of the union as to negate it totally."
    The evidence quoted by Lord Justice Dillon is sufficient to support that finding, which does not square with the statement
    "that talk of undermining freedom of association is poppycock".
    It is unwise for hon. Members to say that the considered view of a member of the Court of Appeal is "poppycock".

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    If I wanted to disagree with the Court of Appeal's judgment, I should say, "It has stated the law, which is its right, unless that is overturned by the House of Lords, but I should prefer the law to be different from what it appears to the Court of Appeal and the industrial tribunal." Although my background is not comprehensive, I would argue that people have understood the law for about the last decade.
    I was taken on as an industrial relations officer by the British Steel Corporation in 1968. I spent a year working with industrial relations and personnel specialists throughout the corporation, which was substantially larger then than it is now. I had dealings with Government Departments and worked in an office that dealt with local and national trade union relations, personnel and social policy. I was fairly low down.
    I gained the qualifications of the Institute of Personnel Management and was later upgraded to a fellow of the institute. I do not think that it was a consequence of that that the then Prime Minister asked me to join the Department of Employment, where, for more than a year, I was an Under-Secretary with responsibility for industrial relations, employment law and matters such as health and safety. Following a change of responsibilities, I took over equal opportunities from Alan Clark. Since that time, I have maintained an interest in those issues.
    With the exception of one or two parts, the Bill has my support because it is justifiable. I shall not reiterate any of my speeches on Report or on Second Reading. That which the Minister has tried to defend in the context of this amendment is unjustifiable. If the amendment is accepted, its provisions will be reversed in the same way as the exportation of the Tolpuddle martyrs in 1834 was reversed three years later, I think by a Conservative Government, although when the martyrs returned the Government may have changed.
    The watchword of those farm labourers from Dorset, who, in practice, were sent abroad because they had formed a trade union, was, "We will, we will, we will be free."
    The Court of Appeal has said that employees are free to join trade unions and that whatever other purpose an employer may have, if he takes action that has the effect of totally negating trade union membership, that is and has been unlawful. I think that that is a fair summary of the law.
    Whatever other purpose the employers had in the newspaper case and the ports case, what they did was unlawful because it totally negated union membership.
    The Ullswater amendment states that we can consider some other purpose and let it overrule the admitted effect of what employers do.
    On the last Sunday of Labour government in 1979, there was a Conservative Trade Unionists rally at Wembley attended by 2,000 trade union members and their families. I was the president of Conservative Trade Unionists at that time. Margaret Thatcher was there and many people spoke. We were demonstrating that trade union members and their families were welcome within the Conservative family and could trust the Conservatives to do things that were defensible on the shop floor, in the office and in various other places where people work.
    I am not arguing against individual contracts for senior people or for people of any grade or level within an organisation. As the industrial tribunal held in paragraphs 60, 61 and 62 that the effect of what the employers did was
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    totally to negate trade union membership, that should be regarded in simple terms as a straightforward undermining of freedom of association.
    Associated Newspapers could have achieved its objective in a way that was not unlawful, although I would not necessarily have approved of what it did. I should be careful about how I put this, but newspapers have had great success in getting employees on to individual contracts whether or not they wanted them. In my view, it would have been possible for Associated Newspapers to achieve its objective without acting unlawfully, but it is not my purpose to give newspapers free consultancy advice on how to achieve their aims; they have plenty of good lawyers of their own.
    The ports employer wrote to me saying that the company
    "took legal advice at every stage of the transition to personal contracts".
    If it took legal advice and was held by the industrial tribunal and the Court of Appeal to have done something illegal, I suggest that the company should consider the quality of that legal advice. If it argued that because it is now preparing to apply for leave to go to the House of Lords, let me make the following plea to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench.

    The cost and the financial risk to an employee and a trade union of even getting to the Court of Appeal where one is facing rafts of QCs is high. I would estimate that the cost to one of those applicants, if they had failed in the Court of Appeal, would have been about £150,000.
    The law is supposed to be, and always was, clear. It was obvious to the industrial tribunal and the Court of Appeal. Will my right hon. Friend consider taking over the action if leave is granted by the House of Lords and indemnify the successful applicant? I am not asking for an answer today.
    The Government's intention is quite clear, as shown by Lord Ullswater's announcement six days after the Court of Appeal gave its decision, that they would overturn the judgment by the Court of Appeal. Six days is pretty fast in Government terms, especially when two days were a weekend and one may have been a bank holiday; they could not have had more than four working days. If, from the moment they heard the result or even before the Court of Appeal produced its judgment, the Government's intention had been to nullify any judgment not in accord with their now stated view, there is a case in justice and equity for the Government to say that the Appeal Court decision to award costs to the applicant would stand so that, in any case in the House of Lords at least, the applicants would not be at further financial risk.
    The Government made it plain on 6 May, in the debate in the House of Lords on 24 May and again today that they are not at present willing to accept the law as stated by the Court of Appeal. My view is that there is no reason for the House of Lords to give leave to appeal, because the confusion in the minds of the employment appeal tribunal —a perfectly genuine confusion—was in the distinction of words. The Court of Appeal judgment was clear.
    Let us move on to what is right and return to the law in a moment. There are two circumstances that trouble or should trouble the House. The first is where there are collective agreements. The employer wants to derecognise the union for a purpose or for all purposes except for health and safety at work, as the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 would not allow that.

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    If individual contracts are to be imposed, or if collective bargaining is to be nullified, my understanding is that the employer has to give sufficient notice and then can say, "From our point of view, the collective agreement has gone and there will be new terms of employment." In those circumstances, an employer should not be able to take action that discriminates between union members and non-union members to the effect of totally negating union membership.
    The second circumstance would involve an employer whose employees are on individual contracts. Let us suppose that one or two of the employees join a union, or have always been a member of a union, but want to start working together collectively and approach the employer on that basis. If in the individual contracts of employment, out of a pay index of 100, for example, 20 units or one fifth of the employees' salary was paid as a consideration for being on individual contracts of employment, would the employer be able to say to two or more employees who had asked a union to approach the employer asking for collective recognition and bargaining—a perfectly reasonable request—"We are sorry, but because your contract of employment which you signed as an employee and we signed as an employer says that one fifth of your earnings are in consideration of your being on individual contracts, and because your union has now made an approach, you should now give back 20 per cent. of your pay"? Would that be lawful?
    As the consideration of being on individual contracts was 4·5 per cent. in the Associated Newspapers case, I should like to have stated with authority what the position would be. I am not a lawyer; I have only been involved in industrial relations, industrial economics and other practical things. Perhaps a clever lawyer can find a way of making sure there is an instant penalty if ever a union representative appears at an employer's door saying, "We have been asked by some of your work force if you will speak to us as their representatives." I find it very worrying and see it as a possibility of undermining freedom of association.
    In my trade union branch we have had occasional campaigns, although I have not taken an active part in them, to get union recognition in the hotel and catering industries, which used to have some minimum protection by wages councils, at least for a minimum hourly rate. We have been told by some Ministers that the abolition of wages councils would lead to an increase in employment. I say in passing that the best estimate was that if we reduced the pay of people on minimum rates by 18 per cent. we might achieve a 1 per cent. increase in employment in those fields.
    The implication of the abolition of wages councils was that collective agreements could come in and do as well. The case constantly being offered to the House was of people in the road haulage industry, leaving aside the fact that that industry has some of the strongest union organisation in the country.
    People in wages councils industries, or what will soon be ex-wages councils industries, are in the main presumably on individual contracts of employment, as union organisation is not strong in those industries. If a trade union representative, whether a lay representative or a paid representative, goes to the employer and says, "I want to say a few words on behalf of the people you employ," will penalties on those workers be lawful?
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    An employer can say, hand on heart, "It is in the interests of my employees, because it is in the interests of my customers, for all employees to be on individual contracts" and may consider that to be a reasonable belief. It would not be a common one, but it might be held to be reasonable. If not, what is the point of the Ullswater amendment?
    I return to what people thought the law had been. That point was made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who spoke about restoring the law to what it was held to be. The Appeal Court has done that. I am becoming more conservative as I spend more years in the House. Perhaps I have spent too long in the House because I am becoming a little stuck in the mud.
    The law was commonly held by people in personnel management, in the Industrial Society, among trade unions and among most employers' associations to be that action could not be taken which would, in effect, negate the benefits of union membership, with the exception, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would remind me if I did not say it first, of some rights concerning accidents at work or other problems, in which area he has more experience than I have and union members have more reason to be grateful to him than to me because I have not done such work.
    5.30 pm
    My right hon. Friend said that he has nothing against trade unions. I accept that. He said that we should not confuse collective bargaining with other things. I have read out the part of the Court of Appeal judgment which elides whatever difference there may have been between us. My right hon. Friend referred to the 1975 debate. In full context, that would probably prove a point that I would want to make, but there is no need to argue about it too much, because we can always return to the fact that the industrial tribunal and the Court of Appeal produced a judgment saying that the law was what I had believed it to be and what most people had believed it to be.
    The question that we must put back to the Government is whether the Ullswater amendment clarifies the law or changes the law. I hope that the debate will persuade the Government Front Bench that its effect is to change the law. That point has obviously not been accepted by the Front Bench and it may take some time to do so, but that is the essential point.
    If the general view is that the law is being changed by the Ullswater amendment, introduced on a procedural basis in a fairly unusual and abrupt way, I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell the House that he will in some way try to ensure that its effect will be at least suspended until there has been consultation.
    I hope that whoever replies to the debate will answer this question: what consultation paper was available in public to the trade unions, the TUC, employers, the CBI, the Engineering Employers Federation and all the other employers' federations and associations before the Government decided on the terms of the Ullswater amendment? I have not been aware of one and I have not seen an open consultation paper on its contents in the press that I read.
    One can argue that from 6 May to 24 May was only about two and a half weeks, but open consultation would still have been possible. I ask any hon. Member to intervene and tell me if he or she was aware of any open consultation on the Ullswater amendment.
    Mr. Peter Thurnham: There was a fairly clear understanding of how things worked until the Court of Appeal judgment. That is what caused the difficulty. That is why the Government were right to introduce the Ullswater amendment to clear up the matter.
    Mr. Bottomley: That may be so, but I remind the House that the question that I was putting was whether any hon. Member was aware of any open consultation between 6 May and 24 May when the Ullswater amendment was considered in the other place. I am not aware that hon. Members who have links with trade unions are rising. I am not aware that those who may have better links with employers are rising. In fact, I notice no movement anywhere.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) makes the point that everyone thought that the law allowed employers to do what two employers were told by the Court of Appeal was illegal. That may be so, but it is not a view which I share. However, my hon. Friend, in his creation of jobs, may have had a different experience. I do not think that employers previously believed that to be the law. I think that Associated British Ports and the newspaper group received legal advice saying that such action was worth a try and the industrial tribunal said that it was not worth a try.
    Mr. Patrick Nicholls: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. [Interruption.] One chooses one's friends. I put the point in the way that I wish to. The hon. Gentleman makes the point that there was no consultation. Precisely what does he think the purpose of that consultation would have been? Does he envisage that he might have changed his own mind? I have to say that I doubt it, in which case I am not sure what the purpose of that consultation would have been.
    Mr. Bottomley: It is silly for people in the same party when they have a disagreement to resort to that sort of personal abuse which is uncharacteristic of Members of the House. I am aware that when I was a Minister my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) was one of those who thought that I was not doing the right thing on wages councils. As a member of the Conservative party, I do not think that we do the wrong thing when we speak up for those who may want to band together for collective strength. We may have differences and disagreements, but some kind of loyalty to each other is a reasonable thing for which to ask. If my hon. Friend thinks that I am not open to argument, he does not know me very well.
    I shall repeat the question and then leave it. Who shows any manifestation of believing that the worth of union membership could be totally negated but not have that held as a deterrence of union membership, which is clearly unlawful?
    There is no doubt that deterrence of union membership is unlawful. If I am wrong about that my hon. Friend will no doubt intervene. He rightly accepts the law and that is plainly the law.
    Then comes the question whether we should allow the law to be changed to allow another purpose to overtake that purpose of deterring union membership. My argument is no, we should not.
    My regret is that there are not more Conservative Members who have come up through trade unions who,
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    speaking the sort of words and expressing the sort of thoughts that I have been doing, can represent those whom I have been representing here today.
    It is a mistake for the trade unions to continue their strong links with the Labour party. That is one reason why we have an unbalanced debate. I hope that in time the Conservative party will show, in its actions as well as in its words, in what it does in the House as well as in what it says at election time, that it wants the support of working people, whether or not they are members of unions; that we want people to choose whether to join a union and that we shall maintain the law as it has been clearly stated since 1975 and that no one shall be deterred from union membership.
    Mr. Leighton: If ever anyone wanted evidence of the need for a change of Government, the appalling way in which the Government are behaving on this issue is it. Only a Government with the arrogance that comes from 14 years in power, a Government who think that they can do what they like, would attempt to do what they are doing and in such a way, overturning the decisions of the courts and abusing parliamentary procedures. When it come to assaulting trade unions, the Government think that anything goes.
    The amendment must be a violation of international agreements. It must be a breach of International Labour Organisation conventions because it is a direct assault on the freedom of association, which is a basic human right. It penalises and victimises citizens for what the Government appear to regard as the crime of collective bargaining.
    Let us consider the case, mentioned by the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley), of Associated Newspapers Ltd. v. Wilson. That company publishes the Daily Mail and similar associated papers and had recognised the National Union of Journalists since 1912. In 1989, the editors of the firm's three papers decided to derecognise the NUJ and to move from collectively agreed terms and conditions of employment to individual contracts.
    Those on individual contracts received salaries that were 4·5 per cent. higher than those being paid under the collective agreement. Incidentally, that increase was backdated to 1989. The individual, Mr. Wilson —I emphasise the word "individual" because I have heard all the Government's rhetoric about how they are looking after the rights of the individual—claimed that, by paying him less and providing him with less favourable terms and conditions than those who had transferred to individual contracts, the firm had taken action short of dismissal against him which was penalising him for being a union member.
    What is the law? Section 23(1) of the Employers Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 states that
    "every employee shall have the right not to have action (short of dismissal) taken against him as an individual by his employer for the purposes of … preventing or deterring him from being or seeking to become a member of an independent trade union, or penalising him for doing so".
    That is the law; that language has been in our law for two decades. It was introduced in the early 1970s, since when six anti-union Bills have been enacted without interfering with it.
    In its judgment allowing the appeal, the Court of Appeal held that when terms offered under personal contracts were better than those available under a

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    collective agreement, with the aim of reducing the power of the union to the point where it was wholly negated, the purpose of the action was clearly to give effect to
    "the wholly foreseeable consequence of deterring employees from being trade union members".
    As such, it was an action taken to deter people from trade union membership within the meaning of section 23 of the Act. A similar judgment was made in the case of Associated British Ports.
    That judgment was unanimous: all three judges concurred that the employer's action constituted unlawful discrimination. The law is clear; the employer's action breached Acts dating back to the early 1970s and the words that I have quoted have been consolidated in all the legislation that the Government have enacted since 1979. It is ludicrous for them to claim that the law is unclear and that the amendment is intended merely to clarify it. The truth is that the law is too clear for the Government. They do not want to clarify it; they want to change it, to the detriment of individual employees. It is all part of their vindictive attack on workers' rights and freedoms.
    Surely, if there is any difficulty, the law should be clarified in the courts. We do not know whether this case is likely to go to the House of Lords. How is it possible to talk about clarifying the law when the Law Lords have yet to consider the matter? One cannot but be amazed and appalled by the Government's extraordinary behaviour: they are showing complete disrepect for the law and the courts. Within days of the judgment, before anyone had read the full transcript of the ruling and without waiting to see whether there would be an appeal to the House of Lords, they announced the tabling of an amendment to change the law because the judges had not done what the Government wanted them to do. They proposed immediate legislation, with none of the usual prior consultation with interested parties. Moreover, the text of the amendment was not available until the last possible moment before the debate.
    I understand that the Standing Orders in the other place were suspended to allow the amendment to be dealt with in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading in a single day, which kept the House sitting until 2 am. What a way for the mother of Parliaments to behave; what an example to set other countries. Some of us are members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and take part in seminars to explain to visitors the wonderful way in which our Parliament works and the rule of law in this country. I wonder whether we shall be sufficiently proud of this example to explain it to them.
    The amendment is an attack on workers' freedom of association—on basic human rights and freedoms. The Minister has told us that it is all right for a worker to have a union card—that is a private matter—but, if that worker wants to use the union's facilities, he will be penalised. That would give bad employers the green light to victimise and penalise trade unionists. It would allow them to withhold pay increases from workers who refused to renounce union representation. Workers who bargained through their unions would lose all protection against discrimination and the powers of those unions would consequently be reduced. The unions would be negated —a word used by the hon. Member for Eltham.
    The Government used to talk of reforming unions. It is now clear that they want to destroy them completely and to deny them their legitimate role. The Government are
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    venting their spleen and malice on unions: they want to stack the cards against them and in favour of macho employers. The Government should be careful; show me a country without free trade unions and I will show you a dictatorship.
    The Government should stop this vendetta against their own people. After six anti-trade union Acts, the unions cannot be blamed for the ghastly state of the British economy. Given the current state of the labour market, trade unions are more necessary than ever to give workers some protection and some rights in the workplace. Our people now recognise that: public opinion polls show that the unions are very popular and that workers want the protection that they afford.
    This mean, spiteful, malicious amendment is a disgrace to Parliament. If it is passed, I hope that a future Labour Government will give priority to its repeal.
    5.45 pm
    Mr. Nicholls: Let me begin by declaring my interests in Hill and Smith Holdings, the NSCC, Port Enterprises Ltd., the Waterfront Partnership, the Howard de Walden Estates, MinOtels and Dunn and Baker.
    The theme that runs through this debate is what the Conservative Government have tried to do in the trade union legislations that they have enacted since 1979. Although it seems narrow, the amendment raises some fundamental questions, as was pointed out by both the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and my hon. Friend—as he wishes me to call him—the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley).
    The debate has featured at least one red herring. There has been disagreement about whether the law is being clarified or changed. Obviously, to some extent, one man's change in the law is another's clarification; however, I see nothing wrong in saying that, although it is clear that the legislators originally intended the law to operate in a certain way, the law has now been found not to be operating in that way. At that stage, the House will need to make a decision. The circumstances are not unique, but relatively common. The House must say, "If that is the way in which the words come across literally, and it is not what we intended, we must take steps. Shall we accept that the law must he thus—although we never thought that it should be—or shall we change it?"
    Usually, when such circumstances arise, Ministers are consulted. They normally reply that, if a suitable legislative vehicle existed, they might be able to do something; but such a vehicle can rarely be found when a clarification of the law is thought necessary. It just so happened that a Bill was going through the House whose long title suggested that it might be suitable: I see nothing wrong in principle with saying, "For once we have a suitable vehicle. Let us take advantage of it."
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: I shall try not to intervene again, but my hon. Friend may be able to help me on the question of what the law was thought to be. I have failed to find any reference in any of the personnel management books and loose-leaf binders, or in any decisions made by industrial tribunals, employment appeal tribunals or the Court of Appeal, that suggests that those decisions came as a surprise. What makes my hon. Friend believe that the people involved considered it possible to negate the benefits of union membership without offending against subsection (1)(a) of what was section 23 of the 1978 Act?
    Mr. Nicholls: I cannot begin to aspire to my hon. Friend's command of the sections and subsections. Moreover, it is clear that he has thoroughly researched the case law in the hope that it can help him with a particular proposition.
    When the law is thought to be settled and definite, nothing can be found in case law, because the practitioners have made a correct assumption. What does happen from time to time is that, even when the legislation is believed to be operating in a certain way, it then goes to be tested in one court or another, and it turns out that what was thought to have been settled has not been settled after all.
    The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Michael Forsyth): It may help the House if I explain that the employment appeal tribunal said that the section
    "has caused and may well continue to cause problems … We share the difficulties which this Industrial Tribunal found in the wording of section 23(1)(a)."
    Mr. Nicholls: It was wrong.
    Mr. Forsyth: What was asked for was an indication of who had said that there was some difficulty in understanding the law.
    Mr. Nicholls: What my hon. Friend the Minister has said is a perfectly correct statement of what the law's approach would have been in a situation such as this.
    In effect, we have three tribunals. We have the tribunal of first instance—the industrial tribunal—the employment appeal tribunal and then the Court of Appeal. If three such tribunals can come to differing conclusions, whatever the law might be, it is obvious that it is far from clear, and that it needs to be clarified. The fact that that difficulty had not arisen before proves the point precisely. It was thought to be settled, there was a disagreement between the three tribunals, and it needs to be clarified.
    Mr. Heald: Does my hon. Friend agree that the employment appeal tribunal is the most knowledgeable and skilled tribunal of any in this area, because it consists of a chairman who is a High Court judge and who handles those cases day in, day out, and representatives from both sides of industry? Will my hon. Friend accept from me, as a lawyer who was advising people on these issues at the time, that there was considerable complexity involved?
    Mr. Nicholls: That is right. I too used to do a considerable amount of industrial relations law. I will probably be in hot water with the Court of Appeal if I say that if one is looking at a thorough working through of the complex issues involved, the employment appeal tribunal usually provides better guidance than most.
    The plain fact is that, if three tribunals cannot agree, whatever else one might say about the law, it is not clear.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Before the hon. Gentleman took on all those impressive parliamentary consultancies that he mentioned, I understand that he used to practise as a solicitor. Does he not think that it might have been wiser for the Government to wait for a determination of the issue by the House of Lords before rushing headlong into this new legislation, or does he think that the employment appeal tribunal is a more useful guide to these issues than the House of Lords, which is the highest court in the country?
    Mr. Nicholls: The hon. and learned Gentleman's deference as a silk to the House of Lords is truly
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    impressive. I dealt with that point a moment ago. Even if the matter had gone to the House of Lords and it had decided one way or another, two things would still be apparent. First, it would be apparent that there had been a difference of opinion about the state of the law as it passed through the various appellate processes—so to say that the law was clear would not have been true; secondly, the House would still have had to return to the question whether it believed that the effect of the law should be as the courts have decided.
    At that stage, one has to look for an appropriate vehicle to change the law and, by then, the vehicle may well have gone on. There was a clear difference of opinion among the various tribunals, and the House now has an opportunity to say whether the law should be clarified in the way in which it was always thought that it would be interpreted. That is the proposition, and there is nothing wrong with it.
    The point of principle underlying this amendment is what we are in the business of doing. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) dealt with his point of principle somewhat late in his speech, but with engaging frankness. He stated baldly that this is about the belief that more trade unions would be good for employees. It is a perfectly reasonable proposition, and for somebody who is sponsored by a trade union it is probably a predictable and inevitable conclusion to reach. However, should the House believe that more trade unions would automatically be a good idea for the people of this country and for employees? I do not necessarily see it that way.
    This legislation is not anti-trade union. How could it be anti-trade union, when it is from a Government who enacted the right not to be refused employment on the basis of trade union membership? It is worth reminding ourselves that it was a Conservative Government who introduced that legislation.
    We know that the Labour party is opposed to this amendment. How long will that opposition last? The background to this has included five employment Bills, and we should look at the things that the Labour party has opposed to the rooftops. It has opposed secret ballots before the election of trade union officers, secondary picketing, secondary action, pre-strike ballots and the idea of a postal ballot. It is not long ago that it was opposing to the nth degree the idea that the closed shop—that monstrosity—should be abolished.
    In due course, the Labour party suddenly decided that it was not against all those things after all. We must look at this proposition in that light. It would be entirely inconsistent for a Government to enshrine in law the idea that one should not be refused employment because of trade union membership and then to indulge in this piece of legislation if it satisfied the description given by Opposition Members.
    Of course trade unions should be entitled to combine in their own interests. However, recognition is a matter for trade union members. It cannot be right for them to impose recognition on employers simply because trade unions decide that that is what they want. I apologise if, in a misplaced attempt at humour, I upset my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham, but, as one Conservative to another, I find it difficult to see how one can go along with the idea that a trade unionist should be entitled to impose recognition on an employer.
    That cannot possibly be right. It must be up to an employer who owns, runs and knows his business to decide

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    whether to recognise a trade union for particular purposes. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham obviously finds that a bizarre proposition; I do not.
    Mr. Leighton: It is not about whether an employer can derecognise, because, under the law, he can. The judge has said that he should not offer a bribe to a certain section of workers to do so.
    Mr. Nicholls: The hon. Gentleman can put it in those terms if he wishes.
    Mr. Leighton: It was not me—it was the judge.
    Mr. Nicholls: One of the things that we are trying to cope with today is the fact that different judges and three different tribunals see things—
    Mr. Leighton: Three judges.
    Mr. Nicholls: It is touching to see the Labour party say how much it wants to support judges. The Labour party supports judges only when they say what it wants them to say. The hon. Gentleman is being highly selective in the judges that he is prepared to agree with. It is tempting to wish that it would go to the House of Lords—I say this in a moment of jocularity—simply so that he might have to come back in due course and say how much he supports the judges in the House of Lords.
    There is an ambiguity, and it needs to be clarified. This is about the proposition advanced by the Opposition and my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham—that, once trade union members decide that they wish to be collectively responsible, it should be imposed on employers, and that any paid differentials which come about can be dismissed as a bribe or a douceur. The thread running through this issue is not that more trade unions are good, but that it should be open to the people involved to make up their own minds—that includes employers—whether they will accept the recognition that unions may demand of them in a particular situation. I do not find that an ignoble principle—it is a theme that has run through our legislation since 1979.
    When my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and I were members of the Government together, trade union legislation was being passed. My hon. Friend had day-to-day responsibility for trade union matters, as I also did for a time. Perhaps we can agree on one thing. When I saw the themes running through such legislation, I did not feel that I as a Minister was being asked to do something so appalling that I should resign. Hearing my hon. Friend speak, with some eloquence, I wonder how he managed to stay on board at times if he felt so strongly about the legislation that we were introducing.
    6 pm
    Mr. Peter Bottomley rose
    Mr. Nicholls: I shall now give my hon. Friend the opportunity to make the resignation speech that he denied himself at the time.
    Mr. Bottomley: First, I do not recall industrial relations legislation being passed when I was a Minister at the Department of Employment, although my memory may be at fault. Secondly, nor do I recall in the first 14 years of Conservative government any proposal to change the law
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    so as to negate completely the benefits of union membership, in flat contradiction of section 23(1)(a)— the industrial tribunal's finding of fact.
    Mr. Nicholls: Let me cheer up my hon. Friend at once. If he is casting his mind back to find out when he was an Employment Minister, I can tell him that it was between September 1984 and January 1986. Mercifully, I can agree that, at that precise point in time, no employment legislation received the force of law. If he wants to point out that he voted against employment legislation when he was in another Department and somehow remained a member of the Government, I shall accept what he says.
    However, my hon. Friend is making a serious point, which needs to be dealt with. The amendment will not negate all the benefits of being in a trade union. We are all aware of examples of people being members of trade unions and presumably paying their dues willingly, but their employer is not able to negotiate their pay. My hon. Friend might believe that the only benefit of being in a trade union is the ability to negotiate pay, but there is much more to it than that.
    Mr. Thomas Graham: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that the Government are in the business of improving industrial relations, but that the legislation is a recipe for disaster? I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has ever worked in a factory alongside people who are members of a different union. What happens if one person earns £2 an hour more than another for exactly the same work merely because he is not in a trade union? Surely no hon. Member could accept such a situation in British industry.
    Mr. Nicholls: The hon. Gentleman speaks with great sincerity, but I should have more sympathy with what he is saying and be more likely to agree if, since 1979, the Opposition had not opposed every trade union reform that we have introduced. The Labour party's position on all our trade union reforms has been that it agrees with the reform before last, is not quite sure about the last one and believes that the present one is an outrage. That is the way the party presented itself to the electorate.
    In a practical sense, I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Such a situation might cause difficulties, but working life is difficult. Is he leaping from that proposition to saying that the state should be in the business of fettering an employer and stopping him offering a salary structure which he finds makes his business work? If the hon. Gentleman believes that, he would impose a restriction on employers and businesses and prevent them from offering jobs which last and succeed.
    In the end, the one thing that unites—or should unite —all parties, although I sometimes wonder whether it does, is that we want businesses to succeed. That is what the amendment is all about, and that is why it is entirely right.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: When the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) began his speech, he read out what sounded like a litany of private consultancies that he holds. If he were told by you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or by those who have such authority that, because of those consultancies, they would deduct all the money that he receives as a consultant from his salary as a Member of the

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    House plus one penny piece, I bet my bottom dollar that he would give up those consultancies in a flash. This proposal is about something very similar.
    The proposal is an attempt to bribe or, to use the words of Lord Justice Dillon, to offer a douceur, or sweetener, to union members. It is not a sweetener to try to persuade them not to be members of a trade union—their right to be in a trade union remains, of course, enshrined in law—but it is an attempt to allow employers to offer a sweetener to make employees unable to exercise their rights as members of a trade union. That is offensive.
    I regret that it was far from a privilege to listen to the hon. Member for Teignbridge when compared with the speech made by the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley). It was a privilege to listen to the hon. Member for Eltham because I believe—I hope that the Minister of State will reflect on this—that it represented the authentic voice of trade unionists who do vote or have voted for the Conservatives. I believe that Conservative trade unionists will find this proposal as offensive as trade unionists who vote for any Opposition party. The Government have signally failed to recognise that, perhaps because of the indecent speed with which the proposal was inserted in the Bill in another place.
    The amendment makes doubtfully proper use of both Houses of Parliament. It is insupportable to suggest that it could be regarded as just; and its legality is questionable in the context of international law.
    As for the propriety of their use of the House and of another place, I wonder why the Government thought it proper to introduce the clause with indecent haste when it was known that the employers who lost in the Court of Appeal were intent on going to the House of Lords on appeal. Why have not the Government waited for the determination of the House of Lords? Why have they sought to diminish the courts, which, in other contexts, they seek— or pretend to seek—to support?
    The appeal decision was not the idiosyncratic decision of a radical who had accidentally found his way into the Court of Appeal. It was the unanimous decision of Lord Justice Dillon, Lord Justice Butler-Sloss and Lord Justice Farquharson, two men and one woman who are very experienced in the application of employment law, lawyers of eminence and brilliance who were not taken by surprise in having to reach such a finding.
    Why do the Government seek to arrogate to themselves the role of a legislative Court of Appeal when the appellate remedies provided by our courts system have not been exhausted? Is it a precedent for the future? If so, it is a fine demonstration of the fact, now accepted not only by my party but by the Labour party, that there is a need to write down some constitutional limits. It is a good example for the argument that it is high time that we had a constitutional court, or its equivalent, so that we are not driven to seek remedies from distant courts in the international arena in order to assert individual liberties and rights.
    How can the Government say that they were taken by surprise by the view expressed by the Court of Appeal and the industrial tribunal in the two cases involved? Where did the Government get their legal advice and what legal advice did they obtain? I ask the Minister of State to tell us when he answers the debate where in the past the
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    Government obtained the legal advice that left them so surprised by the findings of the Court of Appeal. They certainly did not go to John Hendy QC, one of the leading employment lawyers in the country, who appeared for Mr. Wilson before the Court of Appeal. Had they done so, they would have found it far from surprising that the Court of Appeal should reach that conclusion. I do not pretend to be an expert on the subject. but I can tell the Minister of State—perhaps the Department of Employment needs to learn this—that there are plenty of employment lawyers apart from Mr. Hendy who have long believed that the decision of the Court of Appeal on behalf of Mr. Wilson and in the other case that has been mentioned were entirely predictable and were an application of the law as it was understood.
    The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), who speaks in the House on employment issues with great skill and authority, referred earlier to the decision of the employment appeal tribunal—that, at least, should appeal to the hon. Member for Teignbridge—in the case of Discount Tobacco and Confectionery Ltd. v. Armitage, which was reached in 1990, nearly three years ago, and publicly reported in the "Industrial Relations Law Reports" for 1990 at page 15 onwards. Mr. Justice Knox, giving the judgment of the tribunal, said that it would "emasculate"—that is a strong word—our understanding in this country of the right to be a member of a trade union if it could be successfully argued that there was a distinction to be drawn between membership of the union and resorting to the services of a union officer to elucidate and negotiate the terms of employment. He said that the right to be a member of a trade union
    "would he reduced almost to vanishing point"
    if that distinction, which was argued for in the case but rejected, were to exist in law. He continued:
    "it would only be just the fact that a person was a member of a union without regard to the consequences of that membership that would he the subject matter of that statutory provision, and it sems to us that to construe that paragraph so narrowly would really be to emasculate the provision altogether".
    In Mr. Wilson's case Lord Justice Dillon said that that judgment was "unquestionably correct". Lord Justice Dillon did not seem to think that the interpretation had been questioned in the period between the Armitage case and the decision in the Wilson case.
    Mr. Nicholls rose—
    Mr. Carlile: I shall give way in a moment.
    Why do the Government claim surprise, when they knew the effect of the decision in the Armitage case? If they had considered the effect of Armitage at all they could only have concluded that the law was as Lord Justice Dillon declared it to be. In my view, for the Government to say that they were taken by surprise is a pretence. I do not accept for one moment that that was the sincerely held view of the Government when Lord Ullswater spoke, or that it is their view now.
    Mr. Nicholls: The hon. and learned Gentleman defends his fellow judges with passion and sincerity. So that we can understand where he and his party stand on the matter, will he tell me whether he supports the right of a trade union to be recognised for collective bargaining purposes in a company if it represents a significant proportion of the relevant part of the work force, even if the employers do not wish to recognise it?
    6.15 pm
    Mr. Carlile: I believe that the law must fall within article 11 of the European convention on human rights, as I shall explain in a moment.
    Mr. Nicholls: Answer the question.
    Mr. Carlile: If the hon. Gentleman is more patient than usual, he will see that his question will be answered in due time.
    Now I turn to whether the proposal can be regarded as just. How could it possibly be regarded as just, or as fair? Again, we must consider the words of Lord Justice Dillon. Whether we talk about a douceur, a sweetener or a bribe —call it what you will, Mr. Deputy Speaker—that is the effect of the measure. It is intended to allow an employer to offer a sweetener to emasculate the effect of being a trade union member.
    The Secretary of State said that, unless what an employer did was reasonable, he would not get away with it. However—inadvertently, I am sure—the right hon. Gentleman misrepresented what the new provision says. I refer the Minister of State to subsection (3)(a) of the new clause, which would provide that the purpose for which the employer took the relevant action would be regarded as having been taken
    "to further a change in his relationship with all or any class of his employees".
    The employer's action would be valid unless the tribunal considered
    "that the action was such as no reasonable employer would take".
    So it is not for the employer to prove that his action was reasonable; the burden is on the employee to prove that no reasonable employer in the land could reasonably have taken such action. That is a heavy burden, quite different from the Secretary of State's explanation.
    Furthermore, that is not the end of the matter.
    Subsection (3) also says:
    "the tribunal shall regard the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a) … as the purpose for which the employer took the action, unless it considers that the action was such as no reasonable employer would take".
    It then adds the words:
    "having regard to the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a)."
    That means that so long as the employer's purpose was
    "to further a change in his relationship with all or any class of his employees".
    his action is most unlikely to be regarded as unreasonable. The courts will have to consider the meaning of that last part of the proviso to subsection (3).
    If my understanding of the provision is wrong, I ask the Minister of State, when he replies to the debate, to tell me why. At the very least, will he explain to the House why the words
    "having regard to the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a)"
    are contained in the subsection and what they mean? He probably knows that since a recent decision, the courts may have regard to what Ministers say in the House. I believe that the courts will be extremely puzzled by the words that I have quoted unless the Minister gives some clarification, no doubt based on advice, of what they mean. A failure to give such clarification will be regarded by me—and, I suspect, by others—as deliberate and as an acceptance of the fact that the Government are trying to circumscribe even the test of reasonableness.
    Finally, is what the Government propose legal? Did the Government take independent legal advice as to whether
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    the proposal is legal in terms of their obligations in international law? Will the Minister at least tell us whether they obtained advice from the Attorney-General as to whether the measure was consistent with those obligations? In particular, on what basis do the Government argue that their proposal falls within article 11 of the European convention on human rights? The words of Mr. Justice Knox in the Armitage case, which I quoted earlier, will remain good domestic law, even after the implementation of this proposal. Mr. Justice Knox's judgment makes it quite clear that to circumscribe the rights appurtenant to trade union membership is to restrict the right to trade union membership itself.
    I do not know whether the Minister of State has ever read article 11 of the European convention on human rights. The convention is only a little book—even the Minister could read it before bedtime. Paragraph 2 of article 11, so far as it is relevant, says:
    "No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health of morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
    How can the Government say that this provision does not amount to a restriction on the exercise of the right to membership of a trade union? How can they claim that it is necessary in a democratic society? Do they say that it is necessary for the protection of public morals or to prevent disorder or crime? Certainly they cannot, with any justification, claim that it will protect the rights and freedom of others.
    I know that the Minister of State is not enthusiastic about international organisations, although in this regard he sometimes tries to hide his fire under a bushel. Even so, he must agree that it is very important that the House of Commons should not demonstrate contempt for international law. Have the Government considered the international law implications of what they are doing? I believe that they may have failed to do so. If they have, I believe that they have got it wrong and I ask them to reconsider their position.
    Mr. James Paice: I should like to begin by declaring interests in Dixons plc, the British Fibreboard Association, the National Training Federation, United Framlingham Farmers Ltd. and Writtle College.
    I listened with great care to the speech of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who opened for the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman twice mentioned dates. He quoted words of Winston Churchill dating back to 1908, and he made use of the fact that one of the agreements referred to in the two cases from which this amendment springs dates from 1912. Surely that shows that it is time for a re-examination of the issue. By quoting from legislation and agreements drawn up at the beginning of the century, when we are within seven years of its end, the hon. Gentleman showed that he is one of the unreconstructed members of the Labour party.
    In my view, the significant aspect of this matter is the need for employers to be flexible. As was said during Prime Minister's Question Time today, we are in a highly international competitive, single world market. We are competing not just with the town or city up the motorway, or even with France, but with the rest of the world. Thus, it is absolutely essential that employers be sufficiently

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    flexible to meet all needs. A bitter truth that we sometimes delude ourselves into refusing to accept is that industry and commerce do not exist for the purpose of providing jobs. Businesses exist for the purpose of engaging in economic activity, which provides people with work. When the activity ceases to be economic, the work disappears. Indeed, we have seen the disappearance of too many jobs in those circumstances.
    I do not believe, and I do not make the case, that every employer in this country is perfect. There are some very bad employers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am the first to recognise that fact, but I dissent strongly from the view, which I suspect is held by those who are momentarily supporting my words, that that law can be used to correct all the bad practices of employers. It is the sharp teeth of competition that encourages employers to adopt good employment practices and, thereby, minimise disruption and maximise productivity.
    Before becoming a Member of Parliament I spent some time in training and management development. With that experience, I believe very strongly that it is in the interests of all employers to adopt employment practices that minimise disruption, minimise the number of employees who leave, and maximise the ability of everyone to contribute, to develop personal skills and to be rewarded for doing so. Otherwise, businesses fold under the pressures of competition. But it is for the employer to decide how these issues should be addressed; it is not for this House to legislate.
    I support the principle of minimum employment protection legislation, but this amendment is giving employers flexibility to amend their arrangements with individual employees to meet their needs.
    Ms. Eagle: I have been listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman's comments about international competition and the pressure that it puts on those who organise industry in this country. Will the hon. Gentleman admit that when all restaints are removed, by virtue of the fact that there are minimum employment rights and there is no trade union organisation, competition is achieved by lowering wages, by introducing terms and conditions that exploit employees and by generally impoverishing the work force, whereas it should be achieved by having good research and development, good sales techniques and high-quality products?
    Mr. Paice: High-quality research and development and products are obviously vital in any market. I do not accept, however, that low wages are necessary to the achievement of maximum competitiveness. What matters is not the amount of money that is paid to the individual but what each unit of production costs. Into that equation must go the whole question of investment in technology —machinery and whatever else is required for production —as well as the overlaying costs of employment, the social chapter and work force flexibility. I do not accept that low unit costs can be achieved simply by reducing wages. Unit costs, rather than the number of pounds that an employer receives per week, are the key to competitiveness.
    As I have already said, I am the first to accept that there are bad employers who seek to achieve competitiveness by lowering rates of pay. In the long run, however, such employers are doomed to defeat because they are ducking
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    the key issues. If they pay too low a wage. they will have problems with their work force. Their staff will be discontented and many of them will leave to go to other jobs for better wages. Ultimately, such behaviour will cost employers money and cause them to wish that they had adopted more advanced and sensible employment practices.
    6.30 pm
    Mr. Graham: How in God's name can we ensure good industrial relations if we introduce an amendment that will divide the work force by enabling employers to say, "If you are not a member of a trade union, we will pay you extra"? How can that create better employment relations in Great Britain and get Britain back to producing goods? It makes no sense deliberately to divide the work force in that way, and it seems to me that the Government are wasting the time of the House with their mad and stupid measures.
    Mr. Paice: Clearly there is a difference of opinion as to what the amendment does. I do not believe that it will necessarily divide the work force as the hon. Gentleman suggests. I agree with the point that he made in an intervention in the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), which was that the concept of two people who work alongside each other doing an identical job but earning different rates of pay is bound to lead to discontent. But the amendment refers to the tribunal regarding the purpose mentioned in paragraph (b) as the purpose for which the employer took the action
    "unless it considers that the action was such as no reasonable employer would take having regard to the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a)"
    I submit that no reasonable employer would embark on a course of action that would lead to two people doing identical jobs being paid different rates.
    Mr. Dennis Turner: Where has the hon. Gentleman been these last few years? He talks about good and bad employers. Is he not aware that in Britain today thousands upon thousands of working people are being subjected to injustice every day of their working lives? There are bad employers who are making people redundant or placing them on temporary contracts. People are starting one day and being sacked the next. They receive no unemployment pay and no sickness benefit and have no rights whatever. People are working in those circumstances because they are in fear of the legislation that the Government have introduced. Why cannot the hon. Gentleman see that the Bill and the amendment will exacerbate the problems with which working people are already faced?
    Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman was not listening to what I said. I said quite clearly that I accept that there are bad employers in this country—although I suggest that redundancies are more likely to be the result of the economic circumstances facing a particular business at a particular time than the mark of a bad employer. I do not believe that the amendment would have the effect that the hon. Gentleman believes it would.
    In addition to the importance of competitiveness to which I referred earlier, it must be remembered that the whole concept of working practices is changing fast—not only because of the international situation but because of people's changing priorities and desires. I refer, for

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    example, to the development of part-time work, which is often sought by employees rather than imposed by companies. The attitude to weekends—and, dare I say it, Sundays—is changing. Some mothers wish to work for only a few hours a day while their children are at school. Such developments have caused British businesses to consider more flexible working arrangements. Employers therefore need to be more flexible.
    We have moved away from the situation that pertained 20 or 30 years ago when massed ranks of people, all of them doing identical jobs, came out of the factories. Of course such businesses still exist, but they are changing fast. The vast majority of people are now employed in much smaller companies and there is a much greater range of responsibilities and job functions within those companies. That is why I believe that the flexibility embodied in the amendment is essential.
    Mr. Jimmy Boyce: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that what he is saying would ring more true if the proposals included protection against the bad employers whom he recognises exist? We could accept much of the hon. Gentleman's argument if the proposals encompassed such protection, but in fact the opposite is the case.
    Mr. Paice: No. The minimum legislation to which I referred is already in place. We are discussing a particular amendment today, but a number of employment Acts have been introduced during the Government's term of office. Those Acts have drawn the sting from the impositions made by Labour and other Governments on employers while leaving in place the minimum standards of employment protection that I believe are essential.
    Mr. Eric Clarke: I have spent much of my life negotiating deals nationally with nationalised industry. An important aspect of such negotiations was the discipline that we could bring to the negotiating table. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is easy for a major employer to discuss with the trade union movement? I have also spent my life negotiating and discussing with my members the deals that have been reached. We had to sell them the idea. The argument is that it is easier that way. Moreover, it was good for industry and good for production. One had a sense of fairness. Everyone knew exactly where he stood.
    The hon. Gentleman seeks to turn the clock back. He suggests that the amendment is fair because it gives the employer a better deal, but employees are not getting a better deal, are they? No one in the House could sell that argument to a group of people—
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. The hon. Gentleman is now making a speech.
    Mr. Clarke: Can I just say—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: No. That is enough.
    Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman talks about reasonable employers and about benefits to employees. It is a sad reflection on our society that we still refer to employers and employees as if they were on opposing sides. I accept what the hon. Gentleman said about the benefits of trade unions being able to negotiate on behalf of a number of members and to reach agreement with the management of a nationalised industry—although I suggest that nationalised industries are perhaps not the best examples of
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    the success of the process—and then to go back and sell to their members the benefits of a package that has been negotiated.
    I do not think that I have ever said anything in my political life to suggest that I do not support the principle of trade unions or the right of employees to belong to trade unions if they so wish. I do, indeed, believe in those principles. I also believe, however, that it is in the interests of employers to be able to adjust their bargaining arrangements with individual employees to meet the needs not only of their business but of those employees, who may wish to work certain hours, undertake certain training and so on. A whole gamut of factors now comes into play.
    We are not today faced with a situation in which everybody in a business works the same number of hours doing the same job. That was commonplace years ago. In the evolving world of the last decade of this century and into the next, every employer who wants to achieve the competitiveness that is required and wishes to meet the aspirations of many of his employees must have the flexibility that the amendment provides.
    Ms Jean Corston: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) that the amendment will ensure, in the employment context, that all forms of bribery and coercion will be lawful. It is a spiteful amendment which will undermine the rights of trade union members.
    It is also an affront to normal parliamentary procedure in the manner of its introduction, for it represents an amendment of settled law. It will have the effect of negating trade union membership. It is clear that parties to the action would seek recourse to the House of Lords, which is supposed to be the highest judicial authority in the land and the decisions of which are binding on all lower courts, including the employment appeal tribunal. Those facts must be within the knowledge of the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), who is a practising solicitor.
    The Conservative party says that it is not against trade union membership. Conservative Ministers have said over the years, while introducing one piece of repressive legislation after another, that they were simply giving unions back to their members.
    Labour Members see the legislation for what it is—an attempt to turn the industrial relations clock back to 1906. I make no apology for mentioning that date because if Conservative Members could find a way round the immunity from prosecution for torts committed in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, I am sure that they would do so.
    The amendment will ensure that trade union membership will be positively discouraged. Individuals will face the choice of accepting a pay cut or signing a new personal contract. That will happen under coercion and, in the process, they will be required to surrender the right to union representation. Such a choice cannot be said to extend the rights of employees. We recall that the Conservative manifesto of 1992 stated:
    "We will take measures to give individuals greater freedom in choosing a union."
    Instead, the amendment will give employers greater freedom to take vindictive action against trade union members. Nowhere was that better illustrated than in a company called J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd of Bristol. The

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    factory is located in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo), though many of the employees live in my constituency.
    Arrowsmith was a well-established printing company with no history of industrial unrest. There was never a strike, although there was a lock-out 13 years ago over a pay claim. But in 1988, employees were asked to take a pay cut of between 20 and 25 per cent., representing about £50 a week for most crafts people. That was agreed, to save the company.
    Early in 1991, the company decided to discontinue the national agreements between the BPIF, the British Printing Industries Federation, which represented the employers, and the GPMU, the Graphical, Printing and Media Union, which represented the work force. That was supposed to take effect on 1 January 1992, and obviously it meant having an in-house agreement. So there was at least an element of collectivism in that there was an agreement between the people employed and the employer.
    The company refused to enter into negotiations at the end of 1992 for the 1993 agreement, saying that it could not afford an increase because of the high cost of overtime. The company then reneged on a holiday pay agreement. In April, the GPMU decided to involve the company in the national pay claim, which was for £6·05 a week on basic pay and an extra day's holiday. That would have represented just under 3 per cent. The company refused that claim, so there was a dispute. Most other companies in the BPIF signed.
    6.45 pm
    In accordance with Conservative-initiated legislation, a legal ballot was held and, by 98 to 14, it was agreed that industrial action short of a strike would be undertaken. They decided on a work to rule, the effect of which was that no overtime would be worked. One would have expected the employer to be pleased about that. After all, one of its reasons for not giving a pay rise was that overtime cost so much.
    Three days later, the company issued a warning letter. It concerned anybody going on strike or doing anything outside the terms of a contract of employment collectively negotiated and agreed. The warning letter was followed on 26 April by departmental meetings addressed by Victoria Arrowsmith-Brown who, for all purposes, was the employer, informing them that if they did not sign a letter dissociating themselves from the action, they would be dismissed. They then received dismissal notices.
    Hon. Members will find the terms of the dismissal notice interesting, bearing in mind the amendment that is before the House. The dismissal letter said:
    "Industrial action short of a strike commenced on Thursday April 22 and you were asked to dissociate yourself from it and to give an undertaking that you would not participate in it. You declined to do that and you have therefore participated in industrial action which has disrupted production. By participating in that industrial action you have been, and still are, in repudiatory breach of your contract of employment. The company accepts your breach as terminating your employment with immediate effect. It is also accepting breaches of contract by other employees who have also been, and are, participating in industrial action, as terminating their employment. Your employment having ended, your form P45 and any money due to you will follow shortly."
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    The same notices were issued to staff who were absent through sickness, to those on holiday, to women on maternity leave and to an employee who had given 43 years' service and was due to retire the following day.
    The following day, the workers were locked out. On 1 May they received new contracts containing similar pay rates to the previous year, a pay freeze for two years, lower overtime rates, lower shift rates and—a real sticking point—no recognition of any trade union and no representation by a trade union. The deadline for signing was 14 May. Three members of the trade union signed and returned to work. One other returned on 24 May, and he is on a three-month contract terminable at one day's notice.
    It is important to remember that the company told employees on 1 May, when they were offered new contracts, that the company was willing to employ them only on the terms and conditions of employment which I summarised. The letter went on:
    "No other terms and conditions will form part of your contract and, in particular, no term in any collective agreement which may have been reached by, or on behalf of, the Company with any union representing you will form part of the contract which is now being offered to you."
    It went on to make it clear that the contract was exclusively individual.
    As a result of the amendment that we are debating, Arrowsmith—assuming that it is a bad employer—would be able lawfully to differentiate between employees in terms of rates of pay. To date, the company has lost several contracts, many more are threatened and production is virtually nil. That employer seems to have had all the foresight and long-term planning of a Kamikaze pilot. The employees are not on strike, have never been on strike and have never threatened to strike.
    The whole tragic and scandalous story reveals the way in which Conservatives condone, even encourage, behaviour by employers that is in breach of all accepted civilised standards. What will be the result if the amendment—and the nods and winks that accompany it —becomes law? What will the future hold for people in Bristol who cannot get income support, who cannot get maternity fund payments through the social fund and who cannot receive unemployment pay, even though the letter that I quoted said that they were dismissed? The employer will not confirm to the Department of Employment that they have been dismissed.
    The effect of all that is that those people who at least understand what collective provision is about, and who are showing some form of support and solidarity to each other, will be able to be picked off because no one will refuse a pay rise at the end of the day.
    Mr. Paice: I know nothing about the specific case to which the hon. Lady refers. However, I suggest that taking an individual example is a poor basis for any legislative action. More importantly, has not the hon. Lady made my case for me? She said that, since the dispute has arisen, the company has lost many orders and production is virtually at a standstill. That spells a dismal future for the company. Does that not demonstrate my point that a good employer will recognise that he must operate in a way that minimises disruption? I am sorry that employees will suffer if the company goes to the wall. But the company will also suffer —it will pay the price for handling its work force badly.
    Ms Corston: The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. If we were proceeding simply on the basis of one example, it would be outrageous. But that is exactly what we are doing—we are proceeding on the basis of what three learned judges, who are fully conversant with employment law, decided in one case. It is exactly the same as one example of an employer defying all of the decent standards. That is happening under the present law.
    What the Government are doing—I presume that the hon. Gentleman will condone this in the Lobby tonight —is making it easier to negate trade union membership by offering sweetners. We are used to seeing sweetners in legislation from the Conservative Government, but the Bill extends them so that workers can be set against other workers—workers alongside each other will get different pay rates.
    In terms of international labour obligations, the TUC said—and I agree with this—that the Government's action is in breach of International Labour Organisation convention No. 98, which provides for the right to organise and collective bargaining. The general principle of the convention is that no person should be prejudiced in his or her employment by reason of trade union membership or legitimate trade union activities. It is not simply a matter of a few bad employers because such behaviour undermines good employers—good employers can be undercut by those who pay below the agreed rates. What does that do for decent civilised standards and those companies which the hon. Gentleman considers to be good employers? It gives an employer a green light to treat his work force in that way.
    The amendment has implications for the whole economic well-being of our country. We continue to hear Conservative Members say that they want the recession to end. We all want the recession to end. We all welcome real signs of recovery, but that is based on confidence not only in the City but in every home. Confidence depends on the ability to plan for the foreseeable future. How can people take out a mortgage, buy a car or enter into a hire purchase agreement if they have a three-month contract that is determinable at one day's notice?
    It is time that the Government stopped substituting sound bites for sound policy. Conservative Members would do well to join the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) in voting against the amendment tonight; otherwise they must accept that the Government's declaration of wanting a classless society that is at ease with itself and in which there is real choice for individuals is absolutely nothing but weasel words.
    Mr. Thurnham: This debate is certainly generating a great deal of light and heat. Most of the light is on the Conservative Benches, and most of the heat and confusion is on the Labour Benches.
    I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his new appointment. I am glad that he has been able to make his debut by speaking on this excellent Bill.
    I regret that I did not have the opportunity to speak earlier on this Bill or serve on the Standing Committee. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his role in taking the Bill through the Standing Committee and ensuring that it is the important and valuable Bill that it is.
    I am delighted that we have this amendment. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said that it is a savage attack on freedom of association, but I
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    cannot see what could be more reasonable. The amendment as introduced by Viscount Ullswater is couched in reasonable terms. It says:
    "the tribunal shall regard the purpose mentioned … as the purpose for which the employer took the action, unless it considers that the action was such as no reasonable employer would take".
    I cannot understand how the amendment could be construed as it has been by Labour Members.
    I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) is not here because I should like to take up sonic of his points. He said that he was not against individual contracts for senior people. I do not see why we must distinguish in that way and say that something is all right for senior people but not all right for other people. We should be able to have individual contracts right the way through. The whole purpose of the Bill is to ensure that employers and employees can reach individual bargaining arrangements. It in no way challenges the right of individuals to be members of a trade union.
    Mr. Michael Clapham: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Ullswater amendment gives not only the possibility of derecognising by virtue of individual contracts but the opportunity for employers to switch bargaining rights from one trade union to another trade union, thereby negating the freedom of choice of the employees whose bargaining rights are transferred?
    Mr. Thurnham: If the hon. Gentleman had waited, I was about to come to that point. The law was never meant to interfere with the decisions of employers on what bargaining arrangements best meet their requirements. It is an employer's right to decide, in the light of the needs and circumstances of his business, how he wants to negotiate with his staff. The law should not put obstacles in the way of employers who want to move from collective bargaining and introduce individual pay negotiations and personal contracts.
    The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) seemed to advocate—it was clear that he is a member of the legal profession—that people should continue to appeal at enormous cost and, undoubtedly, generate a lawyer's beanfeast rather than have the Government do what is obviously sensible and clarify the law as quickly as possible, in view of the fact that some doubt has arisen. My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) said that the Labour party is paid for by the trade unions.
    The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras told us about his grandfather and his father and went into the history of legislation going back to 1912. That legislation is all antique—it is not relevant to the modern world. He referred to Japan. I wonder whether he has had an opportunity to read "The Machine that Changed the World", which makes it clear that individual arrangements can lead to much higher productivity figures. The hon. Gentleman is looking strained.
    Mr. Dobson: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, generally speaking, productivity in German industry is greater than it is here and that the value of exports of manufactured goods per head of population is considerably higher in Germany than it is here? Does he also accept that it is exceedingly commonplace for there to be

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    collective bargaining in German industry? The Germans believe that it enhances productivity and efficiency, and all the evidence shows that it does.
    Mr. Thurnham: There is higher productivity in organisations all round the world where employers and employees are free to negotiate agreements to their own advantage. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman should go along the Corridor to the Library, ask for a copy of the "Machine that Changed the World" and read it. It was written by three lecturers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and paid for by this Government, the American Government and others in order to find out what happened in Japan. It is remarkable how it shows improvements in productivity.
    7 pm
    The hon. Gentleman, when opening for the Opposition, cited the docks industry and the old Fleet street printing industry, as if they were examples of exactly what we should have. Those industries were riddled with restrictive practices and the hon. Gentleman voted against every piece of legislation introduced by this Government to clear out those practices. Perhaps he will say now whether he has changed his mind about his opposition to that legislation which has helped to make this country so much more productive now than it ever was in the past. [Laughter.] It is not a laughing matter.
    Mr. Dobson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Thurnham: No. The docks were riddled with restrictive practices, yet the hon. Gentleman did not support the Government's legislation to sort them out. How could the country achieve the necessary productivity and international trade if—
    Mr. Terry Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Thurnham: The hon. Gentleman has just walked into the Chamber, so I suggest that he sits down and listens to the debate—
    Mr. Lewis: Give way.
    Mr. Thurnham:—rather than going on any longer.
    Mr. Lewis: Give way.
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Members know quite well that if the Member who has the Floor does not give way they must resume their seat.
    Mr. Thurnham: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is reprehensible for Opposition Members to wander into the debate and try to intervene when they have not been here throughout the debate to listen to the points being made.
    The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras spoke about the Daily Mail. Perhaps he should remember the old Daily Herald. Was it not that newspaper that the Labour party wanted to see exist? He forgets that newspapers are bought by individuals. It is an individual contract, so to speak, when individuals buy newspapers. That must run throughout industry. Industry must rely on individual
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    agreements. Newspapers are bought by individuals who decide to buy them. In the same way, an employer should be free to pay more or less for an employee.
    The Labour party forgets that the amendment is all about pay increases. Labour Members want to level people down to the levels that they would have encouraged under collective bargaining. There has been opposition to the judges mentioning douceurs and so on. We are talking about pay increases.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has talked about the industries that we have got rid of and about progressive trade union legislation that has been enacted during the 14 years of office of this Government. Will he ponder over what we have at the end of it? First, we have at least 3 million unemployed—and that is with rigged statistics. In addition, we have a £50 billion budget deficit. Is that what he calls progress?
    Mr. Thurnham: I have not referred to any industries that we have got rid of. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that unemployment would be a great deal higher now than it is if industry were conducted as the Labour party would wish it. It is only by running our industry as competitively as we can that we can compete in world markets. Flexibility is the keynote to it. The importance of the individual must be paramount. That is built into the legislation and into this excellent Bill.
    The Labour party has a record of opposing every piece of legislation we introduce to improve industrial relations, and no doubt it will oppose this measure. I call on my hon. Friends fully to support the amendment. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham is not here. I hope that he will change his mind and will support the amendment.
    Mr. Miller: The Secretary of State said that he intended to put the record straight. No one outside listening to his long diatribe would agree that the record is at all straight. The record is being established by a biased and bigoted Government who are intent on one thing. It is obvious that the Government deviously introduced the clause in order to mount a direct attack on the trade union movement.
    I have already spoken privately to the Secretary of State for being most unneighbourly. I was going to congratulate him on his elevation to his new position, but he would not give way to me during his speech, so I shall save my personal criticism of him for outside the House.
    We must ask ourselves: will the clause stand up to examination, and what exactly does it mean? My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Ms Corston) referred to the International Labour Organisation convention, which is particularly important. Several other international treaties to which we are party have been mentioned and in no case can the Government say that their argument stands up. The ILO convention makes it clear that the clause will not stand up. The precise wording of article 1 is:
    "Workers shall enjoy adequate protection against acts of anti-union discrimination in respect of their employment. Such protection shall apply more particularly in respect of acts calculated to:
    (a) Make the employment of a worker subject to the condition that he shall not join a union or shall relinquish trade union membership;
    (b) Cause the dismissal of or otherwise prejudice a worker by reason of union membership or because of participation in union activities outside working hours or, with the consent of the employer, within working hours."

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    To my mind, that article says it all. When the Minister replies, will he tell us what legal authorities the Government sought in drafting the clause? What comments were made about article 1? It is obvious that the Government cannot have taken seriously the commitments that we have entered into in convention No. 98 of the ILO.
    In the other place, Viscount Ullswater led for the Government and produced what in contradiction to his name—Ullswater is reckoned to be deep—was a shallow, disgraceful speech. That lead has been followed in this place today.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Still waters.
    Mr. Miller: Still waters, as the hon. and learned Gentleman says.
    On several occasions, the noble Lord said that he was referring to what was best for a company. What is a company? What sort of company exists without employees? The failure to consider the interests of the company at the same time as the interests of the employees is a failing by any employer. That is exemplified in references made later, in column 24 of the Official Report of the other place of 24 May, to the way in which industrial tribunals will consider these matters. I shall deal with that in detail in a moment.
    The clause is bound to cause a great deal of confusion. Given the resources available to the Government, one must conclude that the confusing speeches by the noble Lord and the Secretary of State were deliberately so, to confuse the public about the intention of the clause.
    The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) referred eloquently to some of the other legal requirements that the Government appear to have carefully ignored. It is also important to consider the practical effects of the new clause for industrial tribunals. In another place, Viscount Ullswater said:
    "However, the tribunal must always have regard to the reasonableness of the action taken. If the action is 'such as no reasonable employer would take' in the circumstances, then the tribunal will still be able to decide that the action amounts to action short of dismissal in the terms of Section 146 … it will not prevent employers from making and implementing legitimate decisions about how they wish to negotiate with their employees."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993; Vol. 546, c. 241
    That argument is fundamentally wrong, on two counts. First, the employer is given unilateral rights under the clause to determine the content of a contract. The rights of the majority in a workplace are totally ignored should they decide that collective bargaining is the best means of negotiating. Secondly, the operation of the clause will place industrial tribunals in an impossible position. The Secretary of State has already listed the various considerations that those tribunals would have to consider. They will make their work impossible.
    The clause is another lawyers' charter. The Government should tell the House how much the clause will cost the public purse, given that it will increase the work load of the tribunal system, which is already creaking at the knees. Have they estimated the costs to employers and employees and their trade unions of fighting such cases? The clause will significantly alter the costs that were set out when the Bill was first presented to us. When the Minister of State replies, he should tell us about the likely costs.
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    The Secretary of State, in his past life, attended quite a few industrial tribunals. I wonder how recently he was engaged in such work. In our area, the north-west, the industrial tribunal system cannot cope with its current case load. It is faced with an enormous backlog; cases that I filed in my past occupation have still to be heard. That delay is due to the confusing nature of legislation.
    The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery noted that reference can be made in higher courts to what is recorded in Hansard. The new clause will pose a complicated dilemma for any court that is called upon to make head or tail of what the Government have said. On the one hand, they have said that they have no intention of creating a union-bashing charter, but on the other it is obvious from the examples cited in the other place to justify the introduction of the clause that that is the purpose behind it. The courts will have an impossible task.
    The Secretary of State sought to clarify the position, but he failed to do so. I do not wish to detain the House because I know that a number of my hon. Friends want to speak. The key to my speech is the ILO convention. It is worth repeating that it states that protection should be offered against acts designed to
    "cause the dismissal of or otherwise prejudice a worker by reason of union membership"—
    "designed to prejudice a worker". No other interpretation can be made, given that the Government justified its introduction on the ground that this will be the effect of the clause. Against that background, I urge all hon. Members to act in the interests of the rights of individuals who decide, collectively, to have their terms and conditions negotiated by a trade union. Their rights should not be prejudiced by such a shabby and disgraceful clause.
    7.15 pm
    Mr. Riddick: I had hoped to use this opportunity to welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to his new position. It gives me just as much pleasure, however, to welcome my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to her position in the Department of Employment. I know that her style is robust. I hope that the Secretary of State will follow the robust tradition of recent Secretaries of State. I hope that he will follow in the tradition of my hon. Friend the Minister of State.
    My right hon. Friend's finest moment came during the election campaign in 1987, when he addressed the massed ranks of my constituents-to-be on a rainy day in Netherton, in the Colne valley. Six people turned up to listen to him, and, indeed, to me. For some reason, however, my right hon. Friend went away saying, "We're going to win this seat." Sure enough, we did, for the first time in 102 years. I certainly respect his political judgment.
    This has been an interesting debate. I was amused to note that the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), now seems to be in favour of multinationals. I am delighted that they are now in good odour in Labour circles. There was a time when they were figures of socialist hatred, so I am pleased that the Labour party is now displaying some common sense. I noticed, however, that the hon. Gentleman did not respond to my intervention about one member, one vote —
    Mr. Boyce: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Gentleman speaking to the amendment, as he should be, or replying to the debate?
    Madam Deputy Speaker: I understand him to be speaking to the amendment. I am, of course, always anxious to observe high standards, but if I were to follow the advice of the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Boyce) I fear that many hon. Members would be quickly shut up.
    Mr. Riddick: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall speak to the amendment, but I was sorry that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras did not feel able to respond, if only briefly, to my point about one member, one vote. The reality is that the trade unions are kicking the leader of the Labour party in the teeth over this issue. It appears that he will suffer a serious reverse at the hands of the trade unions. At the end of the day, those unions are vital to the Labour party.
    The debate is another example of, when the Trades Union Congress says jump, the Labour party jumps. It is another example of the RMT, the union that sponsors the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, saying, "Yap", and the hon. Gentleman yaps.
    Mr. Miller: I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to the Trades Union Congress telling Opposition Members to jump. That would have been totally impractical, given the time scale in which the Government introduced the clause. The Opposition representatives in the other place had to think on their feet and move quickly. There was no way that consultations could have taken place with the TUC before the Opposition tabled their amendment in the other place.
    Mr. Riddick: I know that some TUC members are a bit slow, but they are not so slow as to use the days and weeks—[Interruption.]
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must not pass between the hon. Member who is on his or her feet.
    Mr. Heald: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that I had ducked, but I obviously did not.
    Mr. Riddick: I have not taken my eyes off you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thought that I had you in view all the time. We have all heard what you have said.
    The amendment does nothing more than restate employment law as it was originally intended in the 1970s. The amendment resolves the problems created by the recent Court of Appeal judgments, and reinstates in law the status quo that has existed for about 20 years—that the law was intended to protect individual employees against specific acts of discrimination, but not to interfere with collective bargaining. That is the amendment's intention.
    Employers cannot discriminate against employees for belonging to a trade union. That right exists in addition to the fact that employers are allowed to alter the collective bargaining arrangements. Both Labour and Conservative Governments have supported the right of employers to alter their collective bargaining arrangements. Governments of both parties have recognised that employers can derecognise a trade union for negotiating purposes and introduce personal contracts—there is nothing new in that. There has been a consensus between the parties that employers should have that freedom of action.
    The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras gave a catalogue of examples of individuals being forced to move
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    to personal contracts. However, companies have been able to do that for years. The amendment does not create anything new in that respect; it simply reinstates the law to the position that everyone thought prevailed before the recent court cases.
    Mr. Clapham: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if an employer can pay an inducement to an employee to give up his or her trade union, and so establish differentials in payments, the disadvantaged member is having action taken against him or her short of dismissal? That has created a different legal position.
    Mr. Riddick: The legislation will not create the position described by the hon. Gentleman. We are allowing employers to enter into contracts with employees, but it would be illegal for those employers to sack employees because they continued to remain in a trade union—that right still exists and is enshrined in law. The Conservative Government strengthened that right.
    I have some experience of the subject. When I worked in industry I worked for two multinational companies—first, Procter and Gamble and then Coca-Cola. They were good employers and I never felt the need to join a trade union. In both cases, I had a contract with my employer and was perfectly happy with it. I was aware that employees doing similar jobs were being paid different rates. That was for all sorts of reasons, not least because people were at different stages of their careers. I saw nothing wrong in that.
    Mr. Thurnham: My hon. Friend speaks from his experience of industry. Does he agree that, if Opposition Members had more experience of industry, they would realise the sense of what he is saying? Earlier, I spoke with experience of starting a business in engineering and having interests in the construction industry. It is obvious that, in any industry today, there must be complete freedom of individual negotiation in order to obtain the highest productivity and compete on a world basis.
    Mr. Riddick: It is regrettable that the Opposition have so little industrial experience. If my memory serves me right, the Opposition's three main economic teams—Treasury, Trade and Industry and Employment—contain practically no industrial experience. To be fair, I think that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras once worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board, but there is otherwise little experience on the Labour Benches, which I regret—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) points to his hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith), who I thought had been a brain surgeon. That is an extremely useful occupation, but can hardly be classified as working in industry.
    Ms Eagle rose—
    Mr. Riddick: Perhaps the hon. Lady worked in industry, but she is not on the Front Bench.
    Ms Eagle: Does the hon. Gentleman concede that those of us who have worked in trade unions know precisely how employers are likely to behave and, in some cases, exploit their work forces? Therefore, we understand the need for good, strong and free trade unions to achieve equality and fairness in society.
    Mr. Riddick: It is regrettable that the hon. Lady should talk about companies exploiting their work forces. That is what we hear all the time from the Opposition. They seem to suggest that the majority of companies in this country are behaving in that way—they are not. Most companies in this country are good employers. The comment comes ill from a Member representing a party which has opposed every piece of employment legislation. As long as the Labour party is in the pockets of trade unions and Labour Members oppose all our trade union employment legislation, we shall not be able to take their comments seriously.
    I am not saying that people should not belong to trade unions. There are cases when it is clearly appropriate to do so—for example, when an employee has a bad employer. My wife used to work for a council, and I told her that she should be in a trade union. She was a member of, I think, the National Association of Local Government Officers. Therefore, I am not against trade unions.
    Mr. Boyce: Does not the hon. Gentleman understand that it will be the employer's right to recognise or not recognise trade unions? There is nothing in the provision to protect employees from bad employers. I cannot find such a protection within the legislation. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us where it is?
    Mr. Riddick: The hon. Member for Bristol, East (Ms. Corston) described the position at Arrowsmith in her constituency. It sounded as though it was a poor employer and was behaving badly, but what she described was not new—companies have for many years been able to sack employees who have gone on strike. There is nothing new in that. The amendment is mild in effect, and I do not believe that it will have the drastic consequences that Opposition Members are trying to suggest.
    We should consider the issues in the wider context of the massive improvements in industrial relations that have occurred during the past 14 years—[Laughter.] The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Boyce) laughs, thereby showing how out of touch with reality Opposition Members are. The position in industry has been completely transformed in the past 14 or 15 years. I well remember the days in 1978–79, when the dead went unburied and strikes were the norm. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, strikes were the order of the day.
    In the year to last August, 500,000 working days were lost through stoppages. Under Labour, in one month alone 3 million days were lost. There are fewer strikes now than at any time since 1891, and that is to be applauded.
    Mr. Boyce: I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene for a second time. How does he reconcile his disapproval of what happened in 1979 during the so-called winter of discontent with the undying support of Lady Thatcher—whom the hon. Gentleman's lot stabbed in the back—for Solidarity in Poland?
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies to that intervention, I remind the House that we are not engaged in debating the history of industrial relations or their entire scope. There is an amendment to be considered, and I suggest that hon. Members address it.
    7.30 pm
    Mr. Riddick: Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.
    The Conservative party supports trade unions. We supported the Solidarity movement in Poland which helped to bring freedom to that country. It was a sorry commentary on the condition of trade unions in this country that we had to look to trade unions in Poland for good examples. During the hon. Gentleman's intervention, I was given some intelligence to the effect that he used to be on Sheffield city council. If ever there was a bunch of unreconstructed socialists, it must have been those councillors.
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should be addressing me, and I remind him that I must be convinced that what he says is relevant.
    Mr. Riddick: My comment was merely an aside, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not wish to upset you in any way, and I apologise if I did.
    It is important to examine Labour's motives for opposing the amendment. The Opposition record is not good. The amendment is about the rights of individuals and the role of trade unions in society and organisations. Labour has supported strikes and the closed shop through thick and thin, and there have been recent examples of that. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras recently described the fire brigades' decision to support strike action as entirely justified. The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) has said that she supports the teachers' case, and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) supported striking railwaymen. That shows where Labour's loyalties lie. We shall not take any lectures from the Opposition.
    Labour is in the pocket of the trade unions. More than half of all Labour Members are sponsored by trade unions, including all 20 members of the shadow Cabinet. Trade unions provide most of the Labour party's money.
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has not convinced me that what he is saying is relevant to the amendment.
    Mr. Riddick: My notes tell me that I was about to speak about one member, one vote, but in the light of what you have said, Madam Deputy Speaker, I had better not.
    I am delighted to support the amendment, because it protects the right of employers to change their collective bargaining arrangements. It also protects the rights of individuals to belong to trade unions and will sustain the increased flexibility in the labour market that Government reforms have brought about. Unemployment is falling at a much earlier stage in the economic cycle, and I am sure that that is due to the greater flexibility of the labour market.
    Mr. John Hutton: I intend to confine my remarks to the substance of the amendment, unlike the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick).
    I have listened to most of the speeches. It could be said that the Government have at least three arguments, to use the term loosely, in support of the amendment. The first of them is that the amendment is merely declaratory and that it merely brings the law into line with the position as it is supposed to be. That argument is completely bogus. It is transparent to anyone who knows the law in this area that

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    the recent decision in the Wilson case was not unpredictable and did not change our understanding of the law.
    Where were the Government's legal advisers in 1987 when the Court of Appeal decided he case of National Coal Board v. Ridgeway? That clearly flagged the eventual decision of the Court of Appeal in the Wilson case. Where were those advisers in 1990 when the employment appeal tribunal ruled in the Armitage case? There is nothing revolutionary about the recent Court of Appeal decision in the Wilson case. The issues before the court were not substantially different from those in the Ridgeway case. Both cases involved an attempt by employers to change their collective bargaining machinery. However, the changes penalised trade union members who did not wish to support them.
    It is completely bogus for the Government to portray the amendment as simply declaratory. They might tell that to people outside, but to their Back Benchers they say, "Come along lads, this is another opportunity to put the boot in the trade unions and we expect your support in the Lobby." The Government are trying to have the best of both worlds.
    The hon. Member for Colne Valley attempted to address the idea that the amendment must be supported because it will promote flexibility in the work force. That is also completely bogus. The Opposition do not oppose flexibility. We want industrial relations law that will provide legitimate protection for the rights of individual employees whether or not they are trade union members. The hon. Member for Colne Valley did not address that. There is no reason why any work force or company cannot be flexible and also enjoy legitimate employment protection. The amendment seeks to remove that perfectly legitimate protection from many workers, irrespective of whether they are in a trade union.
    Conservative Members have not addressed the fact that the amendment legitimises and to some extent will encourage and reward the employer who tells his workers, "I have decided to change my collective bargaining machinery. You will either accept the 'benefit' or you will not receive any improvements or amendments to the terms and conditions of your employment."
    The hon. Member for Colne Valley said that he used to be employed by Pepsi-Cola.
    Mr. Riddick: Coca-Cola.
    Mr. Hutton: I have never known the difference between Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola. He also said that he worked for Procter and Gamble and that he decided not to join a trade union. I am willing to bet that he took the benefit of the improvement in terms and conditions that the trade unions negotiated on his behalf. How would he have felt if he had not been given the benefits that trade unions acting on his behalf had negotiated? That is the issue under debate. I am confident that the hon. Gentleman would have been horrified if he had been told by his employer, "We have negotiated improvements in terms and conditions, but, because you are not a member of the relevant trade union, you will not benefit." I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to respond.
    Mr. Riddick: The hon. Gentleman is Missing the point. We are not suggesting that that will happen. The hon.
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    Gentleman argues in favour of the closed shop which says that no employee should enjoy the benefits that have been negotiated with an employer unless he or she is a member of the trade union. Does the hon. Gentleman think that we should have closed shops again?
    Mr. Hutton: I gave way as a courtesy to the hon. Gentleman, but, with hindsight, I have done him no favours. The hon. Gentleman has failed to grasp the point of my argument.
    Amendment No. 8 will have precisely the effect that I have described. An employer will be able to say to particular groups of workers, "You are not part of the collective bargaining procedure that I have established; therefore, you will not enjoy any of the benefits of the resulting negotiations." If the hon. Gentleman has any doubt about that, he should read the transcripts of the Ridgeway case and the Wilson case that have recently been decided in the Appeal Court. That is precisely what happened to Mr. Wilson, and the Appeal Court said that it was unlawful.
    Have I Missed something, or are the Government trying to reverse the impact of the Wilson case? The scenario that the hon. Gentleman said was unlikely is precisely what underlines the amendments.
    The Government's third argument was that collective bargaining matters should be divorced from individual employment rights. That sounds fine, but it is false rhetoric. Whenever we talk about collective bargaining, we are inevitably talking about the individual terms on which workers are employed. That is the point and the substance of collective bargaining. When collective bargaining produces an agreement, it results in changes to the individual employment contracts of the workers concerned.
    It is bogus to say that amendment No. 8 is somehow necessary because we need to separate collective bargaining and individual employment rights. We cannot do that. Anyone who knows anything about industrial relations—and that rules out the hon. Member for Colne Valley—could not possibly make that argument.
    What can, or should, we make of amendment No. 8? It is my view and, I am sure, that of my right hon. Friends that it is a dismal amendment which will encourage discrimination and reward efforts to break up established collective bargaining procedures. Only a perverse Government pursuing an absurd vendetta against trade union members, who everywhere else in Europe are regarded as the social partners, could have possibly tabled such an amendment and come to the House and argued in its favour.
    We should remind ourselves about the claims made for the Bill when it was presented to the House for Second Reading on 17 November 1992. I quote from the speech of the then Secretary of State for Employment:
    "The Bill has two main objectives: first to strengthen and extend the rights of the individual—both individual employees and individual trade union members".
    The second objective is irrelevant to our proceedings today. The right hon. Lady continued:
    "I put it to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras what is unreasonable about allowing trade union members freedom to choose which union they join?".—[Official Report. 17 November 1992; Vol. 214, c. 168–80.]
    It is clear that the amendment underlines the Government's case on both those counts. It is not an

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    improvement in the rights of individual employees, and it clearly strikes directly at the heart of the basic principle which is the substance of our argument.
    Amendment No. 8 undermines workers' rights to join a particular union of their choice. The results of the Wilson case make it obvious that the Government intend to reverse that and take away from individual workers the right to join the union of their choice.
    It may be helpful to the House if we remind ourselves of the Tory election manifesto. I understand there is a debate in the Conservative party about what constitutes a promise. There is an election manifesto and then there is everything that Ministers say afterwards. Apparently, only the manifesto constitutes a promise.
    Let us see what the Conservative election manifesto says about this issue. It says clearly:
    "We will take measures to give individuals greater freedom in choosing a union".
    That looks lovely in principle, but amendment No. 8 runs contrary to that manifesto promise. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Colne Valley has had his opportunity to make his argument and I am afraid that he did not make a very good fist of it. He failed to convince me and, I suspect, anyone else who had the benefit of listening to him. There is no doubt whatsoever that amendment No. 8 will strike at the heart of the freedom of individuals to choose which particular union they join.
    Mr. Riddick: How?
    Mr. Hutton: It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman says, "How?" It is clear that he has not read the Court of Appeal decision in the Wilson case. I have explained to the hon. Gentleman precisely how that will arise. Those in the Wilson case, for example, who choose not to co-operate with a changed collective bargaining procedure and decide to remain in the union of their choice do not get the benefits of any improvements in their terms and conditions of employment. If the hon. Gentleman does not understand that simple point he has problems.
    7.45 pm
    Amendment No. 8 is a partisan and puerile amendment. It will prove to be the source of injustice in the workplace which will scar our industrial relations for many years to come. The Government have said that it is a technical change, but they will let their supporters know that it is more serious.
    I believe that the amendment has been drafted by the pop-eyed fanatics with a bee in their bonnet who occasionally masquerade as Ministers in the Department of Employment. They have no sense of justice, fairness or fair play. It is a purely ideological measure which will strike directly at the conduct of good industrial relations and the individual's right to choose which union to join, which supposedly has underlined the Government's industrial relations programme for many years.
    I now return briefly to my main arguments. The amendment does not clarify the law. The law did not need clarifying as it was quite clear after the Wilson and Ridgeway cases. The amendment changes the law and will permit employers openly to discriminate against trade union members. The employer will need to show an industrial tribunal simply that there is evidence that the employer's purpose was to further a change in his relationship with all or any class of his employees.
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    We also need to remind ourselves that employers are legally free to establish whatever bargaining arrangements they choose and to recognise or derecognise unions as they think fit. Why should they also have the power actively to penalise employees who want to be members of a particular trade union? That is the essence of the amendment.
    The Wilson and Ridgeway cases both involved inter-union rivalry and attempts by employers to resolve bargaining rights that resulted from that. In both cases, the Court of Appeal rightly concluded that workers were being discriminated against financially in the employers' efforts to settle the outstanding disputes about which union should be recognised. That is the point that the hon. Member for Colne Valley failed to address.
    There is quite strong evidence that the amendment does not propose to change the law relating to collective bargaining, so the freedom of an employer to change or alter his collective bargaining procedures has been left intact. Why should the employer have the additional power actively and financially to penalise employees who decide that they do not want to participate in that alteration in the collective bargaining procedure? That claim has nothing to do with flexibility; it is all about imposing a direct financial penalty on employees who fail to co-operate.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: How does my hon. Friend reconcile his point of view with the tendency today for one-union factories? If an individual is allowed to join whichever trade union he wishes, we will return to the old scenario of a multiplicity of trade unions with all the chaos that that can cause.
    Mr. Hutton: My hon. Friend has not followed the precise point I was making. It is legally the case that employees have the right under statute to join any trade union they wish. That right still exists, although a single union agreement may apply in a particular workplace. Why should individual workers be penalised financially if they choose not to be members of a particular trade union with which the employer wishes to negotiate? It is a basic right in a workplace that employees should be entitled to join whatever union they wish, and I would not want my remarks to be construed as contrary to that point.
    If there was any truth in the claim that the amendment was merely declaratory, why did not the Government act earlier? Why did not they act after the Ridgeway decision was announced in 1987, six years ago? Since then, there have been at least two occasions when the Government could have changed the law.
    The second point to which I should refer briefly concerns the. United Kingdom's international legal obligations. Some of my hon. Friends have already referred to the outstanding international law aspects of the amendment, but we need to remind ourselves that at least two international legal instruments have a bearing on our discussions today. One is article 11 of the European convention on human rights, which is a transparent declaration of rights with regard to the freedom of association which I am sure all hon. Members will support.
    Of more immediate relevance is article 1 of the International Labour Organisation convention No. 98 of 1949. It is clear from that convention that the United Kingdom Government is under a legal obligation, enforceable in international law, to respect the right of

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    freedom of association and not to take measures that could be construed as running directly counter to that international obligation.
    What is the value and benefit of an international right if, in order to exercise it, an individual employee experiences some sanction or penalty? That is not a right at all. An employee does not have a right to do something if an employer is allowed actively to penalise or impose some sanction on him.
    It is clear to me, and I suspect that it must be clear to the Government's legal advisers, that there is at least an argument that the Government have acted in a way that is inconsistent with their treaty obligation under convention No. 98. The only decent thing for the Government to do is either to acknowledge that there has been some mistake or to deratify or de-sign the United Kingdom from that International Labour Organisation convention. I bet that before too long that is precisely what the Government will do. If they do that, they will be the only Government since 1949 to deratify that convention—what an epitaph on the Government's tombstone.
    Thirdly, it is worth pointing out that the amendment is badly drafted. It simply says that there must be evidence that the employer's purpose was within paragraph (a). There is no hint in the amendment about what kind of evidence there should be, its strength or quality, or anything at all about the merits of the employer's argument. There must simply be evidence that the employer's purpose was that specified in paragraph (a).
    Conservative Members who wish to paint a rosy picture of the amendment should be clear that if an employer is presenting an argument under paragraph (a), it is only because there is also evidence that the employer is discriminating against an employee because of his or her membership of a particular union. That is the context in which any argument about the employer's purpose has to be deployed before an industrial tribunal. It has to be the case that in the absence of that argument the employer's case would fail; it would be regarded as illegal. Therefore, we must be clear that the amendment is set in the context of clear evidence of discrimination against an employee on the ground of his trade union membership.
    The House needs to look carefully at the amendment. It should he conscious of our obligations under international law and of our obligations to act fairly, with common sense and with a sense of fair play with regard to the employment rights of individual workers. If the House reaches a decision from those two perspectives, it can only reject the amendment.
    Mr. Heald: I am grateful to have the opportunity to make a short contribution. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is absent, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who is present, on their recent appointments and I wish them well during the coming years.
    Mr. David Winnick,: The hon. Gentleman speaks for himself.
    Mr. Heald: I am told that I speak for myself, but I think that I speak for the Conservative party and Conservative Members in expressing those sentiments.
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    The amendment is necessary for two reasons: first, to clarify the law and, secondly, to enable employers to have bargaining arrangements with employees which suit the needs of the workplace.
    It has been said that the legal position was clear before the decisions in the Court of Appeal. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have practised in this area of the law for many years. Companies have sought advice from me on these issues. There were contentions on both sides. It is right, as was said earlier by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), that somebody of the stamp of John Hendy QC is a force to be reckoned with. He had a point of view which he expressed in the Court of Appeal and he succeeded. But it is equally true that Patrick Elias QC, an eminent silk in this area, the editor of "Harvey on Industrial Relations Law", the established text, took a completely different viewpoint, argued it and lost. It is wrong to say that in those circumstances, with eminent lawyers putting forward arguable viewpoints on both sides, the law is as clear as day. That is hindsight writ large.
    Mr. John Denham: Would the hon. Gentleman therefore argue that in every case ever heard in the Court of Appeal where barristers are found to argue for both sides the law must be in doubt?
    Mr. Heald: That is not what I am saying and I think that the hon. Gentleman realises that.
    The point in this case, which I shall amplify in a moment, is that the industrial tribunal, with an experienced tribunal chairman and experienced lay members who listen to detailed argument from experienced lawyers, came to one conclusion. The matter then went to the employment appeal tribunal, which has a High Court judge who deals with such cases every day of the week, flanked by members of great eminence, including senior trade union leaders whom we all remember from years back, eminent employers and so on. They heard the arguments and decided the case in a completely different way.
    Both the industrial tribunal and the employment appeal tribunal said in this case that the decisions were difficult to make. The matter then went to the Court of Appeal which made a decision which is the current state of the law. There may be a further appeal to the other place, and who knows what the result of that would be in this case? But it is worth saying that the House has the opportunity to clarify the law tonight, and why should that not be done?
    Mr. Clapham: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Ridgeway v. British Coal case in 1987, when John Hendy represented the union, clarified the law and since 1987 the law has been clear? Does he further agree that that clarity was added to by the two cases that were heard in the Court of Appeal?
    Mr. Heald: If the hon. Gentleman allows me to develop my argument, I shall deal with that point.
    The point about collective agreements is that they are not legally enforceable. When in the 1970s the Government offered to make them legally enforceable the offer was flatly rejected on both sides of industry. A collective agreement which sets out a bargaining arrangement can be part of the individual's contract of employment only if it is incorporated in it, and usually it is not.

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    There has been a series of cases, of which Alexander v. STC is probably the most recent. where it was held that provisions of collective agreements that deal with bargaining machinery and such issues are not part of the individual's contract of employment. That thrust of the law has been there for 20 or 30 years. It is part of the background to what we are discussing tonight and cannot be ignored.
    It was thought of section 23 of the 1978 Act that the words
    "action … taken against him as an individual"
    meant that the action had to be concentrated on the individual's position rather than being an action that could be described as collective. It was thought that derecognising the union, taking away collective bargaining arrangements, was an action more properly directed at the union rather than the individual. Therefore, in a leading text—"Harvey on Industrial Relations Law" in fact—headed:
    "Taken against him as an individual"
    it says:
    "This requirement raises a fundamental question as to the nature of the action taken by the employer—was it collective (ie against the union itself) or individual? Action against the union that merely affects the individual as a member would not be within this section."
    Hon. Members have criticised those of us who have advised companies—and individuals, I hasten to add—on the provision over the past few years. We have been in some doubt about what the law actually is.
    The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) mentioned the 1987 National Coal Board case, in which the Union of Democratic Mineworkers received a higher pay award than the National Union of Mineworkers. I am not sure that NUM members received any increase in money at all, hut, if they did, it was much less than the amount received by UDM members. It was argued then that to pay a worker less because he was a member of a particular trade union was unlawful, under section 23 of the 1978 Act. Those who advanced that argument, however, did not go on to consider circumstances in which a union had been derecognised and the employer wanted to introduce individual contracts providing for such matters as profit-related pay and profit sharing.
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    It was thought at that time that if an employer was introducing a contract that was more beneficial than the existing contract in terms of pay and conditions, no one could argue that employees who did not accept that contract were being penalised under section 23. It was said by lawyers that they were simply not receiving an advantage received by others. No doubt that is a very legalistic approach. Decisions made in the Court of Appeal have taken the interpretation of the law a stage further; before April this year, no cases existed that decided these issues.
    I have mentioned the case involving the NUM and the UDM. The Armitage case—which has also been mentioned—clearly demonstrated that a union member had been punished for involving a union representative in a dispute with his employer; the references to the judgments involved are also very clear. What was not decided, however, was what happened when one group of employees received a payment and another group was not
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    given a specific punishment. The effect of those judgments has been quite different from what was expected by many in the legal profession.
    I am not saying that the Court of Appeal was wrong to make the decisions that it made in interpreting the law; any lawyer would accept that it has made its ruling. The House of Lords may decide the question on some future occasion, but why should we wait, when we have the opportunity to clarify the law and reach a conclusion tonight about its correct interpretation? It is unlikely, but perhaps the Opposition will triumph, leaving us with the judgment of the Court of Appeal and awaiting that of the House of Lords. What is more likely is that Conservative Members will back an amendment that clarifies the law, in the interests of both workers and employers.
    One of the developments that set the 1980s apart was the change in a number of aspects of the workplace—a change for the better, in my view. Suddenly, unions were prepared to reach single-union deals. I do not think that many people genuinely believe that those deals were not in the interests of the workers. Surely they were preferable to deals made by a group of unions which might not always agree among themselves, and which did not always represent the workers as effectively. I think that they were a tremendous success.
    Mr. Alan Meale: What about the closed shop?
    Mr. Heald: I will not reply to sedentary interventions.
    No one could say that workers in, for instance, the Honda factory in Swindon, where individual contracts operate, do not enjoy excellent terms and conditions.
    Mr. Etherington: Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on the following circumstances? Individual employees have been balloted at their workplace, and have decided on a particular trade union, only to find later that their employer has imposed another union on them against their will. Is that the hon. Gentleman's understanding of democracy?
    Mr. Heald: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the point. One of the problems in this country is the chaotic nature of the union movement. I hesitate to criticise it in the presence of so many of its members, but a large number of unions are competing with each other for membership. One of the great advantages of the single-union deal was that at least it brought some common sense into the workplace.
    Mr. Etherington rose—
    Mr. Heald: I do not accept the argument that the hon. Gentleman is probably about to advance—that giving trade unionists freedom to choose which union to join conflicts with single-union deals. The point about such deals is that it is known which union is recognised; it does the dealing, and the end result is generally in the interests of the workers.
    Mr. Etherington: How does the hon. Gentleman square his opinion with the fact that, when a single-union deal was struck in the coal industry, a Conservative Government sought to involve another union of their creation, which they sustained and nourished—the scab union that has the nerve to call itself a union, although I do not class it as one? The Government say that single-union deals must be good: that they have created

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    harmony from chaos. Yet they were responsible for effectively trying to destroy a single-union agreement in the mining industry, in much the same way as they are now destroying the industry itself.
    Mr. Heald: I could hide behind the argument that British Coal—although it has not yet been privatised—is an independent body, a corporation which makes its own decisions; but I do not think I need do that. Some Conservative Members—I am certainly one—admire the way in which UDM members stood up for common sense and decency during that long strike. I know that the hon. Gentleman will not agree, but I am glad that they were given the opportunity to play a role in the coal industry. I believe that, even now, they are presenting some of the more imaginative proposals for the industry's future—far more imaginative than those of the NUM, whose policies seem to belong to the dark ages. I do not accept that the old, NUM-style union leaders are making the most genuine, cutting-edge contributions.
    The old-fashioned, dinosaur trade union leaders often say that all the Acts passed during the 1980s should be repealed; but do Opposition Members really want to return to the days of flying pickets, secondary action and all the nonsense of the show of hands at the factory gate? We have got rid of all that, and I believe that, in general, the Labour party agrees with what we were doing two or three years ago, at any rate. It is a pity that there cannot be more consensus about where we are going.
    Companies want single-union deals and individual contracting because they want to be able to compete. They are just like you and me. It is a breath of fresh air to visit some of the modern workplaces and see what is being done there; indeed, it shows us the future. I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House should go and look at those projects, and see the future. I believe that they should support initiatives that bring such features of British industry closer to being the norm.
    We face threats from the Pacific rim—
    Ms Eagle: We are hearing about the Pacific rim again. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that we must compete with the lowest of the low, on what are almost slave wages, to have an industry in the future? Or does he think that we should create a floor of provision so that we can compete on quality rather than slave wages?
    Mr. Heald: I am about to visit Taiwan and Japan to see for myself. I do not claim to have personal knowledge of it. What I have read and what I have heard as a member of the Employment Select Committee from the Japanese, Taiwanese and others who have come to visit us to give evidence is that they have rising wage rates. They have high-tech industries and modern, individual contracting arrangements such as those I have described. They are leading the way to the future.
    It may be that some countries in the Pacific rim still have low wages, but not all of them have. We are competing against countries with high levels of skill and the wide range of instruments that are needed in order to be a successful modern economy. The time has come for a shake-up on the Labour Benches. The question is not whether we should have derecognition or recognition of trade unions for bargaining, but whether we recognise what the future requires so that we can move forward and
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    put Britain back to where it should be as one of the top manufacturing countries in the world. We can do that if we act together in the interests of the nation.
    Ms Eagle: Before making any comments on the amendment, I remind the House that when the Bill was in Committee I declared an interest as a member of the Confederation of Health Service Employees. I am also sponsored by that union. That does not mean any personal financial remuneration, but a small amount of money is paid to my constituency party every year. I am COHSE sponsored because I believe in principle that membership of trade unions is a good thing and that having an active trade union movement, unencumbered by vindictive laws, is a sign of freedom in a society and is something that we should all desire.
    The background to the Lords amendment is the Government's labour market policy over the past 14 years. There has been much fine and interesting shadow boxing today, mainly between lawyers, about what is at stake. What is at stake is the balance of power in industrial relations. Over the past 14 years the Government have had at their heart the desire to deregulate the labour market. They have tried to do that because it fosters exploitation, lowers wages, allows arbitrary treatment and insecurity at work and provides no knowledge of whether there will be a set contract even within a few months.
    Mr. Heald: I listened to what the hon. Lady said about the balance of power in industry. She made it sound very adversarial. Will she accept that in the best and most modern plants there is a team effort and everybody works together? They do not have a confrontational approach. Has she visited factories where that is true?
    Ms Eagle: Of course, the best industrial relations is a team effort, where it occurs. Unfortunately, the way in which the Government have changed the law, together with some of their other economic policies, has encouraged and spread bad employment practices.
    We have had six punishing and vindictive Acts of Parliament which have institutionalised discrimination against trade unions. That is unprecedented in western democracies, and it is a record of which I believe any totalitarian regime would be proud. The economic policy pursued by the Government has been so disastrous that it has led to mass unemployment on a scale not experienced since the 1930s. People who say that individual employees have a choice and can leave a job must remember how constrained that choice is when they are unlikely to obtain another job because of the bad state of the economy.
    The Government's ambition is to turn us into the sweat shop of Europe. They have made their refusal to sign the social chapter and guarantee working people decent pay and conditions into some sort of perverted virtue whereas it is a barbaric disgrace. The Government have abolished many employment protections and failed to create a framework of law which will impose responsibilities on employers to treat their work force decently. It is against that background that the amendment must be judged.
    I believe that the weakening and destruction of trade unions has been central to the Government's political aims since 1979. The Lords amendment, which is an opportunistic amendment, and was suddenly perceived as such when the Court of Appeal made its judgment and the Bill happened still to be in the Lords, is a massive

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    escalation of the assault on trade union rights. It is an assault on not only collective but individual trade union rights.
    The Government's methods and motives in this matter have been extremely cynical and beneath contempt. No other democracy would contemplate overturning a court decision so quickly, with no consultation, before the judgment was published in its written form and before all legal action in the cases concerned had been completed. We have a higher court so that it can make final judgments on such matters. The Government are so contemptuous of the rule of law and the courts that they go ahead with their ideological bigotry before the Law Lords have had a chance to sit.
    On 30 April the Court of Appeal made its judgment. On 6 May the amendment was announced in the House of Lords. It was published on 20 May—a Thursday—and on the Monday the House of Lords was asked to sit in judgment on the new clause, which had come out of the blue. After 90 minutes of debate, the clause was carried.
    8.15 pm
    The amendment is a blatant abuse of parliamentary procedures simply because, as was said earlier, the Third Reading had already taken place. Extremely unusual tactics had to be pursued in order to fit the amendment in while the Bill was in the other place. It is immoral because it gives the green light to victimisation in the workplace. It is a serious attack on the freedom of association. It is important to remember how Hannah Arendt, that great writer about totalitarianism, defined what is meant by that term. She explained that one of the conditions that needs to exist in a totalitarian regime was what she called "atomisation". That means the isolation of individuals and the derogation of collective rights. What we have here is a precise example of atomisation.
    The amendment is probably illegal. As has been mentioned, it is certainly against many of our international obligations. It is probably against article 118 of the treaty of Rome—I thought that the Government were pro-Europe. It is against the International Labour Organisation convention on freedom of association, and, as has also been pointed out, it is against the European convention on human rights. Did the Government check on any of that in their hurry to push the amendment through in the other place?
    During the debate in the other place, Earl Russell asked Viscount Ullswater whether he had taken advice on whether the amendment was contrary to European law. Viscount Ullswater said:
    "We do not believe that there is any infringement of any international obligations."
    Puzzled by that answer, Earl Russell again asked whether that opinion was based on any legal advice. Viscount Ullswater said:
    "I should have to take advice upon that."
    Clearly there was confusion.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: I am sure that the hon. Lady would not want to misrepresent my hon. and noble Friend Viscount Ullswater. Later in the debate, in answer to a question from the noble Lord Russell, my noble Friend said:
    "the Government have not taken legal advice outside Government on the matter. However, the Government are satisfied that there is nothing in the amendment which is in
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    breach of our EC or other international obligations."— [Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993; Vol. 546, c. 42–51.]
    If the hon. Lady has read the debate, I am puzzled why she is not making that position clear to the House.
    Ms Eagle: The Opposition have slightly less faith in the Government's ability to take their own legal advice and in the quality of that advice when it is taken. Doubtless the time will come when that assertion will be checked in the international courts.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Is that legal advice the same as that which backed up the viscount, as reported on 6 May? Viscount Ullswater said that the House of Lords should welcome the fact that
    "the Government intend to clarify an area of law which has been thrown into confusion by the Court of Appeal's decision".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 May 1993; Vol. 545, c. 862.]
    It seems that we have returned to the position whereby the law is what the Government want it to be after the fact rather than their saying in advance what they hope it will be and changing the law if the Court of Appeal disagrees with them.
    Ms Eagle: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his observation. The one thing that is certain is the fact that the Court of Appeal was sure about what the law should be when it made its unanimous decision on 30 April.
    In practice, the amendment will allow bribery and coercion of individuals to sign away their rights in the workplace. Its purpose is to remove the very raison d'etre of trade unions and hope that they will wither away as a result. The Court of Appeal agrees and found that the only purpose of paying non-union members a differential was to penalise people for being members of a trade union. The aim of the amendment is indirectly to abolish trade unions. I believe that that is the Government's motivation.
    What protection will there be from the abuse of employers' power and from the arbitrary imposition of different terms and conditions of work? What protection is there for the individual in the workplace if the amendment is accepted? The only thing that is worse than the amendment and the intention behind it is the Government's display of Orwellian double-speak in their cynical attempt to justify their outrageous decision to introduce amendment No. 8 in the first place.
    First, the Government denied that the amendment meant a change in the law. Indeed, the Secretary of State was at that trick again today. The Government said that the amendment is a clarification, but I believe that that notion has been comprehensively dealt with by my colleagues. Clearly, it is a serious change in the law.
    Secondly, the Government have said that a new management right is elucidated to decide exactly how management wants to negotiate with its staff. They talk a great deal about relations between employers and their staff, but the way in which they define those relations is almost like those between master and slave. The employer can do anything that he or she wants as long as it is in the workplace, and the staff have to put up with it or go. That does not lead to a good, active economic regime in a modern civilised economy.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: The hon. Lady has been studying the record of debates in another place. Will she respond to

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    the point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the Labour Government's position in 1975? Lord Jacques said:
    "Clause 45"—
    as it was—
    "deals with individual rights of employees, not collective bargaining issues … By giving the individual employee a right to take part in his unions' activities unimpeded, Clause 45 does not require an employer to recognise his union or treat with it in any way."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 September 1975; Vol. 364, c. 189.]
    The position as enunciated by the Labour Government appears to be that which the hon. Lady is attacking.
    Ms Eagle: The Minister of State must not read quotations out of context. The debate on 25 September 1975 was in answer to the Earl of Gowrie who had tabled an amendment to the effect that such protections should apply only where there was recognition of the union, which puts the entire debate in a wholly different perspective. That should be borne in mind.
    I am anxious to conclude and allow other hon. Members to speak. In Tory double-speak, denying a pay rise to a trade union member is not victimisation but allowing the employer to achieve an organisational or strategic purpose. The people of this country know precisely what is behind the Government's outrageous behaviour. Unless amendment No. 8 is thrown out and treated with the contempt it deserves, the people of Britain will realise exactly how the law is being used, and they will punish the Government for it.
    Mr. Boyce: Anybody listening to our debate would get the impression that the Tories are the workers' friends, but nothing could be further from the truth. There has been much wringing of hands today. One Conservative Member, who I understand has had to leave the Chamber to take a telephone call, said that we want more consensus politics. I wonder where he has lived for the past 14 years. Under Baroness Thatcher, consensus was a word which would not have dared utter its name in the House or elsewhere. Consensus politics went out of the window.
    We are encouraged to believe that the amendment will lead to better protection and higher wages. One Conservative Member said that it is not about lower wages but higher wages—talk about the moon being made of blue cheese. If Conservative Members were honest, they would perhaps agree with the Foreign Secretary, who said on Radio FM that Britain would have to compete with the Tamils before we succeed in the market. I have the tape of the broadcast if anybody wants to borrow it—for example, the Minister of State.
    The honest Conservative Members spoke about the least possible employee protection. If the Government were being honest, we would he discussing the abolition of trade unions because that is their final intention. Where do we go from here? One of Lady Thatcher's most praised successes was the reform of the trade unions, so why is there a need for the amendment? It is not merely to clarify the law which, in any event, is the role of the courts. We are the lawmakers and the courts interpret what we say, although perhaps not what we intended to say. The amendment is clearly a change in the law and anyone who says otherwise is not being truthful.
    I should have declared an interest at the beginning of my speech. I am proud to be a member of and sponsored
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    by the Amalgamated Engineering Union. My union was in the forefront of single union deals. I may have reservations about such deals, but they appear to be successful in many cases. What will happen if an employer can arbitrarily change the union with which he or she is negotiating without consultation? Where does that leave the employee if he decides that he wants to belong to another trade union? I could be cynical and say that I shall join the Association of First Division Civil Servants first thing tomorrow morning. I am sure that I would be welcomed within the ranks of the civil service.
    I know that other hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall conclude by returning to something I said earlier. The Bill is another step towards the derecognition and abolition of trade unions by the Government. They would admit that if they were honest. They began by banning trade unions at GCHQ. To pile agony on agony, is not it ironic that a person who injures himself and earns more than £60 a week will be refused legal aid whereas, under this legislation, anyone can challenge a trade union's decision to take industrial action or any decision that he believes will affect him personally? He has only to take the matter up with Jill Rowlands, the Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members, and he will be given almost a blank cheque to pursue the union in the courts. How does that square with the democratic rights of ordinary trade unionists?
    Finally, somebody will have to tell us where the case law on equal pay for work of equal value stands now. If paying non-trade unionists more than trade unionists for the same work is not a change in law, somebody had better explain why. Somebody had better get an answer to that question quickly.
    8.30 pm
    Mrs. Alice Mahon: Whatever protests Conservative Members may make, a vital freedom is under threat from the amendment—the right freely to associate and to join in collective bargaining. The Court of Appeal was absolutely clear, and I see no confusion in its judgments. In both cases, it found that a kind of bribery was being offered, which had only one purpose—to penalise people for being members of trade unions and to deter them from remaining members. The judges spoke with great clarity when they decided that the employers' object was to reduce the power of the unions, and that such anti-union discrimination was unlawful.
    I read an article by Hugo Young of The Guardian about the court cases, in which he talked about
    "a shameful saga, showing up a politically sick society".
    I disagree with only one word of that —the word "society". I would replace it with the word "Government".
    When moving his amendment in the other place, Lord Ullswater said that the position after the judgment both of the employment appeal tribunal and of the Court of Appeal was unsatisfactory. We must ask, unsatisfactory for whom? Was it unsatisfactory for employers, who have friends in government, who want to break international law and who do not want to conform to international standards? Most of us here think that that is the truth. Of course, the amendment represents a change in the law, and it is extremely cynical to pretend otherwise. It is yet another attack on trade unions, intended to deter people from joining. The Government's objectives are clear, and they cannot hide them with all the clever "lawyerspeak"

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    that we have heard in the debate. The amendment is designed to ensure that the rights of employers to discriminate against trade unionists are solid. Everybody recognises that. The so-called dispassionate legal gobbledegook uttered by the Secretary of State does not fool anyone on the Opposition side of the House.
    I add my voice to those who have objected to the underhand way in which the amendment was sneaked into the House of Lords. It was drafted without consultation and rushed through at the last possible moment. That was a typically sneaky and cynical manoeuvre from a totally unprincipled Government.
    Trade unions are an essential part of a democracy. They are the only organisations that stand between ordinary working people and the untrammelled power of business and government. Business interests and employers have massive representation in the House and elsewhere. We all know about the secret funding by wealthy individuals and the company donations that keep the Tory party afloat and influence Tory policies. The amendment is just another example of that influence. Asil Nadir was no exception; the history of the Tory party is riddled with scandal. By contrast, trade unions are open about their support for Labour, and their members are consulted at every level.
    Over the past 14 years, there have been many pieces of legislation, every one of which has been aimed at seriously weakening trade unions and the way in which they represent working people in the workplace. The measure before us is the most pernicious of all. It is almost certainly in breach of International Labour Organisation regulations and of European legislation. No reporting and quoting Lord Ullswater will remove that fact, which will emerge again in the future.
    The Government argument that the amendment secures the right of employers to negotiate with their staff is clearly nonsense. Of course employers will flock to offer extra money to induce staff to surrender their right to union representation, because that will pay off. It will help to weaken the unions further, and once the unions are completely ineffective in bargaining, the employer will move in and pay any kind of wages and impose any kind of conditions. Inducement not to join a union will leave many employees unprotected and, of course, it will seriously weaken trade unions.
    The amendment would make it legal to victimise trade unions. It is a change in the law designed to legalise victimisation, and the Government know it. I agree with many of my hon. Friends that the next step will be to outlaw trade union membership altogether. This is a sad day for democracy, and the measure is certainly a betrayal of justice and of working people in this country.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: In view of what I have heard in the debate, I wish to make a brief contribution.
    Lords amendment No. 8 brings the law into line with what I have always assumed it to be, and I used to be a practitioner in company and in employment law. Indeed, during the 1980s I spent much time advising employers on how they could remove themselves and their employees from the shackles of old and dusty collective agreements and local house agreements, and transform the working and legal relationship into one based on individual contracts. We went about doing that in the 1980s in exactly the same way in which the amendment envisages that it
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    can be done. For all the right sound commercial reasons, the relationship between employer and employee was transformed.
    As we look round at the industrial and commercial landscape in the 1990s, we find that in many companies the reforms of the 1980s have freed up working relationships, so that rather than having to go through a trade union intermediary and negotiate on every nut and bolt, every working practice, employers and employees now talk to each other. Instead of local and national agreements, many provisions of which were not known to people locally, employers now get round the table with employees and talk about what is required in the firm. That is happening up and down the land, whether Opposition Members recognise it or not.
    Over the past 10 to 14 years, employees have benefited from better working relationships with employers than they had in days gone by. I argue strongly that what has happened as a result of Conservative trade union legislation has been to the benefit of many employees. I talk to a lot of people employed in all sorts of companies and businesses, and they appreciate having the freedom to communicate with employees and to have the kind of individual contracts of employment that can reward merit rather than rewards being locked away in collective bonuses and other agreements.
    As I said at the beginning of my speech, the amendment simply reflects the law as I have always assumed it to be. Employers have the right to sit down with employees and to change the terms and conditions of employment, without in any sense discriminating against trade union members. We must ask ourselves: does the amendment prevent anyone from joining a trade union? The answer is no, it does not. Does it deal at all with the issue of employers recognising trade unions? No. That is entirely a matter for the employer to decide in consultation with his work force.
    We are seeing on the Opposition Benches some of the ritual war dances that we have seen over the years. It saddens me enormously that lessons have not been learnt from the past 14 years. It is especially poignant that, as we debate the issue tonight, I understand that the management of Timex have now decided to close the factory because of the intransigence of trade unions in that locality.
    Mr. John McAllion: If the hon. Gentleman had any knowledge of the real situation in Dundee he would know that the factory is closing down because of the intransigence of its management, which from the very beginning has refused to negotiate. Indeed, it manoeuvred the workers outside the factory gates so that it could use Tory employment laws to sack the entire trade union work force and bring in non-union workers. But those macho tactics did not work. What we are presented with today is the sweetener approach, which it is thought will have the desired effect of doing away with trade unions and the collective rights of workers.
    Mr. Streeter: Last night, I saw trade union officials leaving a hotel in Scotland, having spoken to management. They were saying that management had said that if the dispute continued, there would be a real prospect of its having to close the factory, that there would be no alternative. The interviewer asked the trade union officials, "Does this mean that you are going to change your

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    position?" and was told, "Oh no, we will fight to the end." What a sad indictment. They have indeed fought to the end—the end of their members' jobs—and I hope that they are proud.
    Mr. Heald: Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation is governed not just by the employment laws of the 1980s? The old common law of England—
    Mr. McAllion: What about Scotland?
    Mr. Heald: The old common law of England, Wales and Scotland has always provided that if workers go on strike, the employer is entitled to dismiss them. Employers have always been able to take such action, just as workers have always been able to strike.
    Mr. Streeter: My hon. Friend makes a very valuable point. That has been the law for many generations, and it must continue to be the cornerstone of employment legislation.
    I have said all that I want to say. The amendment clarifies the law as being what it has always been intended to be. In the long term, it will benefit management and employees and will facilitate modern industrial relations.
    8.45 pm
    Mr. Denham: We have heard much about the niceties of the law and the history of the situation. I should like to put on record what happened in one of the test cases.
    The case concerning Associated British Ports in Southampton led to the judgment that resulted in this hurried amendment. It is a case that any reasonable person would describe as demonstrating unfair, unreasonable and unjust company conduct, leading to action in the Court of Appeal. The company set out to get rid of the union organisation. It offered the workers personal contracts, which required, in addition to the surrender of union recognition, the introduction of more flexible patterns of work. Three members of the union—Brian Stedman, Eddie Wyeth and Terry Palmer—said that they wanted to have continued union recognition. Those who maintained that position, following union negotiation with the company, were offered a pay increase of 8·9 per cent. Those who signed the personal contracts received an increase of 22 per cent. That is the root of this case.
    We have heard much from Conservative Members about management's need for flexibility. The personal contracts to which I have just referred included more flexible patterns of work. The three men who resisted, standing out for union recognition, said that they were absolutely committed to adoption of the same flexible working patterns as the ones included in the personal contracts. In other words, the flexibility being sought by management was on offer. The management's only reason for pursuing the case through the Court of Appeal was that it was determined to break union organisation in the port. The argument that these moves are necessary for the achievement of management flexibility are therefore refuted absolutely.
    It is a sad fact that, over the years, the port of Southampton has been a place of industrial confrontation. Unfortunately, the management there has never been able to develop the co-operative and inclusive style of management that we have heard described so glowingly by
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    Conservative Members. Within the past few months a port company—part-owned by ABP, which funds the activities of at least one hon. Member, and P and 0, which gives money to the Conservative party—sought to impose new working practices on a unionised part of the port and, at the same time, recruited a secret strike-breaking force to come in and take jobs on the outbreak of the predicted industrial action. But the industrial action did not break out, as the unions agreed to the changes in working practices for which the company had been asking. The company changed the rules again, in a further attempt to provoke industrial action and justify locking people out, as, tragically, has happened in Dundee. The truth is that management gets the type of trade unionism that it deserves. Confrontational management produces robust trade unionism, but trade unions are always blamed for the type of response.
    This country faces a clear choice about the way in which it should go in industrial relations. In Britain, there are intelligent, co-operative, far-sighted managers who recognise the importance of developing team work, of providing information to their employees, of involving people in decisions and of producing a modern and effective industrial sector. However, there is also a brutal and stupid class of management which believes in keeping the work force in the dark, in leading only from the top and in ruling by fear and insecurity. The significance of this amendment is that the Government are throwing in their lot with the latter, backward-looking, section of British industrial management. Far from promoting and backing those managers who want to work with the work force and with trade unions, to provide information, to let people in on plans and know about the difficulties and the challenges so that they may be tackled in unity, the Government have come down decisively on the side of those who say that managers should sit in their offices and send out directives and that those who do not like it can lump it.
    This amendment will not be exploited by good and far-sighted managers. They do not need it, as they do not run their organisations in such a way as to need it. The amendment will be exploited by the worst British managers for the worst reasons—the worst reasons not just for the workers, but for the country as a whole. Thus it is highly significant. It is a great shame, but not a surprise, that the Government have thrown their lot in with such people and given the wrong message to people in British industry.
    Mr. Clapham: I should like, at the outset, to declare an interest. I am a member of the National Union of Mineworkers, and I am proud to be sponsored by my union.
    Over the past 14 years the Conservative Government have put on the statute book six major pieces of legislation in this field. Each of them attacks trade union rights. The legislation has made it difficult for trade unions to operate, but it stops short of actually outlawing or penalising union membership. This amendment changes all that. If it is accepted, it will be lawful for an employer to pay a trade unionist more than another worker doing the same job in return either for relinquishing his union membership or for accepting bargaining arrangements with another trade union. That is a major change in the law, and it cannot be right.
    Clearly the amendment makes it lawful to offer a bribe. A worker is bribed for the purpose of inducing him to

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    leave the union that he chose to join. It therefore imposes action short of dismissal on those who stay with the union of their choice. It is clear that such action taken by an employer to induce workers to leave the union of their choice is intended to deter or prevent individuals from joining or remaining in the union of their choice. There is no doubt that the amendment has been introduced because of the recent Court of Appeal judgment in two cases—Associated Newspapers Limited v. Wilson and Associated British Ports and others. That judgment was not what the Government wanted. They therefore decided to change the law.
    I believe that another motive behind the amendment is to give the employer the right to choose the trade union that he considers his employees should join. That was made plain by Viscount Ullswater in the other place:
    "An employer may … wish to alter his bargaining arrangements. He may … offer incentives to encourage employees to accept a new arrangement where a certain trade union does not negotiate terms on their behalf."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993; Vol. 1567, c. 97.]
    The emphasis —"a certain trade union"—is important. That means that if, for example, an employer finds that his employees are in a trade union which bargains hard, or which vigorously pursues health and safety issues on the shop floor, or which robustly follows through common law damages claims, he can seek to transfer the bargaining arrangements to a union that he regards as less vigorous. Under the amendment, he could claim reasonableness in the sense that his action related to the commercial viability of his concern—that he was changing the bargaining arrangements merely to reduce his insurance premiums. The amendment thus brings about a major change in the law.
    The proposal is a shabby device to set in motion a procedure to impose the employer's will on the work force. Despite the assurances of the Secretary of State, it constitutes a change in the law, and I urge Conservative Members to consider very seriously, and to uphold, the rights of individual trade unionists by voting against it.
    Mr. Etherington: I am proud to declare my interest as a member, since 1957, of what was then the Amalgamated Engineering Union and as a member of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1963 to the present. I am sponsored by the National Union of Mineworkers. I am quite willing to let anyone know the extent of that sponsorship and I am very proud of it. There is nothing secret; everything is quite transparent.
    I was interested to note that, in seeking to justify his support for Lords amendment No. 8, the Secretary of State repeatedly referred to the need for "clarity" and "clarification". I had always understood that one sought clarity and clarification when something was opaque, not when it was transparent. If ever anything has been transparent it has been the Government's manoeuvrings in seeking to strengthen the rights and powers of employers against those whom they have the privilege to employ.
    I have never been and have never wanted to be a pedantic lawyer, although I have great respect for the legal profession and, indeed, for hon. Members with a legal background. As we talked of the various sections and subsections of legislation going back as far as 1975—and even, on one occasion, as far as 1908—it crossed my mind that it was rather unfortunate that we were spending so much time discussing the law, as this is not a legal but a
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    political matter. It is about power—and, in particular, about the creation of more power for the Government's supporters, at their request.
    It was interesting to hear the differing views that were advanced about what the relationship between employers and employees should be. I agree that, in an ideal world, it would be nice to achieve consensus. I have had the pleasure for many years of working in an industry—in fact, in more than one industry —where, for most of the time, there was consensus. I was pleased to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley). I hope that he will not be offended if I say that much of what he said reminded me of the attitude that Lloyd George took during the Liberal Government of 1906, when he supported the rights of employees on many occasions. I say that as a compliment to the hon. Gentleman.
    I was interested, too, to hear that the hon. Member for Eltham is a member of the Institute of Personnel Management. In the rather better days before 1979, I attended a diploma course on industrial relations at Durham university at which I rubbed shoulders with personnel managers of firms with which I had nothing to do. We used to discuss something that I never hear mentioned now—pluralism. The hon. Member for Eltham understands that concept well. Pluralism is fairly simple: it means that the employer has a right to look after his interests and that those who work for him have a right to look after theirs. That is a basic human right that the Government seem to be seeking to destroy.
    That philosophy applied for many years in this country. Many Governments—even on this occasion, Conservative Governments—have introduced legislation that has improved the rights of workers in relation to their employers. I am talking not about their individual rights, but about their rights at the workplace and in relation to their employer. Conservative Governments have introduced such improvements, although one has to go back quite a number of years to find examples. In case any member of the Government should be interested in the subject, may I recommend a book called "The History of British Trade Unionism", written by Henry Pelling, from which they will learn how pluralism developed.
    Under that system, if a reasonable equation was arrived at between the rights of employers and the rights of their employees and if each was able to look after his own interests, conflicts could be resolved where they arose. We have seen that happen under various Governments—particularly in wartime, when we had compulsory arbitration and the protection of employment and so on—and it worked. For most of my teenage years and, indeed, for 20 years thereafter, I lived in a society that recognised that fact. Since 1979, however, all that has changed. I find it appalling that the Government, in the six pieces of employment legislation that they have introduced —which have been referred to extensively—have referred only to improvements in the individual rights of trade union members. "Improving that right in relation to whom?", one asks. Machinery can be set whereby anyone who has a complaint against his union and decides not to use the democratic means within that union can get redress and get legal aid. People can act against the trade union of which they are a member, but not against their employer. I defy Conservative Members to point to one piece of legislation that has been passed since they came to power that would fit those criteria. The Government have gone out of their way to look after the interests of those who

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    sponsor them, all the time trying to give the impression that they are being even-handed and looking after the rights of the individual.
    9 pm
    The Government do not seem to understand—or perhaps they understand only too well—that individual rights within a collective remain individual rights. They cannot be separated. We cannot overlook the many years in Britain which were prosperous for the country and for near-full employment. People were working full time and while there were bound to be disparities between wage rates, the vast majority of people were content in their jobs.
    The Conservatives would argue that through those years the trade unions had too much power. That is not borne out by the facts. Trade union members have rights across the spectrum of life—affecting housing, the law and so on—but, unfortunately, the least rights they have affect their very trade unionism. Their trade union rights are among the poorest in the European Community.
    We have heard much about the rights of collectives in Japan. We have been told for years how marvellous the Japanese system is. It cannot be that good, or the British Government would have given trade unionists in this country the same rights as their counterparts in Japan.
    The debate is not about the amendment but about a Government who are paranoid over the so-called power of trade unions. They are desperate to ensure that, whenever there is conflict between employer and employee, they side with the employer, regardless of the circumstances of the case. We have seen that time and again since 1979. I have yet to hear a Minister say that an employer is wrong and a trade union is right.
    Labour Members are constantly taunted about the relationship between our party and the trade union movement. I regard it as a healthy, open relationship which allows people to have their say and in which democracy prevails. Conservative Members are the last people on earth to lecture us about individual rights because they do not begin to understand what democracy means, unless and until it affects their interests and power and the way in which they manipulate that power.
    We have been told by the Conservatives for years that if employers and business can be free, the country will become prosperous. We are seeing the results of Government efforts in that respect. The manufacturing base has gone down at probably the same rate of knots as the power of trade unions has been reduced, yet the Government still do not see the link. Once the Government begin to remove people's rights and extinguish equality between employers and employees, strife is created, and that strife has a debilitating effect on the economy.
    I accept that there are good employers, but this legislation is not aimed at them. It is a panacea for bad employers and there are plenty of those. There are plenty of sweatshop employers in Britain. People are being paid £1·50 an hour for working 50 or even 60 hours a week. The Government think that there is something wrong with people asking for a 48-hour week. Supporters of the Government are earning a thousand times more than some low-paid workers and Conservative Members think that that is fair and equitable.
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    There are no market forces for trade unions because the Government have gradually been ensuring that that market is shut off and the shut-off has not been all that gradual in some cases. The Government preach free market economics, with employers being free to compete and do what they like. But people representing working folk cannot have that same freedom. They must be curtailed.
    Conservative propaganda blaming the trade unions for everything has been good over the years. They have neutered the trade unions and the country is in a bigger mess than ever. If Goebbels could return to life, he would realise what a failure he had been compared with the indoctrination that the Conservatives have undertaken. But the public are becoming wiser and trade unions are gaining in popularity. That is another reason why employers must be bolstered. I should like to develop that theme in detail, but I would anger my Whips if I continued for much longer. This will let the country as a whole see the unfairness of the Government. I hope that the hon. Member for Eltham and other hon. Members will see the sense in voting against the amendment and getting back to a decent system of industrial relations.
    Mr. Burden: When I was reading the amendment, I cast my eyes to the top of the Bill that it was supposed to be amending. The title of the Bill has always mystified me a little. The first part of it, relating to trade union reform, is confusing, because the Bill does not contain a great deal of reform. One finds a lot of red tape as far as trade unions are concerned but not a great deal in terms of reform.
    I may be a naive sort of soul but, when I see the term "employment rights", I think that the Bill should contain some rights for employees. Any extra rights that have been given to individual employees were opposed by the Government in the first place—but they were forced to accept them by Europe. In Committee and on Second and Third Reading, I heard Ministers explain and claim how the rights for employees are increasing. When they were about to abolish the wages councils, they said that it was not about cutting pay but about improving the rights of employees and employers as free agents to get together to negotiate rates for the job.
    I could not see—I have not come across it since that time—a large number of low-paid workers rushing forward to thank the Government for their extra rights. Perhaps the cat was let out of the bag by Lord Ullswater on the rights that the Government were talking about. His words in another place have been echoed in many ways by Conservative Members tonight:
    "It is, of course, the employer's right to decide exactly how he wants to negotiate with his staff. After all, no one but the employer in question can know all the relevant circumstances and can decide what is best for his business. It has always been this Government's policy to ensure that employers have the freedom to act in this way."—[Official Report. House of Lords, 24 May 1993; Vol. 546, c. 22.]
    When the Government talk about employment rights, it is rather one-sided. Employment rights exist only as far as the employer is concerned and of course it is not uniform. If an employer decides to exercise rights in a way in which the Government disapprove, the law is changed to restrict them. For example, if an employer decides, in free agreement with his or her employees, to enter into a union membership agreement, that is restricted by law. There are no rights or freedoms as far as that is concerned. If an employer decides that he or she would have an

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    agreement with trade unions for check-off, that is restricted because the Government changed the law. But if an employer's purpose is to discourage collective bargaining—if the employer wants that right—suddenly the Government are prepared to change the law.
    Within six days of a court judgment coming out which the Government found inconvenient, we had an announcement that the law would be changed. Suddenly we had a willingness to legalise bribery, cajoling and punishing people simply for saying that they want to use their trade union membership. The Government say that it is nothing to do with trade union membership—they say that they uphold the right of an individual to remain a member of a trade union—except of course in the case of GCHQ. They are happy for people to be trade union members in most situations, as long as they do not avail themselves of the benefits of membership.
    The amendment is not simply an attack on collective bargaining and collective organisation; it also jeopardises the right of employees to choose to have individual representation by a trade union. If that does not jeopardise the right of trade union membership, I sometimes wonder where the Government's logic would lead if it were applied to political parties.
    I can imagine Ministers saying, "We have changed the law for political parties. Of course, we have no objection whatever to people joining the political party of their choice." The only thing that is not allowed is for that political party to put up a candidate for election. That is the logic behind the Government's amendment.
    This is a charter to bully trade unionists and deny them bonuses. It is a charter to ensure that it is always a trade union member who ends up working the anti-social shift. It is a charter that says that a trade union member can be denied promotion. Yet the Government say that this has nothing to do with victimisation of trade union members and that it is just permitting an employer, in the words of Lord Ullswater, to
    "achieve an organisational or strategic purpose."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993, Vol. 546, c. 23.]
    I wonder, considering those terms, whether the noble Lord writes the scripts for "Yes Minister".
    I do not know where some Tory Members have been in recent years. Are they unaware of the fear of many employees, particularly in firms, of which I have had some experience immediately prior to privatisation, when the blue-eyed boy or blue-eyed girl syndrome is so clear? Employees fear that, if they step out of line or do something of which their employer disapproves—in some cases, that could easily be merely being a trade union member in an area of the business where the employer feels that trade union membership is inappropriate—they could be discriminated against and find their career prospects in jeopardy. If the amendment is agreed, in future their pay would also be in jeopardy.
    The amendment panders to all the worst prejudices of the Conservative party. I am pleased that some Conservative Members have principles and are prepared to accept that it is not necessarily contradictory for Conservative Members to support the right of an individual to practise trade union membership rather than just to have it, but it seems that most Tory Members will troop through the Lobby with the majority tonight.
    They will not recognise that they would improve industrial relations if they ensured that workers who have been subject to such discrimination, for example at Timex,
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    had greater rights. They would be doing something positive for the workers who have been dismissed at Burnsalls in the west midlands near my constituency. Such would be the positive signs of a Government who were interested in improving industrial relations rather than just knocking trade unions once again.
    I would applaud the introduction of a statutory right to guarantee trade union recognition if a majority of workers in a particular firm supported it. That is not the purpose of tonight's debate. At present, trade union recognition can be removed, as has been the case for a long period, purely by an employer's diktat. Tonight the Government are taking that an important stage further: they are not just giving employers the right to derecognise the collective organisation of employees, however many employees want it, but the right to jeopardise the practical realisation of trade union membership itself. That is almost certainly contrary to European law, as many of my hon. Friends have explained.
    Journalists near my constituency who work for Reed Elsevier have approached me. Why, they ask, because they happen to work in Britain, can they be pushed, cajoled and shoved to accept individual contracts with no recourse, whereas people who work for the same firm in other parts of Europe have rights?
    No Minister or Conservative Member has made any mention today of the buzz words that they use so often —"the citizens charter". I wonder why? Perhaps it is because, for the Government, when it comes to trade union membership, the rights to citizenship suddenly go out of the window. As my hon. Friends have already said, trade union members will end up with fewer rights than those enjoyed by the members of any other organisation.
    In years to come, people will study the debate and work out the Government's objectives. They will see through the statements made in another place and the protestations of Ministers and Conservative Members about their support for trade union membership. People will come to appreciate how the law was changed, and they will see that act as the latest in a long series of attacks on the rights of ordinary people to work collectively to ensure basic rights of pay, conditions of service and fair treatment. It is that principle of organisation and working together that gets right up the Government's nose. The Opposition will continue to support the principle of collective organisation, however, because it is an essential part of democracy. But it seems that democracy is something that the Government do not understand.
    9.15 pm
    Mr. Winnick: I declare my interest. Although I am not sponsored, my constituency party receives a rather modest sum from the union of which I am a member.
    As my hon. Friends have said, the Government are motivated by their attitude of sheer malice towards trade unions. They have displayed that attitude since they were elected 14 years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) said that the final objective of the Government will be to abolish trade unions. Even this Government will not do that, but they will do their utmost, as they have done in the past 14 years, to undermine, weaken and erode the role of trade unions in the workplace. Even the Lords amendment, despicable though it is, should not cause any surprise to my hon. Friends.

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    If there is any question about where the Government stand on trade union rights and recognition, I refer hon. Members to an Adjournment debate on 11 March on the bitter industrial dispute at Burnsall's factory in the west midlands. That dispute continues and it should cause grave concern, because the work force have been treated with utter contempt.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), as the constituency Member, carried out his duties and raised the matter in the House. It is interesting to note what the then Under-Secretary of State for Employment said in that debate. Certainly the Minister of State would echo his remarks, word for word. My hon. Friend stressed that the work force had held ballots and that they had unanimously called for their trade union to be recognised. The Under-Secretary of State said of trade union recognition:
    "To argue that because there was a ballot in favour of recognition Burnsall's should agree to that can only be founded on the completely unacceptable principle that recognition arrangements can properly be decided by workers alone. That cannot be correct, as it fails to take proper account of the employers' necessary freedom to decide the terms on which they will work."—[Official Report, 11 March 1993; Vol. 220, c, 1207.]
    That attitude illustrates that no matter what ballots are held and no matter the wishes of the workers, they make no difference.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth indicated assent.
    Mr. Winnick: The Minister agrees. In his opinion and that of the Government, the management should be the deciding factor. No matter how many ballots may be held, no matter their unanimous result, the wishes of the work force are of no interest to the Government. Despite what the Government have said about balloting, the citizens charter and the rest of the cosmetic nonsense, ultimately, they believe that the management of the company should be the decisive factor and the work force should do as they are told.
    Mr. Forsyth: No doubt the hon. Gentleman will recall that, when a Labour Government introduced the measure requiring compulsory recognition of trade unions, it was later abandoned. Even the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service said that the whole thing was unworkable.
    Mr. Winnick: As the Minister knows, there is a difference between the compulsory recognition of unions and saying—which no Labour Minister would dream of saying—that it makes no difference what is done in ballots or what decisions are reached by the work force in secret ballots. "It cannot be decided by workers alone": that illustrates the background of the debate and the contemptuous attitude of the Government towards the working people of our country, particularly the millions of people who want to belong to a trade union.
    When we criticised, attacked and denounced communist and fascist dictatorships, time and again the yardstick that we used to define them was not simply the denial of the right to vote—a fundamental right—but another yardstick associated with civil liberty: the right of assembly, the right to vote secretly to elect Governments and to have a free press. It was the right to belong to a genuine union and have that union recognised at one's
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    place of employment. It is a sad commentary on today's society that so many people are penalised for belonging to a trade union.
    The Court of Appeal made the position perfectly clear. When it was deciding on the cases that form the background to the amendment, it said that the aim was to penalise people for being members of a union or to deter them from remaining members. If the amendment is passed, it will be used by countless other employers to try to bribe people to stop them belongong to a trade union —they will deny employees pay increases. Today, that is illegal. If the amendment is carried because the Government are able to organise their majority, such a practice will become legitimate.
    When my right hon. and hon. Friends say that the Government are corrupt, they are right—the Government are corrupted by power. If anyone has any illusions—none of my hon. Friends is likely to have them—they need only look on pages 1 and 3 of today's edition of The Independent to see that the Conservative party, to which Ministers belong, was willing to accept money from whatever sources, no matter how often it was told that the company making the donation was breaking the law. I am, of course, referring to Nadir. Ministers were not concerned that Mr. Nadir had not revealed the contributions in the company accounts.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. The hon. Gentleman's remarks do not seem to have much to do with amendment No. 8.
    Mr. Winnick: My remarks are relevant to the fact that the Government are corrupt and determined to penalise people for belonging to a trade union. The Government are only too happy to accept money from sources which, at the time, must have seemed dubious and are now known to have been criminal. Therefore, I hope that not just one Conservative Member but a few more will have the honesty and integrity to know that what is being done today is absolutely wrong. When the Government's record is considered, the amendment will be the evidence of how corrupt and sick they have become.
    Mr. McAllion: I declare an interest as I am sponsored by the National Union of Civil and Public Servants. Probably more important is the fact that I represent constituents who have today become the latest victims of the collusion between the Government and bad employers who want to use mass unemployment to drive down the wages and conditions of workers in this country. I shall set the record straight on the relevance of the Timex dispute in Dundee to the debate.
    The Timex management and the authors of the clause share a common objective—the destruction of organised labour. The Timex management took a hard line at the start of the dispute when the issue at stake was the rotation of lay-offs because of a lack of contracts. Management was completely instransigent and refused to make any concessions to the workers, in the knowledge that that would lead to a strike. When the workers were outside the factory gates they could be sacked and Timex could seek to employ a new non-union work force whose members would accept personal contracts containing vicious cuts in wages and conditions.
    That approach did not work because of the magnificent fight by the sacked workers and the magnificent support that they received from the labour and trade union

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    movement throughout the United Kingdom. The amendment is a Government attempt at a completely different approach which will have the same effect. Instead of someone who agrees to a personal contract suffering a cut in wages, as happened at Timex, those who agree to such a contract will receive extra wages.
    That approach will completely undermine the point of belonging to a trade union. What is the point of paying trade union dues when, by way of a personal contract, one can receive higher wages than could be obtained through collective bargaining? People will be discouraged from belonging to trade unions and when membership declines and the unions disappear, the employer will have a completely free hand in personal contracts and will impose whatever cuts in wages and conditions he thinks fit.
    Perhaps some Conservative Members think that that will not happen. I was a member of the Industry-Parliament Trust with IBM which prided itself on never having trade unions because, through personal contracts, it guaranteed that none of its workers would ever face compulsory redundancy. IBM has now hit hard times and its workers know that the company is not true to its word because they are being made compulsorily redundant.
    The Government say that they are proud of their record on industrial relations. I hope that they are proud of what happened in Dundee today. The Government have advertised in German newspapers for investors to come here because of cheap labour. They should not be surprised when some of the companies that are already here take them at their word and try to impose vicious cuts in wages.
    Mr. Raymond S. Robertson rose—
    Mr. McAllion: I am not giving way, because the Front-Bench speakers are anxious to deliver the winding-up speeches. If the hon. Gentleman had any interest at all in the welfare of workers in Dundee or anywhere else in the United Kingdom, he would be on the Opposition side of the House. I shall give way briefly.
    Mr. Robertson: Will the hon. Gentleman take two minutes to explain the service that trade unions rendered in Dundee five years ago when they lost the area the massive investment of a Ford plant?
    Mr. McAllion: That is not true. The hon. Gentleman well knows that the union that he backed at that time, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, was today the victim of the actions of multinationals.
    If the Government are at all interested in helping workers, instead of shackling the trade unions they should do something about the over-mighty power of multinationals which are running riot across the country against the interests of workers.
    Mr. Sam Galbraith: I was not in the House during the passage of most of the trade union legislation of the past decade. However, my understanding from tales of folklore is that the Government Benches were full of baying Tory Members hounding the trade unions. Now there is an interesting contrast. Numerous Conservative Members have said that this legislation is absolutely vital. We are led to believe that without it this country will never recover from the deep recession, yet the Tories are running out of speakers.
    The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) started to speak at 7.53 in a debate that it is agreed
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    will finish at about 10 o'clock. Embarrassed Whips were sent to the Tea Rooms and managed to drag out another Tory, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter), who delivered a perfunctory few remarks at 8.35. I hope that the Tories are embarrassed, but it is more likely that they are bored because even they are getting fed up with bashing the unions, as they have done day in and day out for the past decade.
    I was interested to hear how the new Secretary of State would tackle the amendment with which he has been landed. He comes to the Department with a reputation for decency, generosity of spirit and liberalism. [Interruption.] Those are the stories I hear in the Tea Room; I do not speak from personal experience. He did not make a good justification for that. I had the impression that he was embarrassed by what he had to say. Certainly the Minister of State will not suffer from that affliction. His only embarrassment will be that the amendment does not remove completely the right to be a member of a trade union as he would have liked.
    9.30 pm
    My understanding of the Secretary of State's analysis and the reasons behind the amendment was that they had nothing to do with collective bargaining. He tried to tease union membership and collective bargaining apart, to separate them from each other and therefore to suggest that the amendment had no effect on trade union membership. That is somewhat disingenuous. As many of my hon. Friends have said, the two issues are closely connected.
    If one is a member of a trade union but cannot exercise that right, it removes de facto the right to be a trade unionist. My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) used as an example the credit card that cannot be used. My example is that the right to free speech is valueless if one can exercise it only in a sound-proofed room with no one else there. It was the same when the Minister tried to make that disingenuous separation between trade union membership and collective bargaining. It is not just collective bargaining that will be lost; it is the right for a trade union to represent its members with their employer on any issue other than health and safety. It effectively denudes the member of any rights whatsoever and is therefore a direct attack. So the Minister's first point was wrong.
    A further important issue is the financial inducement or bribery that is involved. The amendment legalises bribery and corruption. That should be anathema to hon. Members on both sides of the House. Even the Minister was embarrassed by that.
    The Minister, tried to justify the amendment by saying that it was just a clarification of the law. I am not a lawyer, but, by golly, we should beware anyone saying that something is just a clarification of the law. The law is a many and varied thing that works in many ways. We should beware the lawyer who is just here to be helpful and simply wants to clarify the law.
    The Government got themselves into some difficulty in justifying that. First, the Minister put forward the proposition that the law was absolutely clear cut and straightforward. If that was the case, I am not sure why it needed clarifying, but it was clarified.
    Another argument put forward by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North was that the law was not clear at all;

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    in fact, it was a shambles and everyone had different interpretations of it. They could at least have come up with the same excuses and briefed one another better.
    The reason behind the confusion is that that argument is wrong. I agree with the Minister that the law was clear. The Court of Appeal has made it clear. If it was not clear, the court has clarified it. Everyone agrees about that. There was no stream of cases against employers trying to remove the rights of trade union members because employers knew that they would be in breach of section 146 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The Minister proposed not clarification, but simply changing the law once again to the benefit of the employers. Once again, it was an attack on the trade unions.
    The Minister's third point was that somehow or other the amendment is not an attack on the trade unions. I would believe that a bit more if an amendment put forward in the other place had been accepted. Baroness Turner of Camden moved an amendment to insert, among other things,
    "not to discriminate against employees who were members of an independent trade union".
    That would have made it clear that, however the law was changed, it would not discriminate against trade unionists.
    Viscount Ullswater indulged in some wonderful double-speak when he said:
    "It would provide that in a situation where a tribunal has evidence of two purposes for an employer's action and where the clause provides that it shall therefore consider the negotiating purpose to be the relevant purpose, it will only do so if there is not additional evidence of a principal purpose to discriminate against employees who are trade union members."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993; Vol. 546, c. 88–89.]
    That is just a start. He says that again, two or three paragraphs later, in many more words. In other words, the purpose was clearly to discriminate against trade unions. The law was clear. The Government have confused it. We shall be back in the law courts again seeking further clarification of the procedure.
    The amendment was slipped in at the last minute in an underhand, sneaky, sleekit way without the opportunity for due consideration. It is a mark of the Government's weakness. Here they are, unable to accept the Court of Appeal's ruling. They pretend that they are a macho Government, show their weakness and immediately change the law. They do not even wait for the matter to go to appeal in the other place. They do not consult anyone else. They simply get in there while they can and change the law in order to establish that, with all their powers, they can do what they like. That is not a sign of strength; it is a sign of weakness, ably reflected by the Government.
    The amendment also shows how the Government are in thrall to management. No matter what the Court of Appeal says, no matter what their international obligations, no matter what common justice dictates, no matter what decency suggests, everything in industrial law has to be for the benefit of management and employers: they are the only ones who have rights.
    Whenever there was a conflict in Committee between employee and employer and management, the Government always came down on the side of the employer, as if they had some inalienable right, as if there were some inherent law, such as the law of gravity or Newton's third law of motion, be it ethical or physical, which I never got to the bottom of, a right not given to
    824
    employees but always given to employers. The Government are in the thrall of management. When management and employers say jump, the Government jump on their behalf.
    Not only was the amendment introduced in a sneaky, sleekit way at the last minute, without consultation, not quite at the dead of night, but certainly as the night was drawing in, but the Government indulge in double-speak. The Conservative research department brief on employ-ment and training, a laughable document which is a good read for anyone who has not read the Dandy or the Beano for a while, says:
    "Conservative Governments have transformed Britain's poor industrial relations record and have created"—
    this is the Government's aim—
    "a fairer balance between employers and trade unions."
    The brief goes on to say that the Government's aims are
    "to defend individual liberty"—
    tell that to people—
    "… and to restore a fairer balance between employers and trade unions; and to make remedies available".
    The Government's idea of a fairer balance is simply once again to remove the rights of employees and hand all powers and rights to the all-powerful employers.
    It is a pity that the clause has not been given due consideration. It is probably technically flawed; certainly it would benefit from further debate. I have already dealt with the argument that it is not about bashing the trade unions. An amendment tabled in another place, which was turned down by the Government, would have clarified the matter.
    I believe that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) referred to the words
    "the tribunal shall regard the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a) … as the purpose for which the employer took the action, unless it considers that the action was such as no reasonable employer would take".
    I am familiar and quite happy with the phrase
    "such as no reasonable employer would take";
    similar phrases are used in medical evidence. References are made to reasonable doctors with equal standards behaving in a reasonable manner in, for instance, cases involving negligence.
    As the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery pointed out, that is not the crux of the amendment, although it will certainly give employers a field day. The crux is in the words that follow:
    "having regard to the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a)."
    Perhaps the Minister will clarify that. Does it mean that paragraph (a) must be judged reasonable or otherwise—which would be the decent thing—or does it merely mean that the action taken must be reasonable in order to achieve the purpose in paragraph (a)? That purpose could be entirely unreasonable, but perhap that will not be considered, provided that the steps taken are themselves reasonable. In such circumstances, the test of reasonableness will relate not to the action taken by the employer against his employee, but to the steps that he takes to achieve his aim. [Interruption.] My manager is giving me a tick-tack message. As I am generally well behaved and an extremely reasonable chap in both action and demeanour, I shall conclude my speech.
    Tonight, we are preparing to introduce yet another piece of trade union legislation. All the trade union legislation that has been introduced in the past decade has been predicated on the premise that Britain's industrial decline can be set at the unions' door: it has all been caused by trade union militancy. If only legislation could be

    825
    passed to neuter the unions, unemployment would suddenly cease to exist; there would be no balance of payments deficit and no public sector borrowing requirement; and manufacturing investment would go up and up. What do we have today? We have a rip-roaring balance of payments deficit; public sector borrowing is over the top; 4 million people are unemployed; and the economy is in disarray.
    The Government's legislation was based on a false premise. It has not worked, and it never will; nor 'will the amendment.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: The hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) accused Conservative Members of having run out of speakers at 7.53 pm. Opposition Members ran out of argument at about 4.38 pm. two minutes after the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) stood up.
    I do not think anyone could deny that we have examined the amendment in a thorough and detailed manner. We have heard conflicting views about its meaning. The Opposition have exaggerated and misrepresented its effects in an attempt to portray it as an attack on the rights of trade unionism; the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) even told us how to spot the seeds of totalitarianism. Let me tell her that totalitarianism begins with socialism, not with a belief in free enterprise or the market forces so hated by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington).
    My hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter). for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) and for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) brought some common sense to our proceedings, giving us the benefit of their legal and professional training and expertise.
    It should be absolutely clear that the Government value highly the protection that section 146 has offered, and will continue to offer, individual employees. It has an important role to play in ensuring that employers do not victimise individual employees to persuade them to become, or to cease to be, trade union members. It has no part to play in collective and strategic issues such as an employer's decision to introduce personal contracts for his work force.
    We have had claims about the effects of the new clause from Opposition Members which, even by the high standards of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, have set new records. His claims about bribes to leave unions and penalties for remaining in unions are unfounded, exaggerated and nonsensical. He was at it again yesterday. He told the BBC's one o'clock news that:
    "The amendment will make it lawful for an employer to bribe or punish an employee if they are a member."
    He told Channel 4 news yesterday:
    "The Government is proposing to change the law to encourage employers to deter people from being in unions or to penalise them for doing so."
    I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Eltharn (Mr. Bottomley) that it was not the Court of Appeal whom I accused of talking poppycock, but the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras and the others who joined him in misrepresenting the position.
    The amendment is not about trade union membership. It is about an employer's right to organise his business as he sees fit, and an employee's right to accept arrangements that can improve his or her terms and conditions.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham also suggested that we might idemnify the loser for costs if either of the
    826
    two Court of Appeal cases goes to the House of Lords. Any appeal would be on the basis of the law as it currently exists. The new clause will not apply retrospectively and I do not, therefore, believe that we would be justified in acceding to that request.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: My hon. Friend's crucial point is fair. Section 146 still exists and will continue to exist even if the amendment is written into the law. My hon. Friend will agree that the industrial tribunal found, as a matter of fact, that the actions of the employers in each case wholly negated union membership. Can he tell the House whether, in his view—it will be decided by the courts in the end—Mr. Palmer and Mr. Wilson would have been unsuccessful if this amendment had been written into law when their cases were heard by the industrial tribunal?
    Mr. Forsyth: I should not be drawn on that matter. The amendment is clear and it is for the courts to determine, on the basis of the facts, what will apply. The employment appeal tribunal highlighted a lack of clarity in the law and that is why the amendment is required.
    The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) and the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden asked me to put on record the meaning of the words which include a test of reasonableness. The wording is included in the clause to provide a further test of the employer's action. If the tribunal is satisfied that there is evidence that the employer has a purpose.
    "to further a change in his relationship with all or any … of his employees",
    it must also be satisfied that the action was not
    "such as no reasonable employer would take"
    to further that purpose. Otherwise, the action could still be found to have been taken for a purpose within section 146, and therefore to have been unlawful. I hope that that helps hon. Members. It should help my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham with the substance of his question, if not the case that he put to me.
    The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery also asked why we had not waited for the outcome of any eventual House of Lords hearing. My hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge made the key point that even if an appeal were to be heard and whether or not the Court of Appeal judgments were reversed, the difficulties would not necessarily be resolved.
    The purpose of the courts is to interpret the law as it is enacted by Parliament. It has become clear that this section of the law as presently drafted has caused, and is continuing to cause, difficulties for the tribunals and the courts and it is right that we should take steps to clarify it.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) said in an excellent speech, the Government have made clear their aim to create a climate in which individual effort and performance can be rewarded. In our White Paper, "People, Jobs and Opportunity" which was published before the general election—we fought and won a general election on its basis —paragraph 4.7 says:
    "The Government … will continue to encourage employers to move away from traditional, centralised collective bargaining towards methods of pay determination which reward individual skills and performance; respond to the wish of individual employees to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment; and to take full account of business circumstances".
    Who could argue with that?

    827
    The amendment is entirely consistent with that policy. It will remove an artificial and unintended obstacle to employers who wish to differentiate within their pay structures as they move in that direction.
    In response to those such as the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) who have questioned employers' motives in offering incentives to employees who agree to accept personal contracts, let me say that there are perfectly legitimate business reasons for doing so. In a letter to my Department on 24 May—after we had tabled the amendment—the chairman of Associated British Ports explained his company's position as follows:
    "Generally, we believe that personal contracts give companies and their customers substantial advantages. We think it is only right, therefore, that those who accept personal contracts receive benefits greater than those who remain within a negotiated employment structure.
    The company pays more to an employee who undertakes to work with complete flexibility, and the employment contract permits the company to base remuneration on merit and to withhold an annual pay increase if the company should run into financial difficulties. Basically, an employee who accepts a personal contract is selling a higher value product in the employment market, and should be rewarded accordingly".
    I agree with him.
    Many employers would echo those sentiments, as would the many thousands of employees who have benefited financially and in terms of personal motivation from the opportunity to be rewarded on the basis of their own commitment and performance. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North. Only the neanderthals in the Opposition and their trade union mentors still adhere to the fallacy that rigid pay structures and equal pay rates for everyone doing the same work are the best way of improving productivity in a modern economy.
    Mr. Dobson: If individual contracts are so attractive, why do employers have to offer financial incentives to get people to accept them?
    Mr. Forsyth: If the hon. Gentleman is so wedded to the concept of collective bargaining, why are he and his colleagues so worried that people will get more money because they are abandoning collective bargaining? I thought that the Opposition's argument to justify collective bargaining was that it gained a better deal for employees. We have now heard from the Opposition that that is no longer the case.
    What sticks in the gullet of members of the Opposition is that improvements in pay and conditions can be achieved by individuals acting on their own initiative, without the precious protection of trade unions and the apparatus of collective bargaining. The Opposition have always been keen to show examples where a trade union can negotiate a better deal for its members, but they cannot bear the thought that people might be able to negotiate a better deal for themselves as individuals.
    In attempting to discredit the amendment, the Opposition have succeeded in tying themselves in knots. In attacking the amendment, they have sought to portray it as a new weapon in the hands of employers who want to derecognise trade unions. Perhaps they even believe that it can operate only in that one-sided way.
    We certainly do not want to prevent employers from derecognising trade unions, which has been the
    828
    Government's position since we abolished the previous Labour Government's wholly unworkable statutory recognition legislation in 1980. Even the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service recognised that this legislation could not be made to work and told the Government so. Nor would we want to prevent an employer from recognising one or more trade unions for collective bargaining if it suits his business purposes. The important point is that employers should be free to decide what bargaining arrangements best suit their circumstances at a particular time. That is precisely what the amendment will achieve.
    The Opposition ignore entirely the fact that the amendment is even-handed. In the two cases before the Court of Appeal, the employers offered a financial incentive to those who agreed to personal contracts, but the amendment would cover the actions of employers just as much if they decided, for example, to introduce a single union agreement and to offer an incentive to those who agreed to have their pay negotiated under that arrangement. Of course the employer would still be at risk of acting unlawfully if he sought to compel people to join the particular union concerned, just as he would be at risk if he sought to prevent people from being members of any trade union when they agreed to sign personal contracts.
    I should have expected the Opposition to welcome an amendment that enabled employers to offer incentives to encourage people to agree to have their pay settled through a single union agreement. After all, the Labour party, despite its much-trumpeted conversion to espousing the rights of the individual, voted against clause 13, which gives individuals greater freedom to join the union of their own choice. Why did they vote against it? They argued that it posed a threat to single-union deals. Never mind that the argument was based on an entirely false premise. Never mind the fact that the unions and the Labour party can at best be described as latter-day converts to the merits of the single union deal. Never mind that Labour's real reason for voting against the clause was to try to protect the power of the trade union bosses and to prop up the creaking edifice of the TUC's so-called Bridlington principles.
    Where is the consistency in claiming to uphold the rights of individuals, yet seeking to deny them the right to join the union of their choice? Where is the consistency in upholding the merits of single-union agreements and then arguing against an amendment that would allow employers to offer incentives to promote acceptance of such an arrangement? The only consistency in those arguments—a consistency that runs right through the industrial relations policy of the Labour party—is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) said, Labour is once again obeying the orders of the TUC and the trade union bosses who still dictate its policies on such matters. Those people are at this very moment fighting a rearguard action to ensure that they can continue to dictate Labour party policies in the future. No one is fooled by the Opposition's claims to represent the interests of the individual. How could they be when the Labour party is so much in thrall to the collectivist ideals of trade unionism and traditional collective bargaining?
    I wonder why have we spent whole day in the House debating the amendment. Could it be anything to do with the criticisms of Mr. John Edmonds that the Labour party was not doing enough to fight the cause of the trade union movement? Is that why there has been such an impressive

    829
    display of jousting for the trade union barons? Union membership does not carry any automatic right to trade union recognition, or to have pay determined by collective bargaining. Indeed, there have always been many thousands of people who want to belong to trade unions even though their employers do not engage in collective bargaining. There are about 1 million trade unionists who are not covered by collective bargaining. That is one in 10 of all trade union members in Britain. What is the message from the hon. Members for Holborn and St. Pancras and for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) to those people? Presumably it is that their membership cards are worthless, and that they should tear them up and leave the union. The Labour message throughout the debate has been that without collective bargaining there is no proper trade union membership. I hope that that message was heard and received.
    This evening, we have seen once again the shallowness of the Opposition's commitment to the individual and the depth of their loyalty to the collectivism of the past. They have not changed their spots. As my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge pointed out, they have consistently opposed our policies to give new rights and protections to trade union members. They have opposed the new right in the Bill for individuals to belong to a union of their choice. They have opposed the new protections for union members who pay their subscriptions by check-off. In the past, they opposed our reforms to outlaw the iniquities of the closed shop, even though that meant denying a job to thousands of individuals. They even opposed our reforms that gave individual trade union members the right to a secret ballot before their union could call on them to go on strike.
    The Opposition are driven by the bosses of the trade unions, and it is the Government who have restored individual rights to trade union members. The amendment would allow individual trade union members to exercise choice over the appropriate form for their bargaining arrangements. Many trade union members have already chosen to do so, and many more will do so, no doubt welcoming the freedom given to them by a Conservative Government.
    The truth is that Opposition Members will never be free to do what is right for trade union members until they are freed from having to look over their shoulders at the wishes of union leaders, on whom their power depends. That is why the Opposition would deny employers and individuals the flexibility to agree bargaining arrangements that would best reflect performance and reward individual effort. They would reinforce the rigidity of collective bargaining, where the interests of the individual are subordinated to the lowest common denominator.
    This amendment will help to create and support flexibility—something to which the Government are firmly committed in the interests of competitiveness, individual motivation and the creation of sustainable jobs. I commend it to the House.
    Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment:—
    The House divided:Ayes 297, Noes 275.

    Division No. 297]

    [10.00 pm

    AYES

    Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

    Alexander, Richard

    Amess, David

    830

    Arbuthnot, James

    Evennett, David

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Faber, David

    Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

    Fabricant, Michael

    Ashby, David

    Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Fishburn, Dudley

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Forman, Nigel

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

    Forth, Eric

    Baldry, Tony

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    Banks, Matthew (Southport)

    Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

    Bates, Michael

    Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

    Batiste, Spencer

    French, Douglas

    Bellingham, Henry

    Gale, Roger

    Bendall, Vivian

    Gallie, Phil

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Gardiner, Sir George

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

    Body, Sir Richard

    Garnier, Edward

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Gill, Christopher

    Booth, Hartley

    Gillan, Cheryl

    Boswell, Tim

    Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Bowis, John

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

    Gorst, John

    Brandreth, Gyles

    Grant, Sir Anthony (Cambs SW)

    Brazier, Julian

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Bright, Graham

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

    Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

    Grylls, Sir Michael

    Browning, Mrs. Angela

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie (Epsom)

    Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Budgen, Nicholas

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Burns, Simon

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Burt, Alistair

    Hannam, Sir John

    Butcher, John

    Hargreaves, Andrew

    Butler, Peter

    Harris, David

    Butterfill, John

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Carlisle, John (Luton North)

    Hawkins, Nick

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Hawksley, Warren

    Carrington, Matthew

    Hayes, Jerry

    Carttiss, Michael

    Heald, Oliver

    Cash, William

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Channon, Rt Hon Paul

    Hendry, Charles

    Churchill, Mr

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Clappison, James

    Hicks, Robert

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence L.

    Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

    Hill, James (Southampton Test)

    Coe, Sebastian

    Horam, John

    Colvin, Michael

    Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Congdon, David

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Conway, Derek

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

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

    Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Howell, Sir Ralph (North

    Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

    Norfolk)

    Cormack, Patrick

    Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Couchman, James

    Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

    Cran, James

    Hunter, Andrew

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

    Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

    Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

    Jack, Michael

    Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

    Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Day, Stephen

    Jessel, Toby

    Deva, Nirj Joseph

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

    Devlin, Tim

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

    Dicks, Terry

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Key, Robert

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Kilfedder, Sir James

    Dover, Den

    King, Rt Hon Tom

    Duncan, Alan

    Kirkhope, Timothy

    Duncan-Smith, Iain

    Knapman, Roger

    Dunn, Bob

    Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

    Durant, Sir Anthony

    Knight, Greg (Derby N)

    Dykes, Hugh

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

    Eggar, Tim

    Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

    Elletson, Harold

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Lang, Rt Hon Ian

    Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

    Lawrence, Sir Ivan

    Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

    Legg, Barry

    Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

    Leigh, Edward

    831

    Lennox-Boyd, Mark

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Lidington, David

    Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Lord, Michael

    Shersby, Michael

    Luff, Peter

    Sims, Roger

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    MacKay, Andrew

    Soames, Nicholas

    Maclean, David

    Spencer, Sir Derek

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

    Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

    Madel, David

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Maitland, Lady Olga

    Spink, Dr Robert

    Malone, Gerald

    Spring, Richard

    Mans, Keith

    Sproat, Iain

    Marland, Paul

    Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

    Marlow, Tony

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Steen, Anthony

    Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

    Stephen, Michael

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Stern, Michael

    Mawhinney, Dr Brian

    Stewart, Allan

    Mellor, Rt Hon David

    Streeter, Gary

    Merchant, Piers

    Sumberg, David

    Milligan, Stephen

    Sweeney, Walter

    Mills, Iain

    Sykes, John

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Moate, Sir Roger

    Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

    Moss, Malcolm

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Needham, Richard

    Thomason, Roy

    Neubert, Sir Michael

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Newton, Rt Hon Tony

    Thornton, Sir Malcolm

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Thurnham, Peter

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

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

    Norris, Steve

    Tracey, Richard

    Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

    Tredinnick, David

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Trend, Michael

    Ottaway, Richard

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Page, Richard

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Paice, James

    Viggers, Peter

    Patnick, Irvine

    Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

    Patten, Rt Hon John

    Walden, George

    Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Waller, Gary

    Pawsey, James

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Waterson, Nigel

    Pickles, Eric

    Watts, John

    Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

    Wells, Bowen

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

    Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

    Whitney, Ray

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Whittingdale, John

    Redwood, John

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Renton, Rt Hon Tim

    Wiggin, Sir Jerry

    Richards, Rod

    Wilkinson, John

    Riddick, Graham

    Willetts, David

    Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm

    Wilshire, David

    Robathan, Andrew

    Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

    Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

    Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

    Wolfson, Mark

    Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

    Wood, Timothy

    Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

    Yeo, Tim

    Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

    Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Sackville, Tom

    Mr. David Lightbown and

    Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Mr. Sydney Chapman.

    NOES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Adams, Mrs Irene

    Barnes, Harry

    Ainger, Nick

    Barron, Kevin

    Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

    Battle, John

    Allen, Graham

    Bayley, Hugh

    Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

    Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

    Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

    Beggs, Roy

    Armstrong, Hilary

    Bell, Stuart

    Ashton, Joe

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Austin-Walker, John

    Bennett, Andrew F.

    832

    Benton, Joe

    Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Godsiff, Roger

    Berry, Dr. Roger

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Betts, Clive

    Gordon, Mildred

    Blair, Tony

    Gould, Bryan

    Blunkett, David

    Graham, Thomas

    Boateng, Paul

    Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

    Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Boyce, Jimmy

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Boyes, Roland

    Grocott, Bruce

    Bradley, Keith

    Gunnell, John

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Hain, Peter

    Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

    Hall, Mike

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

    Hanson, David

    Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

    Harman, Ms Harriet

    Burden, Richard

    Harvey, Nick

    Byers, Stephen

    Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

    Caborn, Richard

    Henderson, Doug

    Callaghan, Jim

    Heppell, John

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Hill, Keith (Streatham)

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Hinchliffe, David

    Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

    Hoey, Kate

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Home Robertson, John

    Canavan, Dennis

    Hood, Jimmy

    Cann, Jamie

    Hoon, Geoffrey

    Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

    Clapham, Michael

    Hoyle, Doug

    Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

    Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

    Clelland, David

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Hutton, John

    Coffey, Ann

    Illsley, Eric

    Connarty, Michael

    Ingram, Adam

    Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

    Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

    Corbett, Robin

    Jamieson, David

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Janner, Greville

    Corston, Ms Jean

    Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

    Cousins, Jim

    Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

    Cryer, Bob

    Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

    Cunningham, Jim

    Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

    Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

    Dafis, Cynog

    Jowell, Tessa

    Dalyell, Tam

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Darling, Alistair

    Keen, Alan

    Davidson, Ian

    Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

    Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

    Khabra, Piara S.

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

    Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil (Islwyn)

    Denham, John

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Dewar, Donald

    Leighton, Ron

    Dixon, Don

    Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

    Dobson, Frank

    Lewis, Terry

    Donohoe, Brian H.

    Litherland, Robert

    Dowd, Jim

    Livingstone, Ken

    Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Eagle, Ms Angela

    Llwyd, Elfyn

    Eastham, Ken

    Loyden, Eddie

    Enright, Derek

    Lynne, Ms Liz

    Etherington, Bill

    McAllion, John

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Ewing, Mrs Margaret

    McCartney, Ian

    Fatchett, Derek

    Macdonald, Calum

    Faulds, Andrew

    McFall, John

    Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

    McKelvey, William

    Fisher, Mark

    Mackinlay, Andrew

    Flynn, Paul

    McLeish, Henry

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    McMaster, Gordon

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Foulkes, George

    McWilliam, John

    Fraser, John

    Madden, Max

    Fyfe, Maria

    Mahon, Alice

    Galbraith, Sam

    Mandelson, Peter

    Galloway, George

    Marek, Dr John

    Gapes, Mike

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Garrett, John

    Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

    George, Bruce

    Martlew, Eric

    Gerrard, Neil

    Maxton, John

    833

    Meacher, Michael

    Salmond, Alex

    Michael, Alun

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

    Sheerman, Barry

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Milburn, Alan

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Miller, Andrew

    Short, Clare

    Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

    Simpson, Alan

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Skinner, Dennis

    Morgan, Rhodri

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

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

    Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

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

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Mowlam, Marjorie

    Snape, Peter

    Mudie, George

    Soley, Clive

    Mullin, Chris

    Spearing, Nigel

    Murphy, Paul

    Spellar, John

    Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

    Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

    O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

    Steinberg, Gerry

    O'Brien, William (Normanton)

    Stevenson, George

    O'Hara, Edward

    Stott, Roger

    Olner, William

    Strang, Dr. Gavin

    O'Neill, Martin

    Straw, Jack

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Parry, Robert

    Tipping, Paddy

    Patchett, Terry

    Trimble, David

    Pendry, Tom

    Tyler, Paul

    Pickthall, Colin

    Vaz, Keith

    Pike, Peter L.

    Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

    Pope, Greg

    Wallace, James

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Walley, Joan

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)

    Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Wareing, Robert N

    Prescott, John

    Watson, Mike

    Primarolo, Dawn

    Welsh, Andrew

    Purchase, Ken

    Wicks, Malcolm

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Randall, Stuart

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

    Raynsford, Nick

    Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

    Reid, Dr John

    Wilson, Brian

    Rendel, David

    Winnick, David

    Richardson, Jo

    Wise, Audrey

    Robertson, George (Hamilton)

    Worthington, Tony

    Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

    Wray, Jimmy

    Roche, Mrs. Barbara

    Wright, Dr Tony

    Rogers, Allan

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    Rooker, Jeff

    Rooney, Terry

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Mr. Alex Meale and

    Rowlands, Ted

    Mr. Dennis Turner.

    Ruddock, Joan

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    It being after Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Lords amendments stood adjourned.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 ( Exempted business),
  That, at this day's sitting, the Lords Amendments to the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill and the Ways and Means Motion may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Conway.]
  Question agreed to.

  TRADE UNION REFORM AND EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS BILL
  Lords amendments again considered.
  Further consideration of Lords amendments adjourned.—[Mr. Conway.]
  To be further considered tomorrow.

Ways and Means

  Crime (Expenditure)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That provision may be made preventing expenditure involving crime being deducted or being included in expenses of management.—[Sir John Cope.]
  10.16 pm
  Mr. Alistair Darling: I shall raise a short point in what I imagine will be a relatively short debate.
  The resolution is in general terms, as are all such resolutions. Although its scope is comparatively wide, there must be some limit to exactly how wide it is intended to go. Its purpose is to allow the Government to table amendments to the Finance Bill, which is currently being considered in Committee, to strike at certain payments being claimed as expenses when such payments might involve crime.
  The point that I shall address involves the definition and scope of such payments when considering the question of preventing expenditure involving crime. There may well be circumstances in which payments may be claimed as an allowable expense or deduction in the expense of management against the Revenue. For example, I want to know whether it will be possible, within the scope of the resolution, to table amendments that might help the Inland Revenue to identify payments that may not have been claimed as such, although in reality they are payments in connection with crime.
  I can envisage a situation in which someone wishes to claim an expense but, for whatever reason, he or she is not willing to disclose the true nature of it. Therefore, I should like the Minister to tell us whether he anticipates that it will be possible within the scope of the resolution to table an amendment or new clause that would require a recipient of a payment to disclose that the payment had been made.
  I have two examples in mind. First, I refer to the case of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The Inland Revenue and, indeed, others have had reason to question whether many of the payments that have been made are legitimate and whether they are an allowable expense. Clearly, if the recipients of those payments had had to declare the source of them, the job of the Inland Revenue would have been made that much more easy.
  The other case is perhaps a live issue. It concerns donations that may have been made by an individual when he or she was insolvent or an individual who may have caused a company over which he or she had control to make payments that involved crime. I have in mind in particular, for example, donations made to a political party where the political party at the time it received the payment may have had no reason to believe that it could have come from money resulting from crime but subsequently realised that that was the case. If, for example, political parties were required to list the sources of donations and payments received, it would make it much easier for the Revenue and other authorities to see where the money had come from and to determine whether it involved crime, as envisaged in the resolution.
  Mr. David Winnick: Does my hon. Friend agree that a political party, particularly a political

  835
  party represented in the House of Commons, should have the clear, moral and, one hopes, legal responsibility—if the Government accept what my hon. Friend is saying—to ensure that donations, and in Nadir's case substantial donations, made to it, bearing in mind the source and the creditors, are returned promptly, if only to ensure that creditors who are owed money receive it? The political party should not continue with sums which it should never have received in the first place—
  Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is talking outside the scope of the ways and means resolution.
  Mr. Darling: I anticipated that at some point, Madam Speaker, you might be moved to make that point, which is why I have tried to contain my remarks within the constraints of the resolution.
  I think that I am entitled to ask whether within the scope of the resolution it would be possible for us to to table an amendment requiring a political party to disclose the source of its donations. If it is, we most certainly will do so within the scope of the Finance Bill. I should be grateful if the Paymaster General will let us know what exactly he had in mind in drafting the resolution as he has. It mentions "preventing expenditure involving crime". That seems to be a wholly laudable and praiseworthy objective. Did he have in mind a political party which might receive money that may have come from crime? Do the Government have in mind that resolutions might be tabled to strike at the present practice where payments can be made and political parties are not obliged to reveal the source of the payments, which makes it that much more difficult not just for the Revenue but for the public to draw their conclusions about the nature and characteristics of the recipient, in this case the political party that has received these sums?
  10.22 pm
  Mr. Bob Cryer: It would have been helpful to the House if the Paymaster General, instead of trying to get the resolution through on the nod, had explained its content and purpose. That would have helped Members who are seeking to find out the Government's aim in tabling the resolution. Certainly, on the face of it, it is laudable. As the House knows, it is linked to the Finance Bill Committee and what is tabled there will determine whether the resolution is of benefit. We do not know why the Government have tabled the resolution, which is why we are probing for information. If we were tabling amendments, we would be probing for information.
  I echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling). Are the Government trying to ensure control over expenditure that is subsequently found to have been based on criminal actions to prevent it from being allowed against tax either directly or for management purposes when the management of a company or part is for criminal purposes? Or is it some other area of activity that they have in mind? Will a general clause to that effect be tabled in the Finance Bill Committee?
  Has the resolution been prompted by the fact that the Government find themselves in an extremely embarrassing position—although they are extremely hard faced about it
  836
  —because they received half a million quid from a man who was facing serious fraud charges? There is no doubt that there must have been some allocation of expenditure in Asil Nadir's company, either directly by that company, or through management expenses, that was involved in criminal activities. No doubt the company was seeking to set those activities against corporation tax. I have no doubt that the resolution is concerned precisely with that point.
  If the Government are tabling the resolution to close a loophole, that is welcome to the Labour party and, I hope, to Conservative Members. I hope that they are ashamed that they have been financed by the criminal activities of Polly Peck.
  Mr. David Ashby: What about Robert Maxwell?
  Mr. Cryer: If Maxwell had been found out earlier, criminal charges might have been levied against him.
  If a clause based on the resolution had been passed in a Finance Bill some years ago, any illegal expenditure of a criminal nature by Robert Maxwell would have been revealed in Labour party accounts. The difficulty is that nothing is shown in the Conservative party accounts, because it does not hold them. That is a source of concern not only to Opposition Members but, I very much hope, to Conservative Members.
  Mr. Ashby: The Home Affairs Select Committee heard evidence only last week from one gentleman who had asked the Labour party time and again for the source of its funding. It refused to tell him who was donating to it. The hon. Gentleman has got his party quite wrong; it is the most secretive party in the country.
  Mr. Cryer: I am not going down roads that would bring me into possible conflict with you, Madam Speaker. I will not get involved in arguments concerning the Home Affairs Select Committee.
  I am concerned about the resolution. It should allow the Government to table a clause to the Finance Bill to prevent expenditure involving crime being deducted for tax purposes or included in the expenses of management. If legislation based on the resolution is to have effect, however, the Inland Revenue must know about such expenditure. It cannot know if the necessary information is not provided.
  Since a current case is based on the activities of Asil Nadir, it is legitimate to ask why the Conservative party is not prepared to publish its accounts.
  Recent revelations have also been made about commercial lobbying organisations. Lobbying is part of the management exercise, because managements use commercial lobbyists. It is quite clear that Asil Nadir used such an organisation to get to the heart of Government by making representations to the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates), and the President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). The resolution will prevent the expenditure of commercial lobbying organisations.
  Mr. Don Dixon: What about the watch?
  Mr. Cryer: I am not sure whether that would be considered a management expense.

  837
  Commercial lobbying organisations are used extensive-ly in this place and it is time that that stopped. I t is also time that the report of the Select Committee on Members' Interests, published nearly two years ago, was debated in this place. That is another matter, however, which I am not prepared to discuss because it is outside the scope of the resolution.
  There are some important issues involved. It would have helped if, instead of simply trying to allow the measure to slide through on the nod, as I anticipate the Minister hoped, he had explained its purpose. Can he assure the House that, if amendments are tabled in the Committee considering the Finance Bill that ensure that full account is given by political parties when they receive various donations—as they all do—the general public and particularly the Inland Revenue can check whether any criminal activity is involved? They will gain the information retrospectively and, when anyone is found to be conducting criminal activities, it will be possible to ascertain whether any claims are being made for allowance against taxation or management expenses.
  If the Government are seeking to save face by not introducing legislation that directly requires all political parties to publish their accounts, we will shrug our shoulders and say that the Government are trying to look a little more dignified in the face of adversity, but we welcome the legislation. If the Government are not introducing the legislation for that purpose, will the Minister assure us that, in Committee, the Government will not oppose such a proposal, which is tabled in the interests of full, democratic accountability and ensures that expenditure or management expenses involving crime are not allowable against tax? That must be a laudable aim, and I expect all Conservative Back Benchers to welcome that attitude—if it is the Government's attitude.
  I hope that it is the Government's aim, and I look forward to comprehensive assurances from the Minister on that matter. It is time that the Government took action to get rid of the sleaze that is currently engulfing them. It is a form of corruption of the political processes in this country which is bringing into disrepute, not only the Conservative party, but perfectly honest and decent members of the Conservative party who are completely opposed to it. They are also being engulfed in sleaze.
  10.32 pm
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: I suspect that the hon. Members for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) and for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) would not be popular if the Daily Mail newspaper group found that it could not obtain tax relief on the payments that it is having to make to its pension fund to make up for the money that was stolen from the fund.
  I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General will tell the House that the measure will provide a ways and means cover for an amendment which I believe, following correspondence that I have had with my right hon. Friend, is likely to be tabled. The amendment would be designed to ensure that, if a business is feeling forced to make illegal payments for illegal purposes to an outside organisation, that will no longer be liable for tax relief. If the measure is as simple as that, I think that the Opposition would want to support it.
  10.33 pm
  Mr. Roger Evans: Does the resolution involve any change in the practice of the Inland Revenue in disclosing information about taxpayers' affairs to the police and the prosecuting authorities? In tribute to the late Sir Alan Herbert, who made great sport in literature from the anomalies involved in taxing prostitution and suggested that the commissioners of the Inland Revenue could be prosecuted for living off immoral earnings, may I ask whether any change in practice in that aspect of the law is envisaged?
  10.34 pm
  The Paymaster General (Sir John Cope): The answer to both questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) is no. There is no change in practice in relation to disclosure to the police or immoral earnings.
  The purpose of the resolution is to permit the Government to introduce what now appears as new clause 8 on the Finance Bill amendment paper relating to expenditure involving crime. That is the amendment's sole purpose. It is not for me to define the scope of the resolution in full. If hon. Members have suggestions which they think are within the remit of the resolution and the House is wise enough to pass it, they must see what they can do to carry through their suggestions.
  Nothing in the motion extends the Revenue's powers to seek information, and I remind the House that political donations are disallowed for tax purposes. The proposed new clause does not apply in any way to that matter.
  The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) asked for information to be made available not just to the Inland Revenue but to the public on the source of donations. I remind the hon. Gentleman that all information that the Inland Revenue receives about the affairs of taxpayers is rightly confidential. That is how it should be and how it will remain.
  Mr. Darling: I would certainly not advocate that the Inland Revenue should disclose the affairs of a taxpayer to anyone who is not entitled in law to receive such information. I said that if political parties had to disclose the source of their money in a register that was open to inspection by the public, both the Inland Revenue and the public could see who had made payments. If the Revenue or another authority suspected that payments had been made by someone who they suspected was engaged in illegal activity, they could follow the payment from source to clarify matters. I seek a degree of openness, especially by the Conservative party in the light of what has happened to its donor Mr. Asil Nadir.
  Sir John Cope: The proposed new clause and the resolution that makes it possible do not address that point for any political party, nor should they in the context of tax legislation. The resolution will ensure the introduction of new clause 8, which is in the selection list of the Committee. That clause would allow the Revenue, when computing income for tax purposes, to disallow payments which themselves constitute the commission of a criminal offence by the payer. They would be bribes of one sort or another contrary to the Prevention of Corruption Act 1916 and the prevention of terrorism Act. The new clause is carefully directed.
  Mr. Cryer: Would it be applicable to someone who wanted to procure a knighthood or other honour by way of political donations? That sort of thing happens. As it is a crime involving the corruption of public bodies, it would surely be covered by the resolution's general proposal.
  Sir John Cope: That may be so if the payment constituted a criminal offence in the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman suggests. If it did, it would be covered by the new clause.
  Mr. Winnick: I understand that the resolution tries to ensure that companies do not profit from crime. For that reason, we obviously welcome it, and that will be made clear in future debates on the Finance Bill. Would not it be consistent to make it clear that political parties should not profit from crime? The Government rightly say that companies should not profit from crime. If there is any evidence that a party, say, the Conservative party, has received money from a criminal source to buy a knighthood or anything else, should not that party make sure that the money is returned? I refer to the Nadir business, because the Conservative party has undoubtedly received money from a corrupt and criminal source.
  Sir John Cope rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. Before the Minister replies to that intervention, may I say that an extremely narrow point is being debated. I hope that it will not provide a platform for a general and irrelevant debate.
  Sir John Cope: I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the point of the new clause, which is to attack not a company that profits from crime but a payment made by a company, which is not a profit but a loss as it is a payment. It refers to a payment which a company or an individual makes which itself constitutes a criminal offence. The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the purpose of it. It is the other way round. It may be that
  840
  he did not misunderstand it but was trying to make another point. If I responded to it, I would fall foul of the strictures of the Chair, and I am not prepared to do that.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That provision may be made preventing expenditure involving crime being deducted or being included in expenses of management.

PETITION

  Pensions (Payment)
  10.39 pm
  Mr. Rhodri Morgan: This petition has more than 4,000 signatures and has been collected on the street and door to door and in post offices in my constituency of Cardiff, West following the way in which pensioners and others were scandalised and put into a state of deep anxiety by the pilot project by the Department of Social Security to change the method of payment of pensions and benefits from payment via the Post Office to payment by automatic credit transfer to banks and building society accounts.
  I shall read out the petition, having described it briefly. It states:
  We, the undersigned wish to express our opposition to any proposals implemented by Her Majesty's Government which would result in the public not having the right to have their state pensions and benefits paid through the Post Office. We believe that the freedom to have them paid through the Post Office is vital and that the Post Office performs a central function to those who currently collect their benefits and pensions from it and that the withdrawal of this right will involve the closure of many post offices and sub post offices which are vital to communities and to the people who currently use them. We therefore request that the House of Commons urge Her Majesty's Government to withdraw its proposals and continue to allow payment of pensions and benefits through the Post Office.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Standish Hospital, Stroud
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Andrew Mitchell.]
  10.41 pm
  Mr. Roger Knapman: I am grateful for the opportunity to initiate the debate. I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for keeping you up half an hour longer than might otherwise be the case and hope you will forgive me. In all probability, if I had not done so somebody else would have done so.
  I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for attending the debate. I am sure that, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, he is a veteran of such occasions. Finally, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson), the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State. If he does not mind my referring to him as a conduit. he is a very efficient conduit in a Department where it is important that there should be close liaison between Ministers and Back Benchers, and I thank him for his efforts.
  May I now voice some concern about the proposals to close Standish hospital which is situated in my constituency between Stroud and the city of Gloucester and replace it with a new extension to the Gloucestershire Royal hospital.
  1 will, of course, leave my hon. Friend plenty of time to respond. I know that he is always grateful for such thoughtfulness. To ensure that, I shall first make four main points so that we can concentrate on the four or five other points which may be fractionally more contentious.
  First, I acknowledge that most of the medical consultants support the proposals. Anybody who has read the response to the consultation document will have the utmost regard to the comments by doctors Prior, Durkin and Uff and others which must be of concern to us all.
  I also recognise that, for obvious reasons, acute provision units should, wherever possible, be on one site. I know of one particular circumstance in Gloucestershire when an elderly man was taken to Standish, suffered a heart attack and subsequently had to be taken on to Gloucestershire Royal hospital. There have been other such cases.
  Thirdly, I understand that the choice between the existing Standish hospital and a new hospital is not, as some people suggested, cost cutting. If we are not to make use of the £10 million or so for capital improvements, someone else in another area will no doubt be very glad to do so.
  Fourthly, we all recognise that Standish is not a community or a cottage hospital but is an acute services unit serving a large part of the county. When I visit the hospital, not least at Christmas, I meet a number of the patients there and they are just as likely to come from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. French) or from the Forest of Dean, represented so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Marland). There are patients from large areas of the county including my constituency.
  As we are all in agreement up to this point, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will forgive me if, despite my introductory remarks, I come to the considerable level of public concern about the proposals for Standish hospital. The crux of the matter is that the general public like
  842
  Standish hospital. They like it for its setting, its staff, its friendliness and its efficiency. If they have a hospital that they like and with which, in the main, they are satisfied, they want to be sure that the proposals will lead to further improvements.
  Many local people and their relatives have been treated at the hospital over decades, perhaps more than one generation in some families. Most are satisfied and regard the hospital with considerable affection. The very active league of friends attests to that. I or anybody else could deposit an elderly relative at the hospital and drive away knowing that the patient would receive prompt and excellent treatment in a well-equipped and efficient unit.
  Following conversations with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, I am grateful to him for the considerable interest that he has shown, particularly in view of his many and heavy responsibilities. He will substantially know the arguments advanced by the district health authority and the response by the community health council which has to represent the public interest and has done so well.
  Having painted in the background to the matter, I wish to ask my hon. Friend a few questions which, if he cannot or will not answer tonight, I hope he will respond to later. First, I have already mentioned that the local population likes Standish. Many people can identify with a smallish unit in a rural setting, but few really like the large tower block hospitals in city centres which sometimes have parking problems.
  In those circumstances, having heard the views in the consultation document of the professionals and consultants, does my hon. Friend agree that the views of the general public should also be taken into account? Does my hon. Friend agree that Standish is set in a particularly attractive rural location on an eminence overlooking the Severn valley with extensive grounds and, as one would expect from what was originally a TB hospital, a pure air? All that amounts to a considerable help to patients for their rapid recovery and recuperation.
  How can one measure those benefits? Will my hon. Friend attempt to do so? That is the major point which convinced some 20,000 of my constituents, and perhaps a few beyond the boundary, under the guidance of the Save our Standish campaign, to sign a petition. I cannot say that I counted the 20,000 names, but I can confirm that that petition had no chance of fitting in the bag behind the Speaker's Chair. When we unrolled it, it broke several times and I am grateful to the House of Commons staff who deal with petitions for their forbearance for half an hour or more.
  Although consultants back the proposals, not all GPs do. A local GP wrote to me as follows:
  "I have been a general practitioner in Stroud for thirty-five years, during which time a great number of my patients have made use of the facilities at Standish Hospital, mostly as in patients, but, sometimes, by using the physiotherapy or hydrotherapy departments as out-patients … my strong impression is that Standish is highly valued because of its convenience for patients and visitors alike, its beautiful and morale boosting surroundings, the quality of its treatment, and the consistent kindness of all its staff, medical, nursing and ancillary. There have been very few complaints, if any. For local GPs, Standish has provided a much valued alternative for emergency admissions, of patients with acute respiratory disorders in particular, when other hospitals (Gloucester Royal and Stroud General) are reluctant to admit because of pressure on beds. We have been told that major surgery should not continue at Standish, because the lack of intensive care facilities makes it hazardous. It is difficult to comprehend why this should become a consideration now,

  843
  after forty years of successful orthopaedic surgery. In summary, my strong impression is that Standish Hospital is highly valued by patients, their relatives, and general practitioners locally, and that its services would be greatly missed if it was closed."
  I am not suggesting that all GPs think like that, but a number of GPs—and a huge section of the general public —have written in similar terms. I hope my hon. Friend will confirm that their views will be taken into account.
  Will my hon. Friend give careful consideration to the community health council's report, particularly the recommendations in paragraph 3.2, under the heading "Capital Savings"? The CHC concludes:
  "More consideration should be given to the Health Authority's forecast of £9·5m to transfer services, when the cost to retain services at Standish"

  would be only £4·8 million.
  "The potential saving, on interest and capital charges, could be usefully employed in the provision of services with a higher priority."
  What consideration has been given to that point? If some £4·8 million would indeed provide a first-class hospital on the existing site at Standish, would that be a suitable alternative to the present proposals? I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that carefully before any final decision is made.
  I have already paid tribute to the professionalism and dedication of the hospital's staff. Will a substantial proportion of those staff—who, over the past few years, have been welded into a very successful team—be prepared to travel to the Gloucestershire Royal and work in the new unit? Can my hon. Friend confirm that all the facilities currently at Standish will be provided at the Gloucestershire Royal extension? If not, what aspects of provision will not be available? Has full agreement been reached with the consultants with regard to those facilities?
  That is quite a list of questions, and I promised my hon. Friend plenty of time to reply to them. I assure him that these matters are considered to be very serious in Gloucestershire: indeed, on occasion they are considered matters of life and death. I am sure that my hon. Friend will provide for a thorough and exhaustive inquiry. I shall support him fully, because I know that he will decide the issue on medical rather than political grounds.
  10.54 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Tom Sackville): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman) on having secured this debate on the proposed transfer of services from Standish hospital to the Gloucestershire Royal hospital. My hon. Friend presented his case with his typical skill and demonstrated his care for his constituents' interests.
  I shall set out briefly the current position on the proposal to transfer services. As my hon. Friend knows, a major review of services at Standish hospital was undertaken in 1987 by the former Gloucester health authority, in conjunction with clinicians, professionals and representatives from the Cheltenham district health authority. At that time, there were also recommendations from the Royal College of Physicians. The review recommended the reprovision of acute services at Gloucestershire Royal hospital and the subsequent closure of Standish.
  844
  My hon. Friend will know about the approval of that recommendation by the health authority and the objection of the community health council. It was passed to the regional health authority and is now in the hands of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for a decision. I assure my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend will take full account of all the comments that she receives on the proposal before making a decision.
  I am aware that Standish is a small and friendly hospital, located in an attractive setting. I am also aware —my hon. Friend mentioned this—of the activities of the league of friends which raises funds for the hospital, together with 60 or more local volunteers who provide the trolley shop and other assistance at the hospital. For all those reasons, I am sure that no health authority will take a decision lightly about a much-loved hospital.
  I understand that the overriding reasons for the proposal are based on medical recommendations, some of which were mentioned by my hon. Friend. Standish has, as has been said, 120 acute beds, including orthopaedics, chest medicine and rheumatology. It has no intensive care facilities. In the event of an emergency, the patient must endure a difficult and possibly dangerous transfer to the intensive therapy unit at Gloucestershire Royal. Also, Standish is too small to have its own specialists in all the various branches of acute medicine. That requires the transfer of acutely ill patients at times to the Gloucestershire Royal. I understand that, on average, one patient a day is transferred for other services.
  Another key medical reason for reproviding the current services on a site with intensive care facilities is that a much wider range of patients than is at present allowed could benefit from major joint replacements. Those patients would be those who need pre-operative intensive care stabilisation of chronic conditions followed by postoperative intensive care monitoring. The point about intensive care is particularly apt in the case of an elderly and aging population who may require a higher level of high-tech back up.
  Another medical reason is that there are no medical consultants based at Standish. Therefore, they are required to visit regularly once, twice or more each week. That results in a loss of considerable and valuable time in travelling between the two sites, which is unsatisfactory.
  The royal college has withdrawn and will continue to withdraw recognition for training in anaesthesia from any district hospital that allows unsupervised trainees to anaesthetise patients. In that context, "unsupervised" means any time that a consultant or senior registrar is not present in the hospital. Standish is provided with a consultant in anaesthesia for nine of its current allocation of 14 substantive sessions. When a consultant is away on leave, the replacement must be one of senior registrar or equivalent status. That is not always possible from the small department at Gloucestershire Royal hospital, where there is only one senior registrar and where a registrar with the fellowship diploma is a rarity.
  An additional problem that the limited pool of medical staff at Standish makes adequate 24-hour cover difficult without requiring junior doctors to work in excess of the 63-hour maximum week. Transferring services to the Gloucestershire Royal hospital would allow the new standards for junior doctors to be met as well as providing on-site support from senior medical staff.
  There can be no disagreement about the fact that Standish hospital is set in idyllic surroundings. I take my

  845
  hon. Friend's point about the effect that such surroundings may have on patients, although it is, of course, impossible to measure the therapeutic effect. I must add that the question of hospital design, quite apart from architecture, is a matter of considerable concern to me and, I hope, will continue to be so to the health service. However, having said that, it must be admitted that Standish hospital is, I think, five miles from Stroud and 10 miles from Gloucester. That has some ramifications for accessibility, especially for a general hospital which attracts customers —patients —from a very wide area.
  On the question of buildings and capital investment, the 1987 review, to which I have already referred, highlighted the poor condition of many of the buildings at Standish hospital, some of which date back to the early part of the previous century. One ward was in such a poor condition that it had to be replaced. The condition of the remaining estate is such that large sums of money would have to be spent to maintain the building if services remained there for very much longer.
  I very much appreciate what my hon. Friend said about the level of public concern. Standish hospital is clearly much loved, and there is considerable local feeling about it. If I were given the choice, I should want to be treated in a small hospital in attractive, rural surroundings. However, that is an ideal, and one which unfortunately cannot always be met in the real world.
  My hon. Friend mentioned clinicians. There is widespread agreement among consultants about the proposals, although many local general practitioners, who would like to continue to send their patients to Standish hospital, may have a different view.
  It is not merely a question of spending a certain sum of money on Standish hospital. To keep some acute services
  846
  on a relatively isolated site is not desirable or cost effective, and that is all that could be achieved as a result of minor reprovision at Standish. Services at Standish would, in the longer term, need the full support of a district general hospital. As I said, there are a number of difficulties in providing the 24-hour medical cover at Standish. It would be impractical and probably prohibitively expensive for the local health service as a whole to base staff at Standish to provide such a level of cover. I have already touched on the argument about untrained anaesthetists, and the impossibility of allowing them to be in sole charge of anaesthetised patients.
  My hon. Friend also asked whether all the facilities now available at Standish could be provided at the Gloucestershire Royal. The answer to that question is definitely yes. I am assured that all patient services could be provided at that site, and at a higher technical and clinical standard.
  As I have said, I appreciate the opportunity to make those points, especially as the matter is now before the Secretary of State for a decision. My right hon. Friend has yet to decide the future of the hospital, but I thought that it would be helpful to explain the thinking behind the district and regional health authorities' decision to put the proposals forward. I am fully aware of the strength of feeling about the hospital on the part of my hon. Friend and of local residents, and I reiterate that the Secretary of State will pay close attention to the views of all those involved, including the community health council and all other interested parties, before reaching any decision.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at five minutes past Eleven o'clock.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Illegal Immigrants
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether monitoring of gangmasters by his Department includes control of employment of illegal immigrants; and how many cases have been discovered in the last year.

  Mr. Jack
  The role of MAFF in monitoring aspects of gangmasters' activities is restricted to ensuring compliance with the terms of the Agricultural Wages Order made under the Agricultural Wages Act 1948.

  Land Use (Surveillance)
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if reports on aerial surveillance undertaken with satellite equipment in the years 1991–92 to establish the usage or non-usage of land are to be made publicly available.

  Mr. Jack
  The year 1991–92 was a trial year organised by the Commission. The ownership of the work resides with the Commission, and we understand that it does not intend to publish the results.

  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what organisations of persons are responsible for the surveillance of agricultural land for the purpose of determining usage in the United Kingdom and in the member states.

  Mr. Jack
  Each member state is responsible for undertaking the control measures within its territory for the checking of aid applications.

  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether the arrangements for the surveillance of agricultural land for the purpose of determining usage are equally applied throughout the European Community.

  Mr. Jack
  The EC regulations governing the integrated administration and control system (IACS) require all member states. without differentiation, to carry out administrative checks on aid applications, supplemented by on-farm checks on a sample of holdings.

  Integrated Administration and Control System
  Sir Richard Body
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food which member states of the EEC completed the process of obtaining IACS information by 16 May.

  Mr. Jack
  The EC regulation governing the integrated administration and control system (IACS) provided for all member states to set a deadline of no later than 15 May for 480
  receipt of the completed IACS applications this year. Where applications are received after the deadline, the farmers will have their aid payments reduced under a formula set out in the relevant EC regulation. These same rules apply, of course, in all 12 member states. We do not have information on the number of applications received after 15 May in each member state.

  Set-aside Payments
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to what extent it is possible to link the amounts and scale of set-aside payments to environmental and social improvements involving(a) management of hedgerows, (b) protection of unsprayed headland, (c) reductions in the use of nitrogen, (d) the planting of trees, (e) the creation of wildlife habitats, (f) attractive landscapes and (g) the provision of new footpaths and bridlepaths; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  The EC rules of the arable area payments scheme require member states to apply appropriate environmmental measures to set-aside land. The United Kingdom rules for set-aside include the maintenance of hedgerows and other environmental features and restrictions on the use of sprays and fertilisers. We expect to introduce non-rotational set-aside later this year which will allow greater opportunity for the creation of wildlife habitats and we are pressing strongly for the Community rules to encourage tree planting on set-aside land. There is at present no scope under EC rules to vary the set-aside payment. However, under the agri-environment programme we are considering a voluntary scheme to make additional payments to farmers who provide public access on suitable set-aside land.

  Viral Haemorrhagic Disease
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps the Government are taking to ensure that there are suitable vaccines to treat viral haemorrhagic disease.

  Mr. Soames
  A product licence application for a rabbit viral haemorrhagic disease vaccine was submitted and subsequently withdrawn during 1992. Although officials in the veterinary medicines directorate are actively pursuing discussions with that applicant and with other pharmaceutical companies, no further application has been received. The decision on whether to submit an application is a commercial one for the companies concerned, bearing in mind the likely size of the market.

  Equine Viral Arteritis
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action she is taking to arrest and cure the outbreak of equine viral arteritis in the United Kingdom; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) on 10 June at columns 307–8.

  Chernobyl
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what experiments are being conducted by her Department into the use of ammonium ferric
  481
  hexacyanoferrate in order to fix caesium-l37 from the Chernobyl radioactive fall-out in the soil and to prevent its take-up by growing plants.

  Mr. Soames
  Studies to evaluate the potential of a number of chemical treatments, including ammonium ferric hexacyanoferrate, for reducing radiocaesium in the vegetation of upland pastures are being carried out on two sites, one in Cumbria and one in Wales, as part of the Department's programme of post-Chernobyl research and development.

  Agriculture Council
  Mr. Kynoch
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Agriculture Council held in Luxembourg on 14 June.

  Mrs. Shephard
  I represented the United Kingdom at the meeting of the Agriculture Council on 14 June.

  The Council formally adopted the legal texts implementing the package of farm prices and related measures which it had agreed at its May meeting.

  The Council also discussed a number of other proposed measures, without reaching agreement. These included a proposal on the definition and designation of butter and other fats, which I criticised as being unnecessarily elaborate and prescriptive; and a proposed directive on minced meat and other meat preparations, on which my main aim is to avoid excessively strict criteria that would put at risk traditional British products. The Council will have to return to these proposals at a later meeting.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Divorce Law
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what action he proposes to take on Law Commission report 192, "Grounds for Divorce."

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor is considering the Law Commission's recommendations for reform of divorce law. His review of these matters is not yet complete and he has no immediate plans for legislation.

  Estimated expenditure for 1993–94

  Accommodation charge £

  Contribution towards Maintenance £

  maintenance by Treasury £

  Government offices Great George street, London SWI

  6,270,431

  1,471,213

  343,369

  11 Downing street, London SWI

  139,359

  43,885

  5,500

  Alencon Link, Basingstoke

  202,977

  48,698

  1,200

  European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what talks he has had with his European Community and G7 counterparts about the future of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; and if he will make a statement.
  482
  He continues to welcome views on the Law Commission's recommendations, and will consult further before any measures on this subject are introduced.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what plans he has to review the administration of divorce law.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor is considering divorce law reform as part of the rolling programme of review of family law and business. His review of these matters, including the administration of divorce law, is not yet complete.

  Legal Aid
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will immediately take steps to secure a significantly reduced rate of interest payable by those owing statutory charges under the legal aid scheme.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor will shortly be laying before Parliament a statutory instrument designed to reduce the rate of simple interest levied on postponed payment of the statutory charge from 10·5 per cent. to 8 per cent.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Departmental Buildings
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the buildings currently owned or rented by his Department, together with(a) the estimated value, (b) the annual rent and (c) the annual maintenance cost of each building in the current financial year.

  Mr. Nelson
  The Treasury does not own any property. All Treasury accommodation is on the common user estate, which is owned by the Crown and administered by Property Holdings. The present value of the common user estate is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  The accommodation charges and contributions towards maintenance which the Treasury pays to Property Holdings and the Treasury's own maintenance costs in respect of buildings occupied by the Treasury are given in the table:

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  In the short period since becoming Chancellor and, subsequently, United Kingdom Governor of the EBRD, I have had no talks with European Community or G7 partners about the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. However, my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development has had contacts with her counterparts in other countries. My senior officials have had a number of contacts as well.

  Pensions
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will estimate the amount of the public sector pensions payable in each of as many future years as are available, assuming annual inflation at the current rate of 2 per cent.;

  (2) if he will list for as many of the forthcoming years as are available the percentage of forecast gross domestic product that will be allocated to public sector pensions.

  Mr. Portillo
  The most recent estimates of public sector pension scheme liabilities and the costs of public service pension scheme benefits were contained in the answers given by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security on 7 June at column 140 and by me on 8 June at column 200.

  Projections of those estimates for future years are not available and would require a substantial amount of actuarial calculation. However, many of the public service pension schemes are approaching maturity in pension terms. Accordingly, it is not expected that there will be an increasing demand on the economy in real terms. In the longer term, with the reduction in the number of employees in the public sector, it is to be expected that public sector pension costs will reduce in real terms.

  Student Accommodation
  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if student accommodation which is(a) institutionally-owned or (b) institutionally-managed will be classified as domestic for VAT purposes;

  (2) whether institutionally-owned and institutionally-managed student accommodation will be exempt from paying VAT on fuel bills.

  Sir John Cope
  Student accommodation which is institutionally owned or institutionally managed is classified as domestic for VAT purposes. Such accom-modation will not be exempt from VAT on fuel bills.

  "Summary of Companies"
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many copies of his Department's publication "Summaries of Companies" included in the HM Treasury index of management consultants dated May 1993, have been published; at what cost; to whom it has been distributed; and what criteria were used in deciding(a) to whom it has been sent and (b) which data were included in the report.

  Sir John Cope
  About 100 copies of this reference book are produced for internal use at a cost of £7·17 each. The book, which is not published, is produced as an aid to those senior staff in Departments and agencies who are considering the hire and use of consultants.

  It contains summary information on the firms on the Treasury's index of management consultants.

  Negative Income Tax
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now review the case for the introduction of a negative income tax.
  484
  Mr. Dorrell
  We have no plans to introduce a negative income tax. The reforms of the social security system in the 1980s improved the interaction between tax and benefit systems. We keep both systems under review.

  Income Tax
  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the change in revenue in a full year of replacing the present rates and thresholds of income tax with a structure in which(a) the first £2,500 incurred tax at 20 per cent., (b) £2,500 to £30,000 at 25 per cent., (c) £30,000 to £60,000 at 40 per cent., (d) £60,000 to £100,000 at 50 per cent. and (e) over £100,000 at 60 per cent., while retaining the existing levels of personal allowances.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The estimated revenue yield in a full year at 1993–94 income levels from imposition of the specified regime is £570 million.

  Book Purchase
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the Inland Revenue will obtain a copy of the book, details of which have been submitted to him.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Inland Revenue gathers information, including published material, which may be relevant to the correct assessment of tax liabilities. Because of its duty of confidentiality the Inland Revenue is not able to comment on its dealings with particular taxpayers.

  Overseas Assets
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the mechanisms by which the Inland Revenue checks on companies' compliance with requirements on valuation of overseas assets.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Inland Revenue uses considerable resources on the technical review and investigation of company accounts. The largest companies and those whose affairs are particularly complex are dealt with in offices which specialise in such cases, which have enough staff to review their tax affairs in depth, and which are headed by some of the Department's most senior inspectors. Reviews cover all aspects of companies' accounts and expert advice is available to the inspectors from head office specialists in international issues.

  Investments overseas will be monitored as part of this process of review and the valuation of assets abroad will be considered in so far as it may have a bearing on United Kingdom tax liabilities.

  Value Added Tax
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many(a) local authorities, (b) voluntary organisations and (c) universities are paying value added tax on courses of further education for adults; and if he will list the liable courses.

  Sir John Cope
  The information is not centrally available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The subject matter of courses is only one of a number of factors affecting VAT liability and each case is determined on its own facts.
  485
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the terms of reference of the review that Customs and Excise are currently undertaking into value added tax in the education and training sector; when the review is due to be completed; and if he will list those bodies being consulted as part of the review process.

  Sir John Cope
  Customs and Excise is carrying out an internal review to examine whether, within the constraints of European Community VAT legislation, there is scope for simplification and rationalisation of the current VAT reliefs for education and training services. Customs expect to be reporting to Ministers in two to three months. If changes in law or administration are considered appropriate, those likely to be affected will be consulted before final proposals are brought forward.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much revenue was obtained from VAT charges on courses of(a) education, (b) training, (c) sports activity and (d) leisure activity in each year since 1987; and how much it costs each year to administer the collection of these charges.

  Sir John Cope
  This information is not centrally available and it would not be possible to provide an estimate without disproportionate cost.

  Business Enterprise Scheme
  Mr. Mandelson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will estimate the cost of tax relief for BES in the years 1992–93 and 1993–94 for schemes involving private housing where individuals obtain loans connected with the shareholdings they acquire through BES;

  (2) if he will estimate the total cost of tax relief for business expansion schemes in the years 1992–93 and 1993–94, with the cost in each year of relief involving private rented housing.

  Mr. Dorrell
  [holding answer 14 June 1993]: The provisional estimate of the total cost of income tax relief for 1992–93 is £380 million. The cost for 1993–94 will depend on the levels of business expansion scheme investments and is very tentatively estimated at about £180 million. It is not possible at present to provide a reliable subdivision of these estimates by type of investment, though information published in the specialist press about loan-linked investments in 1992–93 imply that these may amount to some £250 million of revenue cost.

  Industrial Building Allowance Trusts
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list, for each enterprise zone and former enterprise zone, the number of industrial building allowance trusts accepted for capital allowance purposes; and what is the square footage of(a) industrial and (b) commercial floor space covered in each IBA trust.

  Sir George Young
  I have been asked to reply. Neither my own Department nor Inland Revenue maintains such records and the information could be secured only at disproportionate cost.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  National Association of Probation Officers
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he last met representatives of the National Association of Probation Officers; what matters were discussed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  Neither my right hon. and learned Friend nor I have yet met representatives of the National Association of Probation Officers. I hope to do so before too long.

  Corrections Corporation of America
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the total cost incurred as a result of the decision to investigate the performance and record of the Corrections Corporation of America.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the director general of the prison service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. John McAllion, dated 15 June 1993.

  INVESTIGATION INTO THE CCA
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the cost incurred as a result of the decision to investigate the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The Prisons Service Board asked Mr. Bentley, one of our non executive directors, to visit America to investigate the CCA's suitability to be involved in managing prisons in this country. He was accompanied by a member of staff from Prison Service headquarters. Twenty three people were interviewed during the investigation in several locations in the United States. The substantive costs therefore comprise the travelling, accommodation and other expenses incurred during the visit. These total £9,574.

  Wheel Clamping
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to announce proposals to regulate private wheel clamping.

  Mr. Maclean
  A public consultation exercise on this issue has recently been completed and we are now analysing the very many responses. We will announce our conclusions as soon as possible.

  Police (Assaults)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the reported number of assaults on police officers serving in each of the Metropolitan police divisions during the course of their police duties during 1992.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The information requested is contained in the table:

  Division

  Ident.

  Number of assaults

  Barkingside

  (JB)

  44

  Barnet and Hertsmere

  (SA)

  31

  Battersea

  (WA)

  32

  Belgravia

  (AB)

  31

  Bethnal Green

  (HB)

  49

  Bexleyheath

  (RY)

  30

  487

  Division

  Ident.

  Number of assaults

  Brixton

  (LD)

  68

  Bromley

  (PR)

  36

  Carter Street

  (MS)

  27

  Catford

  (PD)

  68

  Charing Cross

  (CX)

  62

  Chelsea

  (BC)

  20

  Chingford

  (JC)

  46

  Chiswick

  (TC)

  32

  Clapham

  (LM)

  37

  Croydon

  (ZD)

  40

  Dagenham

  (KG)

  55

  Ealing

  (XD)

  83

  Edmonton

  (YE)

  44

  Epsom and Sutton

  (ZP)

  62

  Forest Gate

  (KW)

  76

  Fulham

  (FF)

  33

  Golders Green

  (SG)

  13

  Greenwich

  (RG)

  47

  Hackney

  (GH)

  111

  Hammersmith

  (FH)

  69

  Hampstead

  (EH)

  27

  Harrow

  (QA)

  65

  Harrow Road

  (DR)

  54

  Havering

  (KD)

  62

  Heathrow Airport

  (ID)

  8

  Hillingdon

  (XU)

  54

  Holborn

  (EO)

  41

  Holloway

  (NH)

  52

  Hornsey

  (YR)

  69

  Hounslow

  (TD)

  45

  Ilford

  (JI)

  35

  Islington

  (ND)

  74

  Kennington

  (LK)

  31

  Kensington

  (BD)

  28

  Kentish Town

  (EK)

  34

  Kilburn

  (QK)

  93

  Kingston

  (VK)

  37

  Leman Street

  (HD)

  40

  Lewisham

  (PL)

  34

  Leyton

  (JL)

  82

  Limehouse

  (HH)

  83

  Marylebone

  (DM)

  27

  Merton

  (VW)

  41

  Notting Hill

  (BH)

  54

  Orpington

  (PN)

  27

  Paddington Green

  (DD)

  21

  Peckham

  (MM)

  51

  Plaistow

  (KO)

  62

  Plumstead

  (RA)

  61

  Ponders End

  (YF)

  79

  Richmond

  (TW)

  37

  South Norwood

  (ZN)

  86

  Southall

  (XS)

  45

  Southwark

  (MD)

  57

  Spelthorne

  (TG)

  28

  Stoke Newington

  (GN)

  119

  Streatham

  (LS)

  46

  Tooting

  (WD)

  21

  Tottenham

  (YT)

  75

  Wandsworth

  (WW)

  38

  Wembley

  (QD)

  48

  West End Central

  (CD)

  94

  West Hendon

  (SV)

  41

  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of(a) men and (b) women convicted of assaults on police officers in each of the Metropolitan police divisions during 1992; and what penalties were imposed of (a) imprisonment, (b) fines and (c) probation.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Information for 1991, the last available year, is contained in the following table:488

  Men

  Women

  Convicted

  1,404

  227

  Fined

  775

  102

  Probation

  53

  13

  Imprisonment

  117

  2

  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of days lost by(a) men and (b) women police officers serving in each of the Metropolitan police divisions as a result of physical assault on them during the course of their police duties during the year 1992.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The numbers of days lost per division of the Metropolitan police due to assaults are as follows:

  Division

  Men

  Women

  Belgravia

  98

  —

  Chelsea

  118

  28

  Kensington

  91

  —

  Notting Hill

  74

  2

  West End Central

  83

  53

  Charing Cross

  65

  33

  Paddington Green

  166

  —

  Marylebone

  24

  6

  Harrow

  42

  37

  Hampstead

  76

  —

  Kentish Town

  10

  —

  Fulham

  87

  —

  Hammersmith

  24

  11

  Hackney

  18

  42

  Stoke Newington

  107

  —

  Bethnal Green

  35

  6

  Leman Street

  19

  6

  Limehouse

  111

  8

  Heathrow Airport

  1

  1

  Chingford

  19

  —

  Chigwell

  177

  —

  Ilford

  165

  10

  Leyton

  28

  64

  Barking

  4

  45

  Dagenham

  162

  —

  North Woolwich

  140

  41

  Brixton

  39

  —

  Kennington

  17

  77

  Clapham

  —

  24

  Streatham

  16

  5

  Southwark

  59

  2

  Peckham

  210

  —

  Carter Street

  118

  —

  Holloway

  —

  4

  Islington

  154

  22

  Catford

  26

  —

  Penge

  10

  —

  Brockley

  —

  24

  Lewisham

  39

  73

  Orpington

  96

  —

  Deptford

  66

  —

  Bromley

  41

  39

  Sydenham

  —

  —

  Harrow

  153

  —

  Wembley

  15

  —

  Harlesden

  416

  —

  Kilburn

  521

  117

  Plumstead

  97

  6

  Greenwich

  7

  —

  Bexleyheath

  251

  —

  Barnet and Hertsmere

  79

  —

  West Hendon

  8

  2

  Chiswick

  52

  —

  Hounslow

  16

  16

  Spelthorne

  29

  7

  Twickenham

  10

  7

  Kingston

  135

  —

  489

  Division

  Men

  Women

  Battersea

  36

  20

  Tooting

  60

  39

  Wandsworth

  44

  —

  Ealing

  286

  132

  Hillingdon

  41

  31

  Southall

  41

  11

  Edmonton

  18

  —

  Ponders End

  21

  18

  Hornsey

  75

  —

  Tottenham

  127

  77

  Croydon

  20

  20

  Wimbledon

  409

  2

  South Norwood

  80

  23

  Epsom and Sutton

  248

  15

  Carl Bridgewater Case
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from Mr. Tim O'Malley concerning the Carl Bridgewater case; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  A letter from Mr. O'Malley dated 21 September 1992 which expressed doubts about the safety of the convictions in this case was considered as part of the review, the conclusions of which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) announced on 3 February 1993. I received a further letter from Mr. O'Malley on 6 June, which I will consider together with other additional representations that I have recently received about this case.

  Probation and Bail Hostels
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of vacancies at probation or bail hostels covering the Greater London area on 31 May.

  Mr. Maclean
  As at 31 May 1993 there were a total of 117 vacancies at approved probation/bail and bail hostels in the Greater London area.

  Prisons
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether in-house bids will be permitted for the running of new prisons.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The current policy is not to invite in-house bids for the management of new prisons. In the case of Doncaster, which is the last of the current prison building programme, the prison board decided that it did not wish to make an in-house bid and that there was, therefore, no reason to change the current policy. This is to enable the prison service to focus its resources on developing the best possible bids for existing establish-ments. No decision has been made about the policy on in-house bids for any new prisons which might be built in the future.

  Prison Service
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the performance targets for the prison service for the year 1993–94.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by the then Home Secretary, my right hon. and 490
  learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), to my right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) on 1 April 1993 at column 387.

  Manchester Prison
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether all staff will have the right to transfer to the new employer if the contract for Manchester prison is awarded to an outside tenderer; and what will be the position of any employees who decline to be transferred.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the director general of the prison service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Ms Joan Ruddock, dated 14 June 1993.

  MARKET TESTING OF HMP MANCHESTER
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the position of staff working at Manchester Prison.
  We have given an undertaking that, in the event of a private operator winning the contract, mobile staff at Manchester will have the option of re-deployment elsewhere in the Prison Service. In the case of non-mobile staff we have undertaken to explore the possibilities of re-deployment in the Prison Service or elsewhere in Government service but cannot guarantee that this will prove possible. Mobile staff who have not opted for re-deployment will transfer automatically to the new employer, as will non-mobile staff who have requested re-deployment but for whom such opportunities cannot be found.

  Prison Service (Parliamentary Questions)
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many written replies the chief executive of the prison service issued in response to parliamentary questions during the period 1 April to 28 April; and what was the approximate cost of each letter.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the director general of the prison service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Ms Joan Ruddock, dated 14 June 1993.

  I have been asked by the Home Secretary to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about Questions I have answered.

  I sent 50 written replies in response to Questions put down for answer between 1 April and 28 April, inclusive. Costings for individual replies are not recorded. The average cost of preparing written replies to Questions across the Government service, including the Prison Service, is currently estimated at £94 per written reply.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will make available to hon. Members a copy of the report published at the meeting of EC Home Affairs Ministers in Copenhagen on 1 June which details levels of persecution in states throughout the world; and what plans he has to use the report as a guideline for immigration officials as to which countries can be deemed safe for the return of asylum seekers.
  491
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Ministers took note at the meeting in Copenhagen on 1 June of a report from the Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on Asylum (CIREA). I am placing a copy in the Library.

  Strip Searches
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to review the procedures when intimate and strip searches take place of juveniles held in police custody so as to ensure that either a parent, relative or friend is present; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  We shall shortly be seeking the views of the Association of Chief Police Officers on a number of issues relating to the conduct of intimate and strip searches.

  Work Permits
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action his Department is proposing to take to ensure farmers and gangmasters do not employ non-EC persons who do not possess a work permit.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  'The immigration service works closely with the police arid other agencies to detect and deal with people committing offences under the immigration laws, including those working without authority.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now reply to the letters of 5 April, 21 April and 6 May sent to his predecessor by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard to Mr. Gallagher, an inmate at Lancaster prison.

  Mr. Maclean
  I understand that the director general of the prison service replied on 14 June to the right hon. Member's letter of 5 April about Mr. Gallagher's treatment in prison. As my right hon. and learned Friend's assistant private secretary explained in her letter of 9 June, we are making some inquiries in order to be in a position to send a substantive reply to the right hon. Member's letters of 21 April and 6 May about the safety of Mr. Gallagher's conviction.

  Yugoslavia (Detainees)
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimates he has received of the numbers of ex-detainees in the former Yugoslavia eligible for admission to the United Kingdom, with their dependants, under the scheme he announced last November.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Placement under the scheme that I announced last November is dependent on nomination by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A number of other countries are running similar programmes and I understand that nearly all ex-detainees currently in UNHCR's care in Croatia have now been placed. The International Committee of the Red Cross is currently visiting some 2,400 detainees in Bosnia whose release it hopes to negotiate.

DEFENCE

  Swan Hunter
  Mr. Trotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will outline the nature of the discussions being held between his Department and the receiver of Swan Hunter as to the completion of the three frigates building at the yard; and whether it is his preferred solution for the frigates to be completed at the yard subject to the satisfactory conclusion of the negotiations with the receiver.

  Mr. Aitken
  Completion of the three type 23 Frigates on Tyneside would be my preferred solution, provided that a satisfactory agreement can be reached with the receiver. The details of the current negotiations are commercially confidential; they include financial and contractual matters.

  Channel Islands (Nazi Occupation)
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the release of further documents relating to the wartime Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands; and what inspection of these documents has been undertaken by representatives of the German authorities.

  Mr. Hanley
  The majority of MOD documents relating to the wartime Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands are already in the public domain. The German authorities are examining all MOD documents relating to this matter. When they have completed this task, those files currently closed will be opened for public inspection at the Public Record Office.

  Upholder Class Submarines
  Mr. Viggers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what has been the cost of moving the Upholder class of submarine from Gosport to Devonport.

  Mr. Hanley
  A total of £100,000 has been spent so far, and a further sum is contractually committed. No more expenditure will be approved until a decision has been taken on the future of the Upholder class.

  Defence Research Agency
  Sir James Spicer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what targets he has set for the Defence Research Agency in 1993–94.

  Mr. Aitken
  The targets recently set for the Defence Research Agency in 1993–94 and subsequent years are as follows:

  (a) To meet profit and cash targets consistent with a 6 per cent. return on capital employed (ROCE).

  (b) To improve overall utilisation from 40 per cent. in 1992–93 to 49 per cent. in 1993–94 and 52 per cent. in 1997–98.

  (c) To reduce administrative and general overhead (AGO) expressed as a percentage of total variable costs to less than 15 per cent. in 1993–94 and to hold it at this level or better in following years.

  (d) To seek competitive proposals in 1993–94 for market testing amounting on an annual basis to 5 per cent. of DRA's turnover, for secondary competition amounting to 3 per cent. of turnover, and for subcontracts amounting to 24 per cent. of DRA's turnover.

  493

  (e) To achieve 70 per cent. of customer milestones on time in 1993–94 and to increase this to 85 per cent. by 1997–98.

  (f) To achieve an increase of 2 per cent. in overall performance and customer satisfaction in 1993–94 (as measured by the sum of satisfaction criteria in the business planning survey).

  (g) To achieve a running cost reduction of £38 million per annum in 1993–94 and to achieve the final target of £90 million by 1997–98.

  (h) To achieve formal quality certification to BS5750 for one sector by 31 December 1994, and for the rest of the DRA by 31 December 1966.

  HMS Sovereign
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what timescale he has for the return to service of HMS Sovereign, of what other vessels the officer in command of HMS Sovereign is also in command; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  [pursuant to his answer, 8 June 1993, col. 225–26.]: The answer I gave on 8 June should have read as follows:

  HMS Sovereign is expected to return to service in 1995. The refitting officer in command of HMS Sovereign is also in command of HMS Revenge, which is in the process of being decommissioned.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Product Marking
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how his Department will be participating at the Copenhagen European conference in June on labelling products; and which United Kingdom good practices in the labelling of products he will submit to the European Commission study of this issue.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  My Department was represented by an official from consumer affairs division. The conduct of the study is a matter for the European Commission but we understand that it will be identifying priorities, and considering how best to bring consumer and trade interests together to assist in the process. My Department will aim to keep in touch with developments, co-operate fully in this work and ensure the European Commission is aware of current United Kingdom practices.

  Developing Countries
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what measures he proposes to take to help increase the trading prospects of developing countries; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Needham
  The Government will continue to support strenuously the European Community's efforts, particularly in the current GATT Uruguay round negotiations, to create open trading conditions which will increase the trading prospects of all countries, including developing nations. An OECD study suggested that annual income gains to the developing world as a whole from a Uruguay round agreement could be in excess of $US 90 billion, once all the effects have worked through. Under its generalised system of preferences (GSP) scheme the European Community allows preferential access to most of the manufactured products from developing 494
  countries. The GSP provides especially generous treatment for the least developed nations. The trade provisions of the Lomé convention also provide unlimited duty free access (subject to rules of origin) to Community markets for all industrial products (except rum), and free or concessionary access for a wide range of agricultural products, from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. Lomé beneficiaries financed from the European development fund (EDF) can also write into their national indicative programmes requirements for technical and structural adjustment aid which will benefit their export regimes.

  The United Kingdom also actively participates in the United Nations conference on trade and development (UNCTAD) and other relevant international forums which encourage developing countries in their own efforts towards sustained economic development.

  Office of Electricity Regulation
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many people are employed by OFFER; what is their function; and what is the annual cost.

  Mr. Eggar
  Total staff in post at the Office of Electricity Regulation (OFFER) in December 1992 was 224. This figure includes staff working on consumer and public affairs, legal and technical matters, administration and in the regional offices. The duties of the Director General of Electricity Supply, who heads OFFER, include the regulation of the electricity market and the protection of consumers. The cost of running OFFER in the financial year ending March 1992 was £10·5 million. OFFER's costs are recovered from annual fees paid by licensees.

  Oil and Gas
  Mr. Richards
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what measures are being taken to ensure that those companies which receive the right to drill offshore under the 14th round of oil and gas licensing do so in an environmentally responsible manner; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  Special conditions to protect wildlife and the environment are attached to licence awards. These conditions are agreed with other Government Departments and the Joint Nature Conservancy Committee (JNCC).

  Gasoline
  Mr. Legg
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) what changes to gasoline composition have occurred in the United Kingdom since 1970;

  (2) what is the level of aromatic hydrocarbons in the super premium unleaded grade and the unleaded premium grade of gasoline in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Eggar
  The information is not held centrally.

  Deregulation Unit
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received from the civil service unions about the work of the deregulation unit.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I am not aware of any such representations.

  British and Commonwealth Company
  Mr. Radice
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to publish his Department's report into the collapse of the British and Commonwealth Company.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  Inspectors were appointed on 15 June 1990 under section 432 of the Companies Act 1985 to investigate and report on the affairs of Atlantic Computers plc and Atlantic Computer Systems plc, both major companies in the British and Commonwealth group. The inspectors are in the final stages of their investigations but they have not yet submitted their report; I will consider publication when it is received.

  Overseas Assets
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement outlining his Department's responsibilities in respect of investigating companies' compliance with United Kingdom accounting requirements on valuation of overseas assets.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  A company's compliance with the United Kingdom accounting requirements on the valuation of overseas assets is a matter for the directors and auditors. Where evidence was presented suggesting that without good reason the relevant statutory accounting requirements had not been applied, appropriate inquiries would be considered in the normal way.

  Brewing Industry
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 8 June, if he will list the exclusive supply agreements in the brewing industry which have received exemption from article 85 of the treaty of Rome.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  [holding answer 11 June 1993]: Since 1983, supply agreements operated by the brewing industry have been able to gain automatic exemption from article 85 of the treaty of Rome by complying with the provisions of EC regulation 1984/83. There is no record of agreements which have benefited from this block exemption because no Commission decision is necessary for the exemption to apply. In addition, some agreements in the brewing industry will have been given individual exemption from article 85 by the EC Commission. Details of these individual exemptions are published in the official journal of the European Communities, but a record of them is not kept by the United Kingdom Government and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Saudi Arabia (Exports)
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the level of exports from Britain to Saudi Arabia in each of the last five years; and what information he has on the proportion of such exports which were on commission.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 14 June 1993]: This information is regularly published in "Business Monitors" MA20 and MM20, "Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom", copies of which are available in the Library.

  Information on the proportion of exports on commission is not available.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Charity Law
  Mr. Maginnis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he is able to indicate the nature of the review which is presently taking place of the law relating to charities in Northern Ireland; how long the review has been in progress; and by what means he intends to introduce legislation to deal with the issue.

  Mr. Mates
  The review is an internal one involving the relevant Departments and has been in progress since March 1992. The law and administration of charities is quite different in Northern Ireland compared with the position in Great Britain and the main thrust of the review is to examine those aspects of the reforms to charity law and administration in Great Britain which may have implications for Northern Ireland. If it is decided to introduce new legislation, it is likely to be in the form of a Northern Ireland charities Order in Council under the Northern Ireland Act 1974.

  Electricity Privatisation
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he is taking to honour the commitments in the 1991 White Paper "Privatisation of Northern Ireland Electricity" concerning provisions for existing employees to obtain a direct stake in the industry and concerning parallel provisions for shares for former NIE employees and those persons who transferred to successor generating companies to NIE.

  Mr. Atkins
  The objective behind any employee share purchase is to give employees the opportunity to obtain a direct stake in the company in which they are employed. This is the objective lying behind the special arrangements offered to employees of NIE for the purchase of shares in NIE. Former employees of NIE are entitled to register and apply for shares in the flotation and benefit from the incentives offered, which are enhanced for customers. Those employees who transferred to successor generating companies may also be able to participate in any share incentive schemes made available by their new employers.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Parliamentary Television Service
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Lord President of the Council, pursuant to his answer of 5 February,Official Report, column 27, what further developments have taken place regarding the provision of a live feed of the Chamber of the House to hon. Members' offices.

  Mr. Newton
  There is little that I can usefully add to my earlier reply to the hon. Member. Proposals for the establishment of a parliamentary data and video network, on which the clean feed from the Chamber would be carried, are still under consideration by the Information Committee. I understand that the Committee hopes to be able to report to the House by the end of the year.

EDUCATION

  Spelling
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what efforts are being made to improve standards of spelling in schools.

  Mr. Forth
  We are seeking to raise standards in all the basic language skills, including spelling, through the development of national curriculum English. Our proposals for revising the English Order, currently the subject of extensive consultation, give a strengthened emphasis to accurate spelling as one of the writing skills essential for the effective communication of meaning. To emphasise the importance of these skills, 5 per cent. of the marks in all GCSE written examinations are now allocated to spelling, punctuation and grammar.

  Testing
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to review testing procedures for schools or to change the role of the new curriculum and advisory body in this area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Patten
  I have asked Sir Ron Dearing to conduct a wide ranging review of the manageability of the national curriculum and the associated testing and assessment framework. The prospective remit of the new Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority is laid out in section 232 of the Education Bill currently before Parliament.

  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement about the current situation regarding school tests.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Most primary schools will have completed the tests of seven-year-olds. Fourteen-year-olds should have been sitting tests over the last week and a half. I deeply regret some teachers' boycott of these tests, which are necessary to monitor progress and raise standards.

  My right hon. Friend has asked Sir Ron Dearing to conduct a review of the national curriculum and assessment framework. He expects to have Sir Ron's recommendations in July.

  Mr. George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will meet the representatives of teachers' organisations to discuss key stage testing.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  My right hon. Friend has no plans for such a meeting. Teacher associations should make their views known to Sir Ron Dearing, the chairman designate of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, who is conducting a review of the national curriculum and assessment.

  Graduate Teaching Qualifications
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has for developing access to graduate teaching qualifications.

  Mr. Patten
  The Department has discussed with the Higher Education Quality Council the provision of access courses for entry to initial teacher training. I understand that the council is planning to publish a list of such courses later this year.

  Grant-maintained Schools
  Mr. Dunn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will set out his plans for promoting the advantages of grant-maintained status within the local education authorities' network of schools; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Patten
  By the end of May, 2·4 million of the Department's publications on self-governing status had been distributed, mainly in response to requests.

  The Department has also organised 16 regional conferences on "Going GM" and three further events are planned for later this term. Almost 3,000 headteachers and governors of LEA maintained schools have attended the conferences, representing around 1,700 schools.

  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is his estimate of the cost of the Funding Agency for schools in April 1996(a) on the assumption that his targets for the number of schools opting for grant-maintained status is met and (b) on the assumption that the number of schools opting for grant-maintained status increases at the present annual rate.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Parents will decide through ballots how many schools become grant maintained. On current trends, most secondary schools and a significant minority of primary schools could be GM by April 1996. The running costs of the FAS will depend on a number of factors, including growth of the sector, but on this basis might be of the order of £20 million in 1996–97. Over time, we expect the establishment of the FAS to result in savings in DFE running costs and, as the FAS takes on responsibility for the provision of school places, to lead to a reduction in the central administration costs of LEAs.

  Primary Education
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is the current number of children in primary school education in England.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The latest available figure is for January 1992, when there were 4·1 million children in maintained primary schools.

  Victorian Schools
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education whether he will make special provision for modernising Victorian schools in urban areas.

  Mr. Forth
  The Government already provide substantial capital resources for school buildings. LEAs can choose to use the resources available to them to give priority to modernising Victorian buildings if they wish. Capital bids from the governors of voluntary-aided and grant-maintained schools are considered on their merits.

  Schools (Disabled Access)
  Mr. Jon Owen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to meet local education authority representatives to discuss the accessibility of schools for children with physical disabilities.

  Mr. Forth
  Local education authorities and school governors may seek meetings with Ministers or officials to
  499
  discuss general capital issues at any time. It is very likely that in some of these meetings the agenda will include access for disabled pupils.

  A-levels
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the levels of achievement at A-level.

  Mr. Boswell
  More people than ever before are taking A-levels, passing them and passing them well. They will continue to set a benchmark for academic achievement. They are a key part of our strategy to provide clear and attractive pathways to high levels of academic and vocational achievement.

  Special Educational Needs
  Mr. Pope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what estimate he has made as to the main factors influencing the length of time it takes local education authorities to produce statements of special educational needs.

  Mr. Forth
  The Audit Commission/HMI survey "Getting in on the Act" published in June 1992 looked carefully at the operation of procedures for making assessments and statements. Its conclusion was that a variety of factors could cause delay, but that lack of resources was not one of them.

  The Education Bill provides for regulations which will for the first time set statutory time limits for the assessment and statementing processes. The Bill also requires the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice which will guide LEAs in their operation of those processes. The Government's aim is to ensure that assessments are concluded—and, where necessary, statements produced —as quickly as is consistent with thoroughness.

  Pre-school Education
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education when he next intends to meet the Association of County Councils to discuss the provision of nursery education.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to meet the Association of County Councils to discuss this matter.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he is taking to improve the quality of educational input in different forms of pre-school provision.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Department has increased its grant to the Pre-school Playgroups Association for staff training and development from £179,000 in 1990–91 to £887,000 in 1993–94. It also supports training and development work undertaken by the British Association for Early Childhood Education and by the Early Childhood Unit of the National Children's Bureau.

  Ms Estelle Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many pre-school education places were available in England at the latest available date; and what percentage that number is of the total number of children in the relevant age group.
  500
  Mr. Robin Squire
  Information on the number of education places is not available. In January 1992 there were nearly 630,000 pupils below compulsory school age in maintained nursery and primary schools in England of whom 330,000 were in nursery provision. The under-fives participation rates were 49 per cent. and 26 per cent. respectively.

  Youth Service
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is his estimate of the total sum needed on an annual basis to meet the current statutory requirements in respect of youth service provision.

  Mr. Boswell
  The Government do not determine centrally how much should be spent on particular local government services. It is primarily for individual local authorities to decide how to discharge their duty to secure adequate provision out of the resources made available to them under revenue support grant.

  Schools (Funding)
  Mr. Brandreth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received regarding the balance of funding between primary and secondary schools; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  We have received a number of recent representations from schools and hon. Members about primary and secondary school funding under local management of schools, including one from the North West Primary Heads Forum. We have made clear that this is a matter for individual local education authorities.

  Further and Higher Education Charters
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received from students on the further and higher education charters; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Boswell
  We are currently consulting on the draft further and higher education charters. To date two representations have been received from students; from the University college London union and the other from the South East Wales Students Association.

  Grammar Schools
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he is taking to ensure that there will be continued provision of grammar school places.

  Mr. Forth
  The provision of school places to be filled on the basis of academic ability is a matter for local education authorities and governing bodies, taking account of local needs and the wishes of parents and the community. My right hon. Friend will continue to consider very carefully any proposals put to him for the introduction or cessation of selective admission arrangements which would amount to a significant change in the character of the school.

  Financial Assistance
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what assessment he has made of the adequacy of financial assistance to enable people to continue or re-enter education.
  501
  Mr. Boswell
  Most students on designated full-time and sandwich courses leading to a first degree or certain comparable qualifications are eligible for mandatory awards and student loans. Students on other courses can apply for a discretionary or postgraduate award. The Government have commissioned a survey of the income and expenditure of students on designated courses, and the Gulbenkian and Sir John Cass's Foundations are undertaking a study of the provision of discretionary awards.

  Oxford and Cambridge College Fees
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received about the basis for calculating grants for college fees at Oxford and Cambridge.

  Mr. Boswell
  The Department has received representations from those acting on behalf of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, as part of the annual negotiations on the level of college fees.

  Music Funding
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make it his policy to ring-fence funding at local education authority level for(a) inter-school instrumental teaching, (b) orchestras, (c) choirs and (d) chamber music.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to change the current arrangements for funding school music at local education authority level. He considers it right that local authorities should determine the appropriate level of spending on music services in the light of their judgment of local needs and priorities and in the light of the demand from schools.

  Outdoor Education
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make it his policy to ensure that local education authorities have a continuing responsibility to provide outdoor education for pupils at all state sector schools in their area.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  No. Where funds have been delegated to individual schools, it is their responsibility to determine—having regard to the requirements of the National Curriculum Order for Physical Education—the level of provision for outdoor education needed, and how it should be provided.

  Pupil Selection
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to alter the interpretation of significant change of character to increase the selection of pupils in(a) local authority maintained and (b) grant-maintained schools.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  None.

HEALTH

  Mental Health
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the percentage of acutely mentally ill statutorily detained in each of the last five years, by region and in London.

  Mr. Bowis
  The latest available information is shown in the table.

  A change in the method of data collection following the Korner review in 1987 means that figures for years prior to 1987–88 are not directly comparable with later years.

  Precise figures for London are not readily available, but an approximation can be made by amalgamating the four Thames regions.

  Patients formally admitted to NHS facilities as a percentage of all admissions under the mental illness specialty, by regional health authority, 1987–88 to 1989–90

  Year ending 31 March

  Regional Health Authority

  1987–88 per cent.

  1988–89 per cent.

  1989–90 per cent.

  Northern

  7

  6

  7

  Yorkshire

  6

  7

  8

  Trent

  8

  10

  11

  East Anglia

  7

  9

  10

  North West Thames

  18

  12

  15

  North East Thames

  10

  9

  l0

  South East Thames

  7

  7

  7

  South West Thames

  16

  20

  15

  Wessex

  8

  7

  6

  Oxford

  5

  7

  8

  South Western

  12

  7

  8

  West Midlands

  8

  8

  9

  Mersey

  7

  8

  8

  North Western

  7

  8

  8

  Special Hospitals

  8

  8

  9

  Thames Regions

  12

  12

  12

  Note: The above figures are calculated using data from the Korner aggregate return KH 15 and the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) system. 1987–88 was the first year of collection. The figures for that year may therefore be less reliable than later years.

  Hospital Beds
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many beds are currently available at(a) the Royal London hospital, (b) St. Bartholomew's hospital and (c) the London chest hospital.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The available information is at unit level only and details by specific site are not separately identifiable. The hon. Member may wish to contact the chairman of the respective national health service trust and health authorities for details.

  Paediatric Beds
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many paediatric beds there are in each provider unit in the Thames regions.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information is shown in the table.
  503

  Average daily number of available paediatric1 beds by provider unit Thames regions

  1991–92

  North West Thames Region

  Bradford General Hospital south wing

  34

  South Bedfordshire General hospital and Maternity Services Unit

  50

  South Bedfordshire Community and Mental Health Services Unit

  10

  East Hertfordshire Health Services

  20

  St. Albans City

  40

  South West Hertfordshire Provider Unit

  32

  Barnet General Hospitals Unit

  56

  Northwick Park Hospital

  45

  Harefield Hospital

  8

  Ashford Hospital

  22

  West Middlesex University Hospital

  41

  Ealing Hospital

  24

  Riverside Health Unit

  83

  St. Mary's Hospital Group Services

  36

  Mount Vernon Hospital NHS Trust

  16

  The Hillingdon Hospital NHS Trust

  20

  Central Middlesex Hospital NHS Trust

  25

  North Hertfordshire NHS Trust

  31

  North East Thames Region:

  Basildon and Thurrock Acute Unit

  30

  Mid Essex Hospital Services Unit

  47

  North East Essex Acute Unit

  28

  North East Essex Community Unit Central Clinic

  13

  Essex and Hertfordshire Health Services

  33

  Oldchurch Hospital

  38

  Harold Wood Unit

  17

  City and Hackney Health Service

  38

  Newham Health Services

  30

  Enfield Acute Unit

  31

  Redbridge Unit

  25

  Waltham Forest Health Authority Acute Unit(Provider)

  31

  Bloomsbury and Islington Acute Unit (Southside)

  58

  Bloomsbury and Islington Acute Unit (Northside)

  36

  Southend Health Care NHS Trust

  21

  Royal London Hospital and Associated Community Services NHS Trust

  40

  Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust

  39

  Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital NHS Trust

  11

  Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust

  46

  North Middlesex Hospital NHS Trust

  27

  South East Thames Region:

  Brighton Health Care

  71

  Eastbourne Hospitals

  24

  Hastings Learning Disabilities Unit

  29

  South East Kent General Hospitals Unit

  47

  Thanet General Unit

  24

  Canterbury General Unit

  36

  Dartford and Gravesham Acute Services Unit

  19

  Maidstone Acute and Community Care Unit

  39

  Medway Acute Unit

  20

  Medway Priority Care Unit

  33

  Tunbridge Wells Acute Unit

  43

  Queen Victoria Hospital Provider Unit

  26

  Bexley (Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup) Unit

  20

  Greenwich District Hospital Provider Unit

  28

  Brook General Hospital Provider Unit

  28

  Bromley Acute Unit

  29

  St. Thomas' Hospital Provider Unit

  42

  King's Health Care Provider Unit

  53

  Guy's and Lewisham NHS Trust

  144

  South West Thames Region:

  North West Surrey Acute Unit

  42

  Frimley Park Unit

  28

  East Surrey Hospital and Community Healthcare

  19

  St. Richard's Hospital (Unit 1)

  24

  Crawley—Horsham Unit

  26

  Mid Sussex Unit (East Unit)

  18

  Worthing and Southlands Hospital Unit

  32

  504

  1991–92

  Croydon Health Services Unit

  40

  Queen Mary's University Hospital

  33

  St. George's Group Acute Services Unit

  64

  Queen Mary's Hospital for Children

  70

  Epsom Health Care NHS Trust

  20

  Royal Surrey County and St. Lukes Hospital NHS Trust

  32

  Kingston Hospital NHS Trust

  43

  St. Helier NHS Trust

  5

  1 Beds in wards open day and night and classified for use by general patients—children.

  Doncaster Health Authority
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the Doncaster health authority made an application for authority by statutory instrument to distribute trust charitable funds to health trusts; and what is the number of the relevant statutory instrument.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Doncaster health authority lodged a request to transfer charitable funds to the Doncaster Royal infirmary and Montague national health service trust on 24 May. The statutory instrument has not yet been made.

  Trent Regional Health Authority
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she is yet able to make a statement over the location of a new high-security unit in the Trent regional health authority area.

  Mr. Bowis
  Rampton hospital already provides high security psychiatric services. There are no current plans for a further high security unit to be located in Trent region. I understand that Trent regional health authority is planning further development of its medium-secure service, but that no firm decision have been taken about this.

  Single General Practitioner Practices
  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many single-handed general practitioner practices there are(a) in England and (b) in London; and what is their average patient holding.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The information is shown in the table:

  England

  Greater London

  Number of single-handed GP practices

  2,867

  772

  Average patient list size for single-handed GPs

  2,118

  2,276

  Note: Data relate to 1 October 1992 except for the average patient list size for Greater London, for which the latest available figure is for 1 April 1992.

  Prescriptions
  Sir John Hannam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what would be the cost of exempting all recipients of disability working allowance from the payment of prescription charges;

  (2) how many recipients of disability working allowance qualify for free prescriptions on the ground of low income in the most recent 12-month period available;
  505
  (3) what is her response to recommendation 16 of the third report of the Social Security Select Committee (HC, 1992–93, No. 284-I) that disability working allowance recipients should be entitled to free prescriptions in the same way that family credit recipients are.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The health benefits unit does not keep a record of the social security benefits received by people who claim help from the national health service low income scheme. The estimated current annual cost of extending automatic help with national health service costs, to recipients of the allowance and their dependants, on the same basis as it is available to those receiving income support or family credit, would be around £0·75 million. The Government will respond in due course to the third report of the Social Security Select Committee (HC 1992–93, No. 284-I).

  Patients Charter
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will publish for each health authority the reports on the performance of individual local hospital and ambulance services against patients charter rights and standards.

  Mr. Sackville
  Health authorities will be publishing annual reports on performance by their principal providers against patients charter rights and standards as required under the charter.

  Notifiable Diseases, Avon
  Mr. Aspinwall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health is she will state the number of cases of notifiable diseases reported in the County of Avon in 1992, by category.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information is shown in the table.

  Number (Provisional) of Notifiable Diseases reported in the County of Avon in 1992

  Total

  Food poisoning

  1,130

  Dysentery

  271

  Rubella

  137

  Viral hepatitis

  120

  Scarlet Fever

  103

  Measles

  98

  All meningitis

  69

  Tuberculosis

  52

  Mumps

  43

  Whooping Cough

  23

  Malaria

  18

  Meningococcal septicaemia

  6

  Ophthalmia neonatorum

  5

  Typhoid fever

  2

  Leptospirosis

  1

  Tetanus

  0

  Acute poliomyelitis

  0

  Acute encephalitis

  0

  Cholera

  0

  Plague

  0

  Anthrax

  0

  Diphtheria

  0

  Smallpox

  0

  Yellow fever

  0

  Typhus

  0

  Relapsing fever

  0

  Rabies

  0

  Viral haemorrhagic fever

  0

  Dryburn Hospital, Durham
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many admissions there were to wards 2 and 10 of Dryburn hospital, in the City of Durham constituency, for the last 12 months for which figures are available; and what figures she has for the time periods for which beds in those wards were occupied by each of those admissions;

  (2) how much was spent in the last 12 months for which figures are available, by Dryburn hospital in the City of Durham constituency on (a) nursing appointments, (b) administrative appointments and (c) medical appoint-ments.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  This information is not available centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact Professor John Clarke, the chairman of the North Durham district health authority, for details.

  Practice Charters
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many family health services authority and general practitioner practice charters have now been produced; and if she will list them.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  All family health services authorities were required to develop and produce local charters by 1 April 1993. We do not yet have any information on the numbers of general practitioner practices which have voluntarily produced their own practice charter.

  Hospital Ophthalmic Departments
  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what guidelines her Department gives to health authorities for record keeping and collating statistics in hospital ophthalmic departments;

  (2) what data health authorities are required to collate from hospital ophthalmology departments.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Purchasers and providers are required to keep agreed sets of data on all general in-patient and out-patient activity and for patients awaiting elective admission. The information requirements are described in module 1 (hospital services) and module 3 (paramedic and cross-sector services) of the national health service data manual, copies of which are available in the Library. In addition, in relation to hospital ophthalmic departments, details of sight tests undertaken and numbers of glasses prescribed by the hospital eye service must be kept.

  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number of referrals from general practitioners and optometrists to hospital ophthalmology out-patients clinics in each year since 1985.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The available information is shown in the table. Separate figures for referrals from optometrists are not available centrally.

  Consultant out-patient activity—ophthalmology departments

  Referral attendances

  Consultant initiated attendances

  GP written referral request1

  1987–88

  588,973

  2,277,436

  451,006

  1988–89

  574,532

  2,264,752

  467,371

  1989–90

  579,693

  2,308,099

  462,710

  1990–91

  599,520

  2,331,682

  478,141

  1991–92

  663,192

  2,350,056

  529,243

  507

  1GP written referrals are included in the referral attendances column.

  Blind and Partially Sighted People
  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people were registered blind and partially sighted in each year since 1985; and what figures are projected for registration in(a) five and (b) 10 years time.

  Mr. Bowis
  The information held centrally is shown in the table. The Department has not made projections for future registrations.

  Number of people registered as blind and partially sighted as at 31 March 1986–91, England

  1986

  1988

  1991

  Total registered as at 31 March

  Blind

  120,548

  126,828

  136,195

  Partially sighted

  71,104

  79,048

  93,777

  New registrations in year ending 31 March

  Blind

  12,026

  13,901

  13,629

  Partially sighted

  10,466

  12,014

  13,639

  Source: DH Return SSDA902.

  Eye Diseases
  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people aged(a) under 40, (b) 41–65, (c) 66–70 and (d) over 70 years suffered from glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, macular eye disease and cataracts in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Bowis
  This information is not available centrally. Data on the causes of blindness and partial sight was first collected by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys in 1990–91 and is currently being processed.

  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information she has regarding the incidence of eye disease leading to blindness or hospital treatment in the United Kingdom, each of the EC countries, the United States of America and Japan.

  Mr. Bowis
  Information on the incidence of all eye disease is not available centrally. Data have been collected for 1990–91 on the causes of blindness and partial sight

  Nurses and midwives clinical grading appeals outstanding as at 31 May 1993

  Region

  Employing authority level

  Regional level

  National level

  Total

  Northern

  40

  1,678

  127

  1,845

  Yorkshire

  134

  1,057

  222

  1,413

  Trent

  538

  1,695

  115

  2,348

  East Anglian

  0

  359

  115

  474

  North West Thames

  84

  986

  85

  1,155

  North East Thames

  62

  587

  97

  746

  South West Thames

  0

  324

  174

  498

  South East Thames

  8

  707

  123

  838

  Wessex

  0

  543

  163

  706

  Oxford

  0

  29

  233

  262

  South Western

  0

  1,066

  103

  1,169

  West Midlands

  1,526

  1,424

  81

  3,031

  Mersey

  413

  1,516

  315

  2,244

  North Western

  369

  2,811

  201

  3,381

  Total

  3,174

  14,782

  2,154

  20,110

  508
  referred to opthalmologists and this information is being prepared by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. Comparative data for other countries are not available.

  In 1991–92, in England, there were 184,000 finished consultant episodes and 64,000 day cases in the hospital eye service, and 613,910 referrals made by the general optical service to opthalmologists.

  Hospital Places (Allocation)
  Mr. Burden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action she is taking to ensure equality of treatment between patients of fund-holding and non-fund-holding general practitioner practices in the allocation of hospital places.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Guidance agreed with the joint consultants committee was issued to hospital consultants in June 1991, in EL(91)84, a copy of which is available in the Library. This stated that waiting times should not be offered to one general practitioner which would disadvantage the patients of another practice. Where a unit has spare capacity, this may be offered to any purchaser.

  Nurse Grading Appeals
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will set out by regional health authority how many nurse clinical grading appeals are pending at a national level; what amount of money these claims involve; what steps are being made to speed the appeal process; and when she estimates this process will be completed;

  (2) if she will set out by each health authority region the number of nurse clinical grading appeals still outstanding, the amount of money these claims involve, the steps being made to speed the appeal process and when the region is expected to have dealt with all appeals.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information on the number of appeals outstanding is shown in the table. No estimate of the total sum of arrears of pay due to be paid as a result of grading appeals has been made. Regional health authorities have been asked to clear all outstanding appeals by 31 October 1993.

  Limited List Prescribing
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many letters have been received by her Department about the proposed extension of the limited list for pharmaceutical products from(a) the medical profession, (b) right hon. and hon. Members, (c) members of the public and (d) patient representative bodies; and if she will indicate in each case broadly how many of those letters supported the proposed extension and how many opposed it;

  (2) how many representations she has received from right hon. and hon. Members about her proposed extension of the limited list for pharmaceutical products; in what form those representations were made; in how many cases those representations supported the extension of the list.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  There have been 174 letters from the medical profession; 981 letters from right hon. and hon. Members; 438 letters from members of the public and several letters from 11 of the bodies representing patients. A total of 130 representations have been received from right hon. and hon. Members in the form of parliamentary questions to Ministers. There have also been a number of requests for meetings with Ministers. These letters and representations have raised concerns about the selected list scheme.

  Clothier Inquiry
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what is the location of(a) the administration and secretarial facilities for the Clothier inquiry and (b) Sir Cecil Clothier's office; and what links the administration of the inquiry has with the Trent regional health authority headquarters;

  (2) where the Clothier inquiry is to be based; and what funding is to be made available for witnesses and the parents of the victims in respect of their travel expenses, loss of time from work and child minding.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The address of the independent inquiry is:

  Office of Sir Cecil Clothier KCB QC

  c/o Davies Arnold Cooper Solicitors

  6–8 Bouverie Street

  LONDON

  EC4Y 8DD

  The inquiry will be conducted independently of Trent regional health authority. One employee of the RHA has been seconded permanently to the inquiry for its duration, to act as the clerk.

  Reasonable expenses incurred by witnesses in assisting the inquiry will be met. Claims for such expenses should be submitted to the clerk for consideration.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what arrangements have been made under the present Clothier inquiry in respect of financing legal representation for the parents.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The investigative rather than adversarial nature of the Clothier inquiry means that there is not the need for extensive legal representation of witnesses. If the parents wish to be accompanied to give evidence to the inquiry, by a lawyer or anyone else, additional expenses will be allowed to cover reasonable costs incurred.

  United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many disciplinary hearings the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors has held within the last five years; and what was their outcome;

  (2) if she will list the members of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors professional conduct committee stating (a) their profession, (b) the body from which they were elected or appointed and (c) the chair of that body.

  Mr. Sackville
  This information is not available centrally. The hon. Member may wish to consult the council for details.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the remit of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors professional conduct committee; and what procedures it is obliged to follow in the course of disciplinary proceedings.

  Mr. Sackville
  Section 12 of the Nurses Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1979, requires the council to constitute committees, by rules, to deal with proceedings for a person's removal from, or restoration to, the register, for the suspension, or termination of the suspension, of a person's registration in the register and to make rules governing the procedure of these committees. The relevant rules are set out in the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors (Professional Conduct) Rules 1993 Approval Order 1993 (Statutory Instrument 1993 No. 893).

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the members of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors, stating(a) their profession, (b) the body from which they were elected or appointed and (c) the chair of that body.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information requested has been placed in the Library. Members of the council are either elected under the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (Electoral Scheme) Order 1992 (Statutory Instrument 1992 No. 2159) or appointed by the Secretary of State under section 1 of the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1992. Members are not elected or appointed as representatives of particular bodies.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Television Licences
  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage how many people paid their television licences at a concessionary rate in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Brooke
  The estimated number of households covered by a concessionary television for each year since 1985–86 is as follows:

  Period

  Number

  1985–86

  502,000

  1986–87

  554,000

  1987–88

  596,000

  1988–89

  645,000

  511

  Period

  Number

  1989–90

  688,000

  1990–91

  635,000

  1991–92

  630,000

  1992–93

  639,000

  Albert Dock
  Mr. Kilfoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what are the latest tourist figures for the Albert dock; and how they are calculated.

  Mr. Sproat
  I understand that the Albert dock received 5 million visitors in 1992. This figure is calculated by an independent research company on behalf of the Albert Dock Company.

  Community-based Sport
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what measures he is taking to promote community-based sports programmes in England; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Brooke
  The Sports Council, which is funded by my Department, is active in promoting and funding community-based sports programmes. In 1992–93 they provided over £13 million to assist the development of over 500 projects. The business sponsorship incentive scheme for sport launched in November 1992 aims to increase the amount of business sponsorship going into grass roots sport including community-based projects. The scheme has a budget for Great Britain of £3·7 million in 1993–94. In addition schedule 12 to the Education Bill will enable school governing bodies to enter into joint management agreements for the community use of school facilities.

  Performing Arts
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what measures he is taking to promote the performing arts in England; and if he will make a statement.
  512
  Mr. Brooke
  The Government recognise the great value of the arts in this country both for their own sake and for their contribution to the economy. It is one of the objectives of the Department of National Heritage to encourage the living arts to flourish.

  The Government have demonstrated their commitment to the arts through the generous settlements which the Arts Council has received. Since the Government took office in 1979, the Arts Council's grant has increased by 45 per cent. in real terms. Even within the present restraints on public expenditure, I have been able to increase the Arts Council's grant this year by £4·4 million to £225·6 million, a rise in cash terms of 2 per cent.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what communications his Department has had with the national steering committee of the nuclear-free zone local authorities on the matters of(a) nuclear testing and (b) nuclear non-proliferation.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office recently wrote to the national steering committee of the Nuclear Free Zone Local Authorities in reply to a letter about nuclear testing and non-proliferation.

  Yugoslavia
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the United Nations informed Her Majesty's Government that it was banning all visits to UNPROFOR by persons not directly connected with UNPROFOR; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We were advised by the United Nations on 1 April 1993 that visits to UNPROFOR would not be accepted from 5 April 1993.

EMPLOYMENT

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many jobs have been gained or lost in the European Community in each year since 1985.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The following table shows the available information:

  Net increase in numbers of people in employment (thousands)

  Year

  1EC 10

  1EC 12

  1985–86

  1,052

  n/a

  1986–87

  868

  1,492

  1987–88

  2,012

  2,490

  1988–89

  1,440

  2,042

  1989–90

  2,763

  3,200

  1990–91

  338

  600

  Source:

  Eurostat "Labour Force Survey 1983–91".

  1"EC 12" covers the present 12 member states. Spain and Portugal joined in 1986, so comparable figures can be calculated for 1985–86 onwards only for the 10 previous member states, designated in the table as "EC 10".

  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the annual rate of turnover in employment for the last year for which figures are available.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Department does not publish or collect statistics relating to the annual rate of turnover in employment.

  Mr. Pope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people in(a) Accrington and Rossendale, Blackburn, Burnley and Pendle travel-towork areas in total and (b) Accrington and Rossendale travel-to-work area over the age of 60 years who are unemployed are specifically excluded from the unemployment statistics because of their age.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The claimant count is a by-product of the system designed to pay unemployment-related benefits. It comprises those claiming unemployment benefit, income support or national insurance credits, who say that they are unemployed and satisfy the conditions for claiming benefits.

  Unemployed people aged 60 years and over are not required to be available for work in order to receive income support and national insurance credits. Unlike people aged under 60 years, they do not have to attend at an Employment Service local office to claim these benefits and consequently, if they choose not to attend, will not appear on the claimant count.

  Mr. Pope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people in(a) the Accrington and Rossendale, Blackburn, Burnley and Pendle travel-towork areas in total and (b) the Accrington and Rossendale travel-to-work area would be eligible for unemployment benefit if they were not excluded from the calculation because they are claiming other sources of benefit.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The claimant count is a by-product of the system designed to pay unemployment-related benefits. It includes those claiming income support or 514
  national insurance credits on account of being unemployed as well as those claiming unemployment benefit itself. No information is available on those who do not claim these benefits.

  School Leavers
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list for each year since 1988 the number of pupils in Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire and Merseyside reaching the minimum school leaving age and the number who entered employment directly, entered a youth training scheme on leaving school, returned for a further period at school, or entered a further education college; and if he will provide such estimates as are available for 1993.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information requested is available only for the whole of the north-west region and is given in the following table. The information is compiled by United Kingdom heads of careers services on behalf of the Careers Service. This information is not yet available for 1992 and 1993. Information for 1988 could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Numbers of pupils leaving secondary school at minimum school leaving age in the North West region, London and their destinations for the years 1989–1991

  1989

  1990

  1991

  Full-time education

  40,540

  40,760

  44,040

  Youth training (YT)1

  25,520

  18,870

  15,280

  Employment

  14,170

  12,890

  9,230

  Not in any2

  5,820

  7,080

  8,130

  Unknown3

  7,790

  5,100

  4,180

  Total

  93,840

  84,700

  80,860

  Source: School Leavers' Destinations Survey

  Figures rounded to nearest 10.

  1 Including those on YT with employed status and those using training credits.

  2 May be unemployed or not available for work for any of a wide range of reasons.

  3 Those who failed to let the Careers Service or school know what they were doing and who failed to respond to at least two attempts at follow-up by the Careers Office.

  Palace of Westminster (Safety Standards)
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his answer of 8 June,Official Report, column 227–28, if he will set out the dates of all inspections carried out in the Palace of Westminster relating to health and safety; and if he will give details of all fire safety regulations and standards with which the Palace of Westminster has been found to comply.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The following planned inspection visits to the Palace of Westminster have been made by the Health and Safety Executive since its formation in 1975:

  23 August 1978

  19 July 1985

  3 February 1986

  20 September 1989

  9 January 1993

  8 April 1993

  In addition, visits have been made in connection with construction activities. However, as these are recorded against individual contractors, they cannot be separately identified without incurring disproportionate cost.
  515
  Fire safety regulations and standards are the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

PRIME MINISTER

  Correspondence
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Prime Minister when the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford, can expect to receive a reply to her letters of 8 February, 31 March and 4 May regarding the concerns of her constituents, Paul and Elisabeth Towlson.

  The Prime Minister
  Shortly.

  Public Expenditure Review
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Prime Minister when he expects the current review of public expenditure being carried out by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to be completed.

  The Prime Minister
  We expect to complete the reviews by the end of this Parliament, although preliminary conclusions from the first four. reviews of social security, health, education and home affairs should inform this year's public expenditure survey.

  India
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations he made and what assurances he received on human rights from the Indian Government during his visit to the country in January this year; and if he will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  I raised British concerns about human rights with the Indian Prime Minister. He assured me of his Government's commitment to respect human rights and determination to take firm action against wrongdoers. He also confirmed that he would be introducing legislation in the spring session of the Indian Parliament to set up an independent Human Rights Commission. This legislation was tabled on 14 May.

  Allivane International
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations he has received since January 1991 on the role played by Allivane International in exporting arms and military equipment to Iran.

  The Prime Minister
  I have received a number of representations from the hon. Member and from the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) since January 1991 on the role of Allivane International in exporting arms and military equipment to Iran. Allegations about illegal exports by this company were investigated by Her Majesty's Customs in 1987–88. No prosecution was begun.

  Engagements
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  'To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.

  Sir Peter Tapsell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 June.
  516
  The Prime Minister
  This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

  Overseas Visits
  Mr. Sedgemore
  To ask the Prime Minister on how many occasions the procedure of paragraph 74 of "Questions of Procedure for Ministers" has been invoked in relation to official visits overseas; and at what total cost for the latest available year.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 14 June 1993]: The information requested can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

WALES

  Technology Initiative
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish with regard to the sum he has allocated for the technology initiative in Welsh secondary schools(a) the method he used to inform schools, (b) the name of each school that submitted a bid, (c) the criteria used by his Department to determine the application and (d) the sum of money allocated to each successful school.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The Welsh Office wrote to all directors of education and chairs of governors of grant-maintained schools in Wales inviting bids under the initiative. A copy of the letter was also sent, for information, direct to the head teacher of all eligible schools in Wales. The closing date for bids is 16 July and I expect to be able to announce details of successful bids in early September.

  Schools selected for support will be expected to show evidence of a capacity to establish a technological ethos which will pervade the curriculum as a whole, as well as delivering a distinctive offering in the teaching of technology itself.

  Account will also be taken of the degree to which the school can demonstrate a commitment to developing links with local businesses and giving parity of status to vocational and academic studies. The project put forward should directly contribute to the achievement of the schools technology and staff development plans and add value and improve existing facilities at the school. Full details of these criteria are included in the letter sent to all eligible schools.

  NHS Trust Chief Executives
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish for the chief executives of(a) the Ceredigion and Mid Wales national health service trust, (b) the Glen Clwyd district general hospital trust, (c) the Wrexham Maelor hospital national health service trust, (d) the Gwent Community Health national health service trust, (e) the Powys Health Care national health service trust, (f) the Llandough hospital national health service trust, (g) the Glan Hafren national health service trust, (h) the Carmarthen and district national health service trust, (i) the Swansea national health service trust, (j) the Llanelli/Dinefwr national health service trust, (k) the Bridgend and district national health service trust and

  517
  (l) the Gofal Cymuned Clwydian Community and Care national health service trust, (i) the salaries payable to each in their previous post of unit general managers, separately distinguishing the performance-related pay and (ii) the salaries now payable to each separately distinguishing the performance-related pay.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Salaries for general managers of directly managed units are set within prescribed salary bands. The relevant salary ranges for the unit general manager posts previously occupied by the chief executives of these national health service trusts up to 31 March 1993 were as follows:

  Salary range

  National health service trust

  Minimum £

  Maximum1£

  1. Ceredigion and Mid Wales

  33,160

  43,920

  2. Glan Clwyd district general hospital

  36,750

  51,980

  3. Wrexham Maelor hospital

  36,750

  51,980

  4. Gwent Community Health

  36,750

  52,580

  5. Powys Health Care

  36,750

  49,200

  6. Llandough hospital

  36,750

  48,400

  7. Glan Hafren

  36,750

  53,180

  8. Carmarthen and district

  36,750

  51,270

  9. Swansea

  36,750

  51,980

  10. Llanelli/Dinefwr

  33,160

  46,010

  11. Bridgend and district

  36,750

  53,180

  12. Gofal Cymuned Clwydian community care

  36,750

  53,180

  1 Inclusive of performance-related pay.

  Information on salaries payable to these national health service trust chief executives from 1 April 1993 is not held centrally. Information on total emoluments paid to the highest paid board member and emoluments paid to other board members will be published in due course in the annual accounts produced by each national health service trust.

  School Leavers
  Mr. Richards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the number and percentage of school leavers in Wales who have gone on to further and higher education in each year since 1979; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Participation in further and higher education has increased substantially in recent years. Our policy is to secure even greater participation rates in future years.

  The figures requested are as follows:

  School leavers entering higher or further education

  Academic year

  Number

  Percentage

  1979–80

  10,855

  24

  1980–81

  11,855

  27

  1981–82

  13,040

  29

  1982–83

  13,915

  31

  1983–84

  13,090

  30

  1984–85

  13,820

  31

  1985–86

  13,345

  31

  1986–87

  13,935

  32

  1987–88

  13,590

  34

  1988–89

  13,945

  36

  1989–90

  14,155

  40

  1990–91

  15,600

  47

  Source:

  Statistics of Education in Wales: No. 11 1986

  Statistics of Education in Wales: Schools No. 5 1991

  Statistics of Education and Training in Wales: Schools No. 1 1993.
  518
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many nursery school teachers are employed in each of the counties of Wales; and what were the figures for 1973.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The number of full-time equivalent nursery school teachers in schools in 1992 is given in the following table, together with statistics for 1976—the earliest year for which comparable figures are available.

  January 1976

  January 1992

  Clwyd

  9

  5

  Dyfed

  6

  7

  Gwent

  41

  23

  Gwynedd

  0

  0

  Mid Glamorgan

  51

  52

  Powys

  0

  0

  South Glamorgan

  29

  23

  West Glamorgan

  21

  5

  Total

  157

  115

  Nursery Education
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what future powers his Department proposes to take concerning nursery education in Wales;

  (2) if he will make a statement on the future of nursery education in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  There are no plans to alter the present basis for provision, which is at the discretion of local authorities in the case of LEA-maintained schools.

  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many(a) nursery schools and (b) nursery classes there are in each of the counties of Wales; and what were the comparable figures for 1973.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Information on the number of classes in nursery schools is not collected centrally. The earliest year for which comparable information on nursery schools is available is 1975–76 and 1977–78 was the earliest year in which comparable information on the number of nursery classes in primary schools was collected.

  Number of nursery schools1

  Number of nursery classes in primary schools2

  1975–76

  1991–92

  1977–78

  1991–92

  Clwyd

  4

  3

  68

  206

  Dyfed

  2

  3

  60

  77

  Gwent

  19

  11

  73

  107

  Gwynedd

  0

  0

  93

  41

  Mid Glamorgan

  21

  23

  211

  183

  Powys

  0

  0

  28

  30

  South Glamorgan

  12

  10

  56

  96

  West Glamorgan

  9

  2

  167

  195

  1 At January each year.

  2 At September each year.

  School Meals
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish a table showing the number and proportion of children receiving school meals, broken down into(a) paid and (b) free in (i) primary schools, (ii) secondary schools and (iii) special schools in each year since 1987–88.
  519
  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The number and proportion or pupils in schools taking paid meals and free meals is shown in the following table.

  Paid

  Free

  Primary schools:

  1987–88

  Number

  77,267

  56,330

  Percentage

  33·8

  24·6

  1988–89

  Number

  88,126

  39,891

  Percentage

  37·6

  17·0

  1989–90

  Number

  93,274

  40,093

  Percentage

  38·6

  16·6

  1990–91

  Number

  90,514

  41,598

  Percentage

  37·3

  17·1

  1991–92

  Number

  85,907

  48,708

  Percentage

  34·9

  19·8

  Secondary schools:

  1987–88

  Number

  58,022

  30,008

  Percentage

  32·6

  16·9

  1988–89

  Number

  63,532

  17,956

  Percentage

  37·2

  10·5

  1989–90

  Number

  61,526

  16,343

  Percentage

  37·0

  9·8

  1990–91

  Number

  64,621

  16,022

  Percentage

  39·4

  9·8

  1991–92

  Number

  58,275

  19,595

  Percentage

  34·1

  11·5

  Special schools:

  1987–88

  Number

  507

  2,681

  Percentage

  15·0

  79–2

  1988–89

  Number

  1,294

  1,609

  Percentage

  38·7

  48·2

  1989–90

  Number

  1,342

  1,521

  Percentage

  41·5

  47·1

  1990–91

  Number

  1,282

  1,395

  Percentage

  41·5

  45·1

  1991–92

  Number

  1,272

  1,400

  Percentage

  40·7

  44·8

  Mr. Wicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the level of public expenditure on the school meal service in each year since 1979 in cash and real terms.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The information available is given in the following table. Information for the years 1980–81 to 1984–85 is not available on a consistent basis.

  Net current expenditure on school catering

  Cash

  Constant1991–92prices

  £ million

  £ million

  1979–80

  26·1

  60·2

  1985–86

  28·5

  40·9

  1986–87

  29·6

  41·1

  1987–88

  30·2

  39·8

  1988–89

  24–7

  30–3

  1989–90

  27·1

  31·2

  1990–91

  30·5

  32·6

  1991–92

  35·6

  35·6

  11992–93

  38·8

  37·5

  520

  1 Revised estimates.

  Beaches
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the impact of the proportion of Welsh beaches credited in the national beach awards by the Tidy Britain Group on tourism in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  I am pleased that 39 beaches in Wales —over 90 per cent. of those which applied—were credited with national seaside awards by the Tidy Britain Group. This is a significant increase over the number of awards made last year and represents a substantial achievement requiring exacting standards of water quality and beach management. I am sure that these awards will provide a boost to tourism in Wales.

  Mature Students
  Mr. Richards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what financial help and support is available in Wales for mature students in full-time education; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Local education authorities in England and Wales have a duty to provide mandatory awards to students who are personally qualified and who attend designated higher education courses. All courses that attract mandatory awards also attract student loans. In certain circumstances the mandatory award provides for an extra allowance for older students.

  LEAs may also provide discretionary awards to students on non-designated courses or to those who do not qualify for mandatory awards. In addition, discretionary help may be available from other sources such as institutional access funds, a career development loan or the educational trust funds and charities.

  School Performance
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his best estimate of the cost of implementing his proposals for the publication of information on schools' and colleges' performance; and where he has published his estimate.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Decisions on the format and extent of the publication of school and college performance data this year will be taken in the light of responses to consultation currently being undertaken. Costs, when known, will be met from within sub-head F.15(1) of class XV, vote 5 of the Supply Estimates 1993–94 (HC495-XV) published on 9 March 1993.

  A copy of the consultation paper and of HC495-XV are available in the Library of the House.

  Cancer
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps the Welsh Office it taking to reduce the incidence of cancer in Gwynedd.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The prime responsibility for improving the health of the people of Gwynedd lies with the local health authorities. An action plan to reduce the incidence of cancer forms part of the local strategy for
  521
  health which I approved earlier this year. This strategy was informed by the "Protocol for Investment in Health Gain: Cancers" which was published by the Welsh Health Planning Forum in December 1990.

  Recycling
  Mr. Richards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many recycling centres are currently in operation in each county in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  This information is not held centrally. I refer my hon. Friend to the district councils, which are responsible for recycling.

  Mr. Richards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what percentage of household waste from each county in Wales has been recycled in each year since 1984; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Information on the percentage of household waste in Wales which is recycled is not available.

  Press and Public Relations
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the total amount spent by each district health authority and NHS trust in Wales on press and public relations in(a) 1989–90, (b) 1990–91 and (c) 1991–92.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The information requested is not collected centrally.

  Unemployment Benefit
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the annual total estimated cost of paying unemployment benefit and assuming the unemployed total, not seasonally adjusted, to be that as at April 1993.

  Mr. Redwood
  The latest available expenditure estimate, for 1990–91, was published by the Central Statistical Office in table 8·6 of the 1993 edition of Regional Trends (No. 28), which is available in the Library of the House.

TRANSPORT

  Transport Research Laboratory
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the research projects undertaken in each of the last three years by the Transport Research Laboratory and the cost of each project.

  Mr. Key
  I have placed in the Library tables listing projects undertaken by the Transport Research Laboratory in 1992–93 for the Department of Transport and other public sector customers. Information for prior years in the form requested could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. I have placed in the Library copies of the published research programmes for 1990–91 and 1991–92.

  Trunk Roads
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much his Department has spent in each of the last 10 years buying mineral rights for land compulsorily purchased for trunk road schemes.
  522
  Mr. Key
  I regret that this information is not held centrally and could therefore be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Ship Safety
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what controls on standards of safety his Department exercises over ships sailing under flags of convenience in British and EC waters; and how these are monitored and satisfied.

  Mr. Norris
  The United Kingdom takes a leading role within the International Maritime Organisation in developing internationally agreed safety standards and ensuring the implementation of those standards by every flag state. In addition, the United Kingdom and 14 other European countries, including all the EC coastal states, operate a co-ordinated system of inspection of foreign ships entering their ports. Each member of this system, known as the memorandum of understanding on port state control—MOU—has agreed to inspect 25 per cent. of individual ships calling at their ports. The United Kingdom has set a higher target of 30 per cent. and in recent years this has been met. It is estimated that around 85 per cent. of foreign ships entering the MOU region as a whole are inspected at least once annually. Within this system, those ships flying the flags of countries with poor safety records are, from July this year, to be selected for special attention.

  London Travelcard
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will bring forward legislation to ensure the continued existence of the London Travelcard; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norris
  The Railways Bill includes provisions which will give the franchising director power to require franchisees to participate in multi-modal ticketing schemes such as the London Travelcard. The Secretary of State will give him guidance on the exercise of that power, and franchisees will then be required to participate in such ticketing arrangements in accordance with the terms of their franchise agreements. The legislation that the Government hope soon to bring forward to deregulate London bus services will give all operators the right to participate in multi-modal/multi-operator ticketing schemes on fair terms. We fully recognise the importance and value of the London Travelcard, and are actively working with all the parties concerned to see how its future can best be secured. We have made it clear that if further changes to legislation are needed to ensure the continuation of Travelcard, such changes will be incorporated in the proposed Bill.

  Traffic Accidents
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will publish figures showing the numbers and proportions of children in each standard region killed or injured in traffic accidents, giving the most recently available annual figures.

  Mr. Key
  The numbers and proportions of children in each standard region killed or injured in traffic accidents in 1991 are shown in the table.
  523

  Child casualties by Standard Region: Great Britain 1991

  Number/Percentage

  Killed

  All casualties

  Standard region

  Children aged 0–15

  All ages

  Children percentage of all ages

  Children aged 0–15

  All ages

  Children percentage of all ages

  Northern

  29

  287

  10·1

  2,591

  14,848

  17·5

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  34

  413

  8·2

  4,230

  26,086

  16·2

  East Midlands

  33

  410

  8·0

  3,205

  22,397

  14·3

  East Anglia

  17

  236

  7·2

  1,557

  12,927

  12·0

  Greater London

  30

  368

  8·2

  5,655

  46,578

  12·1

  Rest of South East

  56

  826

  6·8

  7,143

  59,052

  12·1

  South West

  34

  460

  7·4

  2,854

  22,515

  12·7

  West Midlands

  38

  386

  9·8

  4,303

  27,425

  15·7

  North West

  50

  468

  10·7

  6,554

  39,014

  16·8

  Wales

  19

  227

  8·4

  2,343

  15,074

  15·5

  Scotland

  43

  487

  8·8

  4,156

  25,353

  16·4

  Great Britain

  383

  4,568

  8·4

  44,591

  311,269

  14·3

  Road Safety
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he is taking to improve road safety.

  Mr. Key
  The Government have a target to reduce road casualties by one-third by the year 2000 taking the average for 1981–85 as the baseline. Our programme for achieving this was set out at length during the debate which took place on 15 May 1992. It includes a continuing programme of publicity campaigns aimed particularly at reducing the amount of drinking and driving and reducing speed in urban areas, the provision of grant to local authorities in support of highway engineering for road safety, continued negotiation of improved vehicle standards and measures to facilitate the enforcement of road traffic law.

  In the last year we have published a new "Highway Code" and a policy document on speed. The Road Traffic Act 1991 has been commenced and a major experiment established into the rehabilitation of drink-drive offenders. A record £50 million of transport supplementary grant has been allocated to local safety schemes and more than fifty 20 mph zones have now been approved.

  Provisional statistics for 1992 show that fatalities are 24 per cent. below the 1981–85 baseline and that the one-third reduction target has already been achieved for serious injuries, despite a 38 per cent. increase in traffic.

  West Wellow Bypass
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will extend their deadline date for public consultation on the alternative routes for the A36 West Wellow bypass from 12 July to 12 August.

  Mr. Norris
  The public consultation period is being extended to 13 September.

  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consideration his Department or any agencies employed by him has given to a route south of West Wellow for the A36 bypass of the village.

  Mr. Norris
  The Department has considered route options for the proposed A36 West Wellow bypass south of the existing trunk road, but rejected them on environmental grounds.

  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will give details of the environmental assessments 524
  undertaken by his Department or agencies in respect of the four alternative routes known as purple, green, yellow A and yellow B for the A36 bypass of West Wellow.

  Mr. Norris
  Environmental assessments undertaken for the route options are contained in three landscape reports, an ecological appraisal and a preliminary appraisal report. They are available for inspection at the public exhibitions currently being held in West Wellow.

  Motor Vehicles
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the percentage annual change in road use by motorised vehicles in each year since 1979.

  Mr. Key
  The annual percentage change in road use by motorised vehicles in each year since 1979 is given in the table.

  All motor vehicle traffic in Great Britain

  Year

  All motor vehicle traffic

  (Billion vehicle Km)

  Percentage change on previous year

  1978

  256·49

  —

  1979

  255·87

  -0·2

  1980

  271·93

  6·3

  1981

  276·90

  1·8

  1982

  284·46

  2·7

  1983

  288·06

  1·3

  1984

  303·09

  5·2

  1985

  309·67

  2·2

  1986

  325·30

  5·0

  1987

  350·46

  7·8

  1988

  375·70

  7·2

  1989

  406·88

  8·3

  1990

  410·84

  1·0

  1991

  411·58

  0·2

  11992

  404·60

  -1·7

  1 Provisional estimate.

  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the number of licensed motor vehicles on the roads(a) in 1983 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available.

  Mr. Key
  The information requested was published recently by HMSO in "Vehicle Licensing Statistics 1992". This shows that the total number of motor vehicles licensed in Great Britain as at 31 December 1983 were
  525
  20,209,000. As at 31 December 1992, the latest year available, the number of licensed motor vehicles had increased by 23 per cent. to 24,851,000.

  Trunk Roads
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what provision has been made for expenditure on trunk roads in each of the next three years.

  Mr. Key
  The provision for expenditure on trunk roads in England is £2,092 million in 1993–94, £2,151 million in 1994–95 and £2,059 million in 1995–96.

  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the total number of jobs involved in current highway projects on the trunk road network.

  Mr. Key
  Some 50 new construction schemes are under construction and many major maintenance projects are under way on the English trunk road network. The number of jobs on these sites varies from day to day. In addition, there are people working in the industries supplying aggregates, steel, communications equipment, and other materials. On the basis of comments by independent bodies, it is estimated that, each £30,000 of capital expenditure directly supports one job. On this basis, the £1,932 million we plan to spend on new construction and capital maintenance in 1993–94 will directly support 60,000 to 70,000 jobs, and a good many more besides in supplying industries.

  London Underground
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what plans he has for the relief of traffic congestion on London Underground;

  (2) what proposals he has to reduce passenger overcrowding on the London Underground.

  Mr. Norris
  London Transport and London Underground Ltd. are responsible for the management of the underground system, including decisions on measures to relieve overcrowding and congestion. Such measures currently include both improvements to the existing network such as the £750 million modernisation of the Central line and the £28 million modernisation of Bank/Monument station, and plans for new lines, notably the Jubilee line extension and crossrail.

  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much central Government expenditure is allocated to improving safety standards on the London Underground.

  Mr. Norris
  The Government provide a block grant to London Transport—LT—as a whole. We do not allocate specific amounts either to London Underground Ltd—LUL—or to expenditure on improving safety standards. Decisions on such matters are taken by LT and LUL.

  Light Rail Projects
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many light rail projects are planned in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Freeman
  Local authorities are primarily respon-sible for initiating light rail projects, and I am aware of 526
  around 30 that are planning or considering such projects for their area. These are in addition to the schemes towards which the Government has provided resources, the Manchester Metrolink scheme, which opened last year, and the South Yorkshire Supertram scheme, which is under construction and the first phase of which is due to open in early 1994. The Government have also provided funds towards the development of the Midland Metro scheme.

  Wheel Clamping
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the effect of wheel clamping on levels of illegal parking.

  Mr. Key
  Research carried out by the Road Research Laboratory indicates that wheel clamping on public roads significantly increases the degree of compliance with parking regulations, which in turn allows traffic to flow more freely.

  Carbon Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles in order to help fulfil the commitments the Government gave at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

  Mr. Key
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Members for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) on 24 May,Official Report, columns 417–18.

  Birmingham Relief Road
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the implications for the tolling design of the Birmingham northern relief road of "Paying for Better Motorways", Cm. 2200.

  Mr. Key
  "Paying for Better Motorways" makes it clear that no decisions have been taken on whether to charge directly for the use of existing motorways. Legislation would be required for any form of charging. We see no need to revise the current plans for the Birmingham northern relief road. The private sector has already taken on responsibility for costs and risks associated with the scheme.

  Road Surfaces
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made, in respect of each stretch of motorway and trunk road, of the likelihood of the road surface being damaged by hot weather; and, in respect of each, what repairs will be carried out and when.

  Mr. Key
  The standards and specifications used by the Department of Transport for the design and construction of all motorways and trunk roads make due allowance for the effect of hot weather. However, damage does sometimes occur in exceptional circumstances. In addition to normal monitoring, during periods of unusual weather conditions extra monitoring is undertaken. Problems are rectified as quickly as possible and in such a way as to cause minimum inconvenience to road users.
  527
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will estimate the cost of repair in respect of each stretch of motorway and trunk road of repairing damage caused, or likely to be caused, by defective concrete and reinforced steel construction; and what plans he has to undertake repair work to ensure minimum disruption to motorists.

  Mr. Key
  The Department of Transport spends some, £16 million each year on the rehabilitation of concrete roads. This is mainly to rectify the effects of many years of wear and tear from heavy traffic; only a very small proportion of the work is to remedy defective materials and workmanship. Concrete roads are regularly inspected and any necessary repair work is carefully planned and co-ordinated to ensure minimum disruption to road users, by working at night, for example.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which stretches of(a) motorway and (b) trunk road, with the number of miles in each case, have been constructed with concrete and reinforced steel.

  Mr. Key
  Of the 250 miles of motorway with a concrete surface, about 65 miles are reinforced with steel. For all-purpose trunk roads, there are 210 miles of which 80 are reinforced. Many roads have concrete as part of the pavement but have a blacktop surface. Taking these into account, approximately 20 per cent. of motorways and 8 per cent. of all-purpose trunk roads have concrete as a part of the structural pavement layers. Roads with long— above 10 miles, but not necessarily continuous—lengths of concrete carriageway are:

  Lengths (miles)

  M20 in Kent

  38

  M40 in Oxfordshire/Warwickshire

  38

  M 11 in Essex

  30

  Al2 in Essex

  29

  M25 in Surrey

  22

  M42 in Warwickshire

  19

  M27 in Hampshire

  16

  A1 in Nottinghamshire

  16

  M5 in Somerset

  15

  M6 in Lancashire

  13

  A45 in Suffolk

  13

  M2 in Kent

  12

  M25 in Essex

  12

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will give full details of the design specification required of contractors who(a) build and (b) repair roads; and what plans he has to review the specification required of the tenderer.

  Mr. Key
  Contractors involved in the construction and repair of the Department's roads are required to carry out their work in accordance with the specification for highway works which forms part of the manual of contract documents for highway works. The content is subject to continual review with the publication of an update approximately annually. Designs for road construction are based on standards set out in the design manual for roads and bridges. Copies of both documents are being made available in the Library of the House.

  MV Tigris
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what response he has received from the Greek authorities in respect of representations made to them by his Department regarding the alleged dumping of coal residue in international waters west of Foula in 1992, by the MV Tigris; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norris
  The response from the Greek authorities received last month states that the competent Greek authorities have investigated the matter and questioned the master of the vessel. He confirmed that:

  a. MV Tigris was on 13 May 1992 and at 1445 GMT in the position mentioned and the Captain was on the bridge;

  b. A crew member was on the starboard side where he was piling coal dust after a clean up of the hold of the ship;

  c. Competent officers under Captain's orders ensured that remainders of cargo were not shovelled into the sea;

  d. The Captain issued the order since the vessel was in a Special Area;

  e. The crew member on the starboard side did not shovel coal dust over the side of the vessel.

  The Greek authorities did not impose a penalty.

  We remain concerned about this matter and are considering how to take it further.

  Cyprus Turkish Airlines
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to prevent the traffic of Cyprus Turkish Airlines between Stansted and Heathrow.

  Mr. Norris
  [ holding answer 14 June 1993]: If Cyprus Turkish Airlines were to fly to or from the United Kingdom they would require the permission of the Secretary of State under article 88 of the Air Navigation Order 1989. It is an offence to operate without this and an airline would be liable to prosecution.

  No applications have been received from Cyprus Turkish Airlines.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Poverty Passports
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if Her Majesty's Government support the proposal by the President of the European Commission for the issue of poverty passports to enable disadvantaged EC citizens to claim a range of benefits in order to lift them out of poverty; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hague
  Disadvantage takes different forms in different countries and, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it is accepted that action lies primarily with member states. Community-wide "poverty passports" would not, therefore, be appropriate. Mechanisms already exist to deal with the portability of benefits between member states.

  War Pensioners
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent changes there have been to the treatment allowance available to war pensioners suffering from chronic illnesses; and how much was spent on treatment allowances for pensioners in 1991, 1992 and in 1993 to date.
  529
  Mr. Hague
  Treatment allowance, which in effect brings a war pension up to the 100 per cent. rate, is payable where the pensioner is receiving treatment, in hospital or elsewhere, for his war-pensioned disablement. Legislation has been amended recently so that, from 12 April 1993, new awards of treatment allowance will be made only when the war pensioner incurs a loss of earnings as a result of the treatment. The Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions was consulted about this change.

  Information on expenditure on treatment allowance is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Retirement Pensions
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of(a) men and (b) women in the latest year for which figures are available reached retirement age with entitlement to (i) the full basic state pension, (ii) some state earnings-related pension or additional pension, (iii) an occupational pension and (iv) a personal pension.

  Mr. Hague
  The information is not available in the form requested.

  The available information regarding recipients of basic retirement pension and additional pension resident in Great Britain at 30 September 1992, the latest date for which figures are available, is in the table.

  Men aged 65 1Per cent.

  Women aged 60 1Per cent.

  Full category A retirement pension

  68·0

  16·0

  Full category B retirement pension (widow/widower).

  —

  1·5

  Full category B retirement pension (married women)2

  n/a

  7·5

  Notional additional pension3

  71·5

  32·0

  1 Figures expressed as percentages of the 1991 based population projections for mid-1992 rounded to the nearest 0·5 per cent. The following main categories of benefit recipients are not shown in the table:

  People receiving pension at less than the full rate;

  Women receiving pension partly on their own and partly on their husband's contributions;

  People receiving invalidity benefit post-pensionable age.

  2 The standard rate of category B retirement pension payable to a married woman is approximately 60 per cent. of the full category A rate.

  3 The figures relate to notional entitlement to additional pension with retirement pension prior to any contracted-out deduction in respect of guaranteed minimum pension or protected rights payment arising from membership of a contracted-out pension scheme or a personal pension scheme used in place of the additional pension. The numbers therefore include cases where only guaranteed minimum pension or protected rights is in payment.

  In 1989, the most recent year for which figures are available, it is estimated that 66 per cent. of men aged 65 to 69, and 36 per cent. of women aged 60 to 64, had entitlement to some occupational pension. Information on numbers of men and women reaching retirement age with a personal pension is not available.

  Income Support
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would be the cost in a full year of restoring income support entitlement to those aged 16 and 17 years.
  530
  Mr. Burt
  Information is not available to calculate the cost of restoring entitlement to income support for 16 and 17-year-olds.

  Copenhagen Conference
  Ms Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the level of British Government participation in the conference in Copenhagen organised by the Danish EC presidency on 3 and 4 June, entitled, "Fighting Against Social Exclusion—A Challenge to the 1990s"; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hague
  The British Government was represented at this conference by two officials from the policy group in the Department.

  Disability Benefits
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many claims have been received to date by his Department for(a) compensation, (b) an ex-gratia payment or (c) both from people who claimed disability living allowance, attendance allowance or mobility allowance on or after 3 February 1992; how many in each category were (i) accepted or (ii) refused; and what is the total cost to his Department for such payments over this period;

  (2) how many people are expected to receive a special compensatory payment under the special arrangements for people who claimed disability living allowance, attendance allowance or mobility allowance on or after 3 February 1992 in total; how many of those will receive (a) £10, (b) £20, (c) £30, (d) £40, (e) £50, (f) £60, (g) £70 and (h) over £70 compensation; and what is the expected overall cost to his Department;

  (3) how many people whose attendance allowance or mobility allowance (a) came up for renewal or (b) was being reviewed on or after 3 February 1992 experienced interruption in their benefit for a period exceeding three months; and how many of these have been awarded compensation;

  (4) how many people who claimed disability living allowance, attendance allowance or mobility allowance between 3 February 1992 and 31 March 1993 would have been eligible for compensation had the new compensation arrangements linking the scheme to Benefits Agency performance targets been brought into effect from 3 February 1992.

  Mr. Scott
  The administration of disability living allowance and attendance allowance 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 Mr. Keith Bradley, dated 14 June 1993:

  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 Questions to the Secretary of State for Social Security about compensation and ex gratia payments for people who have claimed Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Attendance Allowance (AA) and Mobility Allowance (MobA). I will deal with each of your points in turn.

  Firstly, I should explain the effect of the revised arrangements and special retrospective scheme, which was recently announced.
  531
  Until 1 April 1993, compensation, for delays in payment of benefit, is only considered when the delay in payment of benefit in new claims was at least 12 months. The delay had to have been caused by official error and the arrears of benefit had to be £50 or more.

  From 1 April 1993, the date from which compensation may be paid has been brought forward, whilst the other criteria remain the same. Compensation will be considered where a payment of benefit is delayed for 6 months beyond the target set for clearing the bulk of claims.

  In recognition that this improvement will be too late for people who claimed DLA last year and suffered unacceptable delay due to the exceptional problems following its introduction, a special compensatory payment will be made.

  This will apply to those people who made a claim to DLA, or MobA on or after 3 February 1992, were paid before 1 April 1993 and suffered a delay in the payment of benefit of more than 8 months. Payment will be made at the rate of £10 per month for each month in excess of this 8 month period.

  The number of people who have received payments of compensation for late payment of benefit on or after 3 February, having claimed DLA, AA or MobA, is 186 at a cost of £25,779·84. The number of people who have received an ex gratia payment, made in respect of, for example, telephone bills is 162 at a cost of £9,316·96. These numbers will however include claims to benefit made prior to 3 February 1992. In the same period 129 people were refused a compensation payment and 74 people were refused an ex gratia payment. We have no record of people who claimed both. These figures are provisional and may be subject to amendment.

  It is not possible to predict how many people will receive each of the amounts you quoted by way of special compensatory payments. It is anticipated that some 80,000 to 90,000 people will benefit from the scheme at a cost of around £3 million.

  Arrangements for compensation for those people who have experienced an interruption in the payment of their benefit exceeding three months remain the same. These people would originally have made a claim to AA or MobA, which at renewal would have been paid as one of the components of DLA. Since 3 February 1992, 141 people experienced an interruption of this duration or more and have received a payment of compensation. The amount of compensation paid is £5,204·43. These figures are provisional and may be subject to amendment.

  Requests for review are not subject to this three-month period, which applies to interruptions in payment. They are subject to the same period as new claims.

  The information on how many people would have been eligible for compensation, had the new arrangements been brought into effect from 3 February 1992, is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. However these claims would have been subject to consideration of a payment of compensation where payment of benefit had been delayed for six months beyond the target date set for clearing the bulk of claims. In addition, the delay would have to have been caused by official error and the arrears of benefit would have had to be £50 or more.

  I hope you find this reply helpful. A copy will appear in the Official Report. A copy will also be placed in the Library.

  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people were claiming sickness or invalidity benefit in each month in each of the last three years(a) in the area covered by the Wales area directorate and (b) in each of the districts in Wales.

  Mr. Scott
  The administration of sickness benefit and invalidity benefit is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member with such information as is available and a copy will be placed in the Library.

  Letter from Michael Bichard to Mr. Nick Ainger, dated 14 June 1993:
  532
  As Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency it is my responsibility to answer questions about relevant operational matters. I am therefore replying to your recent Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security asking how many people were claiming Sickness or Invalidity Benefit in each month in each of the last three years (a) in the area covered by the Wales Area Directorate and (b) in each of the districts in Wales.

  The information has been obtained in the format requested. The statistics for the number of people claiming Sickness or Invalidity Benefit at the last working day of each month of the last three years in the area covered by the Wales Area Directorate (Wales as part of the former Wales and South West Region prior to April 1991) are provided on the table. The statistics for each of the districts in Wales are provided on appendix 1.

  Last working day of

  Number of people claiming in- validity be-nefit (IVB)

  Number of people claiming sickness be-nefit (SB)

  Total number of people claiming SB and IVB

  April 1990

  1—

  1—

  171,767

  May 1990

  1—

  1—

  171,716

  June 1990

  1—

  1—

  171,644

  July 1990

  1—

  1—

  173,030

  August 1990

  1—

  1—

  173,258

  September 1990

  1—

  1—

  173,387

  October 1990

  1—

  1—

  174,612

  November 1990

  1—

  1—

  175,662

  December 1990

  1—

  1—

  176,918

  January 1991

  1—

  1—

  178,524

  February 1991

  1—

  1—

  179,758

  March 1991

  1—

  1—

  180,456

  April 1991

  1—

  1—

  182,037

  May 1991

  148,915

  32,381

  181,296

  June 1991

  150,016

  32,808

  182,824

  July 1991

  150,676

  33,699

  184,375

  August 1991

  151,462

  34,563

  186,025

  September 1991

  152,129

  34,374

  186,503

  October 1991

  153,838

  33,982

  187,820

  November 1991

  154,320

  34,367

  188,687

  December 1991

  156,002

  34,218

  190,220

  January 1992

  156,984

  35,215

  192,199

  February 1992

  158,327

  35,309

  193,636

  March 1992

  159,225

  36,187

  195,412

  April 1992

  159,836

  35,951

  195,787

  May 1992

  160,937

  36,101

  197,038

  June 1992

  162,174

  36,754

  198,928

  July 1992

  162,668

  37,469

  200,137

  August 1992

  164,479

  36,862

  201,341

  September 1992

  165,462

  37,559

  203,021

  October 1992

  167,218

  38,969

  206,187

  November 1992

  168,443

  39,654

  208,097

  December 1992

  169,737

  40,929

  210,666

  January 1993

  170,369

  40,807

  211,176

  February 1993

  171,761

  41,729

  213,490

  March 1993

  173,066

  41,679

  214,745

  1 Note SB and IVB claimants were counted together up to April 1991.

  It should also be noted that the figures include customers who may have claimed Sickness Benefit and Invalidity Benefit but who may not be in receipt of the benefit. These cases will be "credits only" cases where the person is registered sick and receiving National Insurance credits, also cases where termination action has not been completed. The figures are based on a 100 per cent. clerical count of cases in the local office and are therefore subject to amendment.

  I hope you find this reply helpful. A copy will appear in the Official Report and a copy will also be placed in the Library.
  533

  Appendix 1

  April 1990 to March 1991

  District

  April

  May

  June

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  January

  February

  March

  Gwyneddigion

  9,364

  9,368

  9,425

  9,458

  9,459

  9,560

  9,677

  9,816

  9,901

  9,900

  10,193

  10,078

  Mid Wales and Maelor

  8,896

  8,847

  9,005

  9,004

  9,062

  9,197

  9,246

  9,440

  9,492

  9,623

  9,881

  9,895

  Cynon Merthyr and Rhymney Valley

  22,107

  22,000

  21,785

  22,095

  22,188

  22,225

  22,437

  22,465

  22,725

  22,852

  23,263

  23,412

  South Glamorgan

  16,136

  16,091

  16,123

  16,620

  16,675

  16,472

  16,550

  16,604

  16,826

  17,085

  17,138

  17,252

  West Wales

  18,422

  18,376

  18,526

  18,676

  18,660

  18,589

  18,606

  18,879

  19,100

  19,489

  19,435

  19,803

  Swansea

  15,965

  16,042

  16,034

  16,189

  16,285

  16,306

  16,360

  16,421

  16,559

  16,672

  16,774

  17,003

  North Wales Coast

  12,002

  11,970

  12,094

  12,188

  12,311

  12,302

  12,463

  12,521

  12,534

  12,879

  12,968

  12,922

  Ogwr Afan Nedd

  21,370

  21,704

  21,214

  21,329

  21,253

  21,617

  21,690

  21,995

  22,179

  21,789

  22,346

  22,456

  Taff Rhondda

  17,380

  17,354

  17,367

  17,460

  17,429

  17,482

  17,520

  17,623

  17,636

  18,146

  18,040

  17,911

  South Gwent and Islwyn

  13,995

  14,098

  14,446

  14,455

  14,408

  14,226

  14,181

  14,197

  14,158

  13,992

  13,571

  13,621

  North Gwent and Brecon

  16,130

  15,866

  15,625

  15,556

  15,528

  15,411

  15,882

  15,701

  15,808

  16,177

  16,149

  16,103

  April 1991 to March 1992

  District

  April

  May

  June

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  January

  February

  March

  Gwyneddigion

  10,275

  10,204

  10,416

  10,386

  10,434

  10,553

  10,761

  10,855

  10,931

  11,055

  11,237

  11,321

  Mid Wales and Maelor

  9,901

  9,818

  9,869

  9,992

  10,067

  10,208

  10,224

  10,369

  10,422

  10,457

  10,714

  10,854

  Cynon Merthyr and Rhymney Valley

  23,427

  23,495

  23,967

  23,895

  24,417

  24,373

  24,695

  24,569

  24,460

  24,521

  25,191

  25,358

  South Glamorgan

  17,605

  17,378

  17,188

  17,493

  17,512

  17,595

  17,607

  17,823

  17,931

  18,262

  18,229

  18,513

  West Wales

  20,017

  19,672

  19,751

  19,494

  19,951

  19,973

  20,127

  20,365

  20,535

  20,728

  20,880

  20,988

  Swansea

  17,127

  17,231

  17,419

  17,614

  17,656

  17,744

  17,854

  17,958

  17,985

  18,202

  18,242

  18,518

  North Wales Coast

  13,010

  13,149

  13,250

  13,375

  13,532

  13,694

  13,862

  13,912

  14,070

  14,103

  14,273

  14,329

  Ogwr Afan Nedd

  22,600

  22,007

  22,329

  22,798

  22,913

  22,800

  22,620

  22,849

  23,201

  23,533

  23,458

  23,860

  Taff Rhondda

  18,068

  18,244

  18,180

  18,321

  18,468

  18,311

  18,637

  18,635

  18,925

  19,259

  19,276

  19,210

  South Gwent and Islwyn

  13,779

  13,687

  13,924

  14,164

  14,178

  14,119

  14,261

  14,413

  14,996

  15,117

  14,688

  14,977

  North Gwent and Brecon

  16,228

  16,411

  16,531

  16,843

  16,897

  17,133

  17,173

  16,939

  17,185

  17,421

  17,448

  17,484

  April 1992 to March 1993

  District

  April

  May

  June

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  January

  February

  March

  Gwyneddigion

  11,003

  11,250

  11,164

  11,255

  11,310

  11,571

  11,666

  11,747

  11,961

  11,978

  12,111

  12,421

  Mid Wales and Maelor

  11,069

  11,153

  10,831

  11,534

  11,625

  11,653

  11,851

  12,143

  12,295

  12,167

  12,271

  12,197

  Cynon Merthyr and Rhymney Valley

  25,387

  25,998

  25,993

  26,051

  25,917

  26,191

  27,035

  27,478

  27,672

  28,041

  28,258

  28,111

  South Glamorgan

  18,613

  18,598

  18,857

  19,063

  19,260

  19,453

  19,539

  19,807

  19,977

  20,172

  20,318

  20,478

  West Wales

  21,389

  21,340

  21,506

  21,635

  21,874

  22,062

  22,346

  22,341

  22,779

  22,705

  23,188

  23,080

  Swansea

  18,862

  19,057

  19,185

  19,236

  19,420

  19,748

  19,869

  20,006

  20,215

  20,389

  20,655

  20,818

  North Wales Coast

  14,467

  14,543

  14,561

  14,784

  14,859

  14,996

  14,996

  14,996

  15,534

  15,560

  15,560

  15,853

  Ogwr Afan Nedd

  23,648

  23,731

  23,997

  23,338

  23,392

  23,354

  24,442

  24,705

  25,121

  24,786

  24,957

  25,532

  Taff Rhondda

  19,188

  19,105

  19,305

  19,782

  19,955

  20,040

  19,899

  19,944

  20,279

  20,533

  20,579

  20,953

  South Gwent and Islwyn

  15,150

  15,248

  15,554

  15,446

  15,501

  15,458

  15,804

  16,025

  15,941

  16,184

  16,284

  16,387

  North Gwent and Brecon

  17,011

  17,015

  17,975

  18,013

  18,228

  18,504

  18,748

  18,913

  18,892

  18,661

  19,309

  18,915

  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people in Wales received(a) sickness benefit and (b) invalidity benefit in (i) March 1990 and (ii) March 1993.

  Mr. Scott
  The administration of sickness and invalidity benefit 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 Mr. Barry Jones, dated 14 June 1993:

  As Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency it is my responsibility to answer questions about relevant operational matters. I am therefore replying to your recent Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security asking how many people in Wales received (a) sickness benefit and (b) invalidity benefit in (i) March 1990 and (ii) March 1993.
  534
  Figures are not yet available showing the number of recipients of Invalidity Benefit (IVB) and Sickness Benefit (SB) in Wales in March 1993. However, I am able to tell you that as at 30 March 1990 10,300 people in Wales were in receipt of SB and 137,500 people were in receipt of IVB.

  This information has been obtained from a one per cent sample of claimants.

  I hope you find this reply helpful. A copy will appear in the Official Report and a copy will also be placed in the Library.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Performance Targets
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many people working in public services now have their remuneration linked to performance targets as a result of the citizens charter programme.
  535
  Mr. David Davis
  Information on the number of public servants with their remuneration linked to performance targets is not held centrally.

  As the citizens charter first report: 1992 (Cm 2101) explained, performance-related pay is progressively becoming established as a feature of public sector pay schemes. Performance pay schemes cover half a million civil servants; discretionary allowances are available for primary school teachers; 40 per cent. of local authorities have performance-related pay schemes; London Underground managers have a proportion of their pay linked to performance; quality of service affects London Executive Board members' pay by up to 35 per cent.; and British Rail's performance against quality of service objectives affects all executive board members' pay by up to 20 per cent.

ENVIRONMENT

  Environment Summit
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the events, and give full details, scheduled to take place at the environment summit in Manchester in September which specifically involve children; and on what basis children will be invited to participate.

  Mr. Yeo
  The children's environment summit will be held in Manchester on Saturday 18 September. The children attending will be invited to put forward ideas for a long-term environmental initiative.

  A competition will be launched later this month to select 60 children aged between eight and 15 to participate.

  Climate Change
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the organisations which responded to his departmental consultation document on climate change; and what action he has taken in response to the comments received.

  Mr. Yeo
  We received more than 250 responses to the discussion document: "Climate Change—Our National Programme for CO2 Emissions." A list of the respondents has been placed in the Library of the House. Copies of all the responses have been placed in the library of my Department. They have all been read very carefully and will be taken into account in finalising the national CO2 programme. The programme will be published later this year.

  Council Tax Registers
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list those public utilities, organisations or companies which currently have direct access to council tax registers.

  Mr. Baldry
  None of these bodies has rights of access to information about the state of a council tax valuation list going beyond those available to all persons under section 28 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to extend the scope of access to council tax registers; and if he will make a statement.
  536
  Mr. Baldry
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to extend access to information in council tax valuation lists.

  Homeless Elderly
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the night shelters or hostels within the Greater London area that are specifically allocated for use by homeless elderly people within the Greater London area.

  Mr. Baldry
  This information is not held centrally, although the Department part-funds resource information services to publish an annual London hostels directory, which lists hostel accommodation in London. The entry for each hostel shows, inter alia, any age restrictions on residents. I am placing copies of the directory in the Library.

  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what survey has been undertaken by his Department on the welfare of elderly homeless people sleeping rough in London during the first three months of 1993; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Department has not undertaken such a survey. The age breakdown of people sleeping rough in central London is given in the report of independent research into the effectiveness of the rough sleepers initiative, commissioned by the Department from Geoffrey Randall and Susan Brown, entitled "The Rough Sleepers Initiative: an Evaluation", published in January 1993. Copies of this report are in the Library.

  Landfill Management
  Mr. Hendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to examine the issue of criminal liability of private sector companies which take over the management of local authority landfill sites under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and the Water Act 1989, which then cause pollution as a direct result of waste deposited in the past.

  Mr. Yeo
  We have no plans to examine the issue of criminal liability in these circumstances.

  However, my right hon. and learned Friend the then Secretary of State announced on 24 March 1993 at column 633 a wide-ranging review by an interdepartmental group of officials, under the chairmanship of his Department, of the problems associated with contaminative uses of land. Among the issues to be covered by this review will be civil liability for contamination.

  Mobile Home Owners
  Mr. Alan Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will seek to amend the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 to extend compensation payable under it to mobile home owners affected by motorways completed in the last 10 years.

  Mr. Baldry
  Under a provision inserted by the Planning and Compensation Act 1991, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport intends later this year to make regulations enabling highway authorities to make payments to the owners of mobile homes which are affected by a specified level of noise arising from the construction or use of new or altered roads. The powers
  537
  apply only to cases where the works giving rise to noise came into use no earlier than 12 months before commencement of the provision. The regulations which my right hon. Friend proposes to make will accordingly apply to new or altered road schemes which first came into use on or after 25 September 1990. We are not persuaded of the case for any extension in the scope of the powers.

  Water Prices
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he last met the heads of the regional water companies to discuss the basis for water price structure; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  My right hon. Friend's predecessors have from time to time met chairmen of the water companies. The basis for restrictions on water charges is set out in the water companies' instruments of appointment, compendia of which are available in the Library. Under the Water Industry Act 1991, the Director General of Water Services has the duty to set limits to the prices companies may charge. The director general has published a number of consultation papers concerning his approach to setting price limits at the first full review in 1994 which will take effect from 1 April 1995. Under section 2 of the Water Industry Act 1991, the director general must enable companies to obtain the funds to finance their duties while protecting the interests of their customers.

  Radon Gas
  Sir Roger Moate
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what grants are available to help househol-ders pay the cost of remedial work in their homes to prevent contamination by radon gas; how many grants he estimates have been made; and how many houses are estimated to be at risk.

  Mr. Yeo
  Local authorities have powers under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 to award discretionary renovation grants to help home owners with radon remedial measures. Information on the number of grants given for this purpose is not collected by the Department. The National Radiological Protection Board estimates that 100,000 houses are above the Government action level.

  Company Relocations, Merseyside
  Mr. Kilfoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many companies from outside Merseyside have relocated within the Merseyside development corporation area since 1991.

  Mr. Baldry
  A recent survey carried out on behalf of MDC has indicated that approximately 200 companies have been established within MDC's area since 1991. Ten of these companies moved into MDC owned premises from outside Merseyside. In addition, there have been relocations by three Government organisations into the MDC area.

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the cost to Government of relocating companies to the Merseyside development corporation area since 1991.

  Mr. Baldry
  It is not possible to put a figure on cost to Government in relocating companies to the MDC area 538
  since 1991 as much of the information is commercial in confidence. However, since 1991 MDC has given grant assistance of more than £3 million to companies within MDC's area, thereby creating or retaining jobs.

  Red List Substances
  Mr. Garrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the United Kingdom input figures, and their dates, for each of the 23 red list substances, which are to be used as the baseline for the Government's commitment to reduce riverine, estuarial and direct coastal aqueous discharges to the sea by 50 per cent.; and if he will disaggregate inputs of each substance to the North sea and other coastal waters of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Yeo
  The available information is contained in "The Implementation of the Ministerial Declaration of the Second International Conference on the Protection of the North Sea," published by my Department in February 1990, a copy of which is in the Library of the House. Discharges of red list substances in Scotland and Northern Ireland are matters for the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

  Mr. Garrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the latest available figures relating to riverine, estuarial and direct coastal discharges of the red list substances; and what are their dates, disaggregating the data to provide input figures of each substance to the North sea and other coastal waters of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Yeo
  The latest available information is contained in "Controlling the Inputs of Persistent Chemicals to Marine Waters from Land-Based Sources", a paper by the chief scientist of the National Rivers Authority given to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at its Southampton meeting in August 1992. A copy of this is in the Library of the House. Discharges of red list substances in Scotland and Northern Ireland are matters for the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

  Forestry
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when the Government will publish their response to the Environment Select Committee's first report of the current Session on "Foresty and the Environment"; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  The Government are today publishing their response to the Environment Select Committee's report on "Forestry and the Environment". We welcome the Committee's report as a valuable contribution to the debate on this important topic.

  The Government welcome the Committee's recognition of the important role of forestry in meeting a wide range of environmental, economic and social objectives. The Government also welcome the Committee's support for the continued expansion of forestry cover.

  In taking forward the relevant policies, the aim of the Government is to ensure that encouragement of increased woodland cover complements the goal of conserving and enhancing the environment. The statement published by the Forestry Commission on behalf of forestry Ministers

  539
  in September 1991 set out the broad policy framework: the present response to the Committee's report highlights various developments which have occurred since then. These include the publication of additional environmental guidelines with which applicants for the woodland grant scheme have to comply, the publication last year of guidance to local authorities on the preparation of indicative forestry strategies to assist landowners and others drawing up new planting schemes, and provision by the Forestry Commission of a public register of grant applications io improve the public's awareness of forestry planting proposals.

  In the wider policy context, the response confirms the Government's commitment to publish by the end of this year a national plan for implementing the statement of forest principles agreed last year at the Earth summit in Rio de Janiero. The Forestry Commission is co-ordinating the preparation of this plan, and will seek the views of non-governmental organisations before it is completed. The plan will set out the arrangements for implementing forestry policy, including the delivery of multiple objectives in forests throughout the United Kingdom.

  The response points to the Government's current review of the effectiveness of existing incentives for forestry investment and options for the ownership and management of the Forestry Commission's woodlands with a view to possible changes which would improve the effectiveness of the delivery of the Government's forestry policy objectives.

  The response announces the Government's intention to review existing consultation arrangements for planting and felling proposals; and it confirms that a review of current procedures to maintain public access where appropriate to forests and woodlands sold by the Forestry Commission as part of its disposals programme will take place later this year.

  The response also announces the Forestry Commission's intention to devote a greater proportion of its resources to the community and national forest initiatives, and to undertake a study of the extent of neglected and derelict woodlands with a view to making recommendations on any additional action required.

  Copies of the Government response are being laid before the House and will be available in the Library.

  Displaced Persons
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give details of the special financial assistance to be given to local authorities in respect of displaced persons from the former Yugoslavia and unaccompanied refugee and asylum-seeking children.

  Mr. Curry
  Financial assistance is to be given to local authorities under two special grant schemes. Details are contained in "Special Grant Report (No. 8)" which has been laid before the House of Commons for approval. These two grant schemes will provide support to those authorities which are most affected by the influx of displaced persons from the former Yugoslavia and by the pressure on local services caused by the arrival at major ports of entry of refugee and asylum-seeking children from other parts of the world.

  Local Government Staff Commission
  Mr. Tredinnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to issue policy guidance to the Local Government Staff Commission (England).

  Mr. Baldry
  I am placing in the Library a copy of the policy guidance which we are issuing to the Local Government Staff Commission (England).

  The Government recognise the anxieties which many local authority staff have about their future when reorganisation of local government in the shire counties takes place over the next few years.

  We are keen to ensure that the staff commission looks carefully at all the staff issues involved. The policy guidance provides a framework for the commission to consider the complex arrangements relating to staff which will need to be resolved by local authorities.

  The commission will focus specifically on mechanisms for staff transfer to, and recruitment by, the new authorities, and on the scope for any prior consideration arrangements for staff whose posts are lost in reorganisation.

  Over the coming months, the staff commission will be talking extensively to local governments at all levels: the local authority associations, individual local authorities directly affected—their staff and their representatives—and listening to their views and concerns.

  Compulsory Competitive Tendering
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to introduce a de minimis threshold to exempt smaller local authorities from compulsory competitive tendering for construction-related and corporate services.

  Mr. Curry
  Competition provides many benefits to local authorities: better managed services, higher quality work and significant financial savings. However, the Government recognise that CCT involves additional administrative requirements, which need to be taken into account.

  For this reason we introduced de-minimis thresholds for the services subject to CCT under the Local Government Planning and Land Act 1980 and the Local Government Act 1988. Where the amount of work falls below these thresholds, authorities are not obliged to seek competitive tenders—though they can do so voluntarily if they wish.

  During our joint discussions on the implementation of white-collar CCT, local authority representatives have proposed that de-minimis thresholds should similarly be adopted for professional and corporate services.

  I have considered these comments, and accept the principle. I have asked my officials to discuss with local authority representatives the appropriate form and amounts of the thresholds which will achieve broadly the same objectives as those thresholds already in place for manual services. I have also accepted the argument that a local authority needs a satisfactory staffing level to perform adequately the core client roles which may not be suitable for competitive tendering.

  White collar CCT covers a range of different services. The deminimis thresholds adopted will need to reflect these differences. For some services, a threshold based on the total value of the service may be appropriate, for others

  541
  one based on the number of staff employed, or a combination of the two, may better meet authorities' needs. I am anxious that we consider all options.

  I will make further announcements on the proposed thresholds for individual services in due course.

  As with the existing services, local authorities will of course be free to tender services below threshold levels voluntarily. Authorities should take every opportunity to improve services and reduce costs through market testing.

  Meantime, I hope this early announcement about the decision in principle to adopt deminimis thresholds for the white collar services will be helpful to local authorities.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will place in the Library copies of the written submission appeals submitted by Castle Point borough council, Harlow district council and Gloucestershire county council against his proposed cap of their budgets.

  Mr. Baldry
  I have today placed copies of these documents in the Library.

  Executive Bodies
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment to whom each executive non-departmental public body sponsored by his Department is statutorily or legally responsible; and which such bodies are subject to(a) surcharge, (b) investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner, (c) scrutiny by the Audit Commission or National Audit Office, (d) the statutory provisions for open Government which apply to local authorities, (e) performance indicators, and (f) any provisions under the citizens charters.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 10 June 1993]: The Department of the Environment currently sponsors 29 executive non-departmental public bodies, details of which are in "Public Bodies" and the Department's 1993 annual report (Cm. 2207). The functions and responsibilities of each non-departmental public body are specified in its founding legislation. I appoint and specify the terms of service of the members of the board of each non-departmental public body and am responsible for non-departmental public bodies' use of resources and the general framework within which they are required to operate. The chief executive of most non-departmental public bodies is designated as the non-departmental public body's accounting officer and, together with the departmental accounting officer, is liable to appear before the Public Accounts Committee to account for the use of public funds.

  (a) The concept of surcharge as used in the Local Government Finance Act 1982 applies only to local authorities.

  (b) The non-departmental public bodies subject to investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration are:

  Commission for the New Towns (excluding housing functions)

  Countryside Commission

  Housing Corporation

  Local Government Commission

  London Residuary Body

  National Rivers Authority (excluding flood defence functions)

  542

  Nature Conservancy Council for England (English Nature)

  Rural Development Commission

  United Kingdom Eco-Labelling Board

  Urban Development Corporations (excluding town and country planning functions)

  (c) The Comptroller and Auditor General, as head of the National Audit Office, is the statutory external auditor of:

  Audit Commission

  Countryside Commission

  Nature Conservancy Council for England

  Joint Nature Conservation Committee

  Rural Development Commission

  The Comptroller and Auditor General also has a statutory right to inspect the books of the National Rivers Authority and, by agreement, those of other NDPBs. Under the provisions of the National Audit Act 1983 he may also carry out examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of NDPBs for which he is the external auditor or which receive more than half their income from public funds.

  The Audit Commission is the statutory external auditor of the London Pensions Fund Authority and the London residuary body.

  (d) The provisions of the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 apply only to those local authorities specified in the Act.

  (e) As a matter of policy, all NDPBs are required to develop and use performance indicators both for their own internal management and to inform the public about their work.

  (f) All NDPBs are required to apply the principles of the citizens charter in their dealings with the public.

  Essex Coast
  Dr. Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to make an announcement about the Essex coast protection scheme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has overall policy responsibility for coast protection in England. Grant aid is available under the Coast Protection Act 1949 to maritime district councils for carrying out works to protect land from erosion or encroachment by the sea. Such works must be technically sound, economically worthwhile and environmentally acceptable to qualify for approval and grant aid. There are a number of works currently under construction or consideration by the maritime district councils in Essex.

SCOTLAND

  Energy Saving Trust
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many meetings he has had with the chairman and chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, what resources his Department has committed to the trust to date; and if he will make a statement on the progress made in achieving the aims of the trust to date in Scotland.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 9 June 1993]: The prime responsibility for promoting energy efficiency rests with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment who provides support for the Energy

  543
  Saving Trust. It would be a matter for the trust to make any progress report. Meantime there has been no meeting between either the chairman or chief executive of the trust and the Secretary of State for Scotland.

  HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the allocations for each health board in respect of(a) misuse in drugs services and (b) HIV/AIDS service operations in (i) 1993–94, (ii) 1992–93 and (iii) 1991–92.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 7 June 1993]: The allocation of moneys to each health board in Scotland for drugs and HIV/AIDS services is shown in the tables.

  Drugs

  1991–91

  1992–93

  1993–94

  Argyll and Clyde

  78,416

  96,381

  100,000

  Ayrshire and Arran

  170,703

  189,572

  195,000

  Borders

  18,387

  23,862

  25,000

  Dumfries and Galloway

  30,068

  34,377

  37,000

  Fife

  57,865

  70,395

  75,000

  Forth Valley

  53,755

  56,094

  63,000

  Grampian

  101,562

  102,863

  107,000

  Greater Glasgow

  777,043

  772,956

  788,000

  Highland

  43,156

  46,949

  36,000

  Lanarkshire

  90,205

  109,480

  115,000

  Lothian

  616,989

  629,456

  640,000

  Orkney

  3,353

  4,876

  5,500

  Shetland

  4,002

  5,404

  6,500

  Tayside

  259,762

  260,795

  265,000

  Western Isles

  5,841

  8,650

  9,000

  Total

  2,311,107

  2,412,110

  2,467,000

  HIV/AIDS

  £ millions

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  Argyll and Clyde

  468,000

  592,328

  620,729

  Ayrshire and Arran

  250,000

  460,032

  543,936

  Borders

  139,550

  147,846

  153,000

  Dumfries and Galloway

  229,000

  207,767

  235,222

  Fife

  438,070

  465,235

  481,773

  Forth Valley

  402,000

  473,000

  449,000

  Grampian

  648,000

  1,233,067

  1,235,000

  Greater Glasgow

  3,959,000

  4,188,787

  4,559,968

  Highland

  295,400

  288,595

  324,940

  Lanarkshire

  422,000

  657,667

  708,000

  Lothian

  17,856,000

  7,592,400

  7,300,000

  Orkney

  5,000

  26,739

  28,454

  Shetland

  25,000

  30,892

  13,392

  Tayside

  2,361,000

  2,589,583

  2,643,000

  Health board of residence

  All pregnancies1

  Spontaneous abortions (miscarriage)

  Per cent.

  Ratio spontaneous losses: live births

  Argyll and Clyde

  7,368

  950

  12·9

  1:5·9

  Ayrshire and Arran

  6,376

  799

  12·5

  1:6·1

  Borders

  1,649

  207

  12·6

  1:6·1

  Dumfries and Galloway

  2,293

  255

  11·1

  1:7·0

  Fife

  5,837

  606

  10·4

  1:7·2

  Forth Valley

  4,552

  460

  10·1

  1:7·8

  Grampian

  9,213

  1,078

  11·7

  1:6·3

  Greater Glasgow

  16,883

  2,160

  12·8

  1:5·9

  Highland

  3,513

  406

  11·6

  1:6·5

  Lanarkshire

  9,564

  1,094

  11·4

  1:7·0

  Lothian

  13,740

  1,604

  11·7

  1:6·2

  Tayside

  6,735

  634

  9·4

  1:7·7

  Orkney

  298

  36

  12·1

  1:6·6

  Shetland

  392

  44

  11·2

  1:7·4

  Western Isles

  394

  35

  8·9

  1:9·4

  544

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  Western Isles

  42,000

  47,062

  47,062

  State Hospital

  —

  —

  34,000

  Total

  17,540,000

  219,001,000

  19,397,476

  1 This figure includes a capital payment of £542,000.

  2 Includes £500,000 to enable health boards to implement recommendations of the ministerial AIDS task force.

  Miscarriages
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what provision he has made to help those who have suffered miscarriage;

  (2) whether he will provide guidance on best practice for hospitals to help those suffering a miscarriage or recurrent miscarriage.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 14 June 1993]: Grant aid is provided towards the core costs of the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society (SANDS) and also to assist it to develop a self-help network providing support to bereaved parents, their families and friends.

  The SANDS publication "Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Neonatal Death. Guidelines for Professionals"; the Scottish Health Service Advisory Council report "Everybody's Death Should Matter to Somebody; the Care of the Dying in Scotland" and the Department of Health publication "Welfare of Children and Young People in Hospital", all of which include good practice guidance for the care of those who have suffered a miscarriage, were issued to health boards and health and social care professionals during 1991. Guidance leaflets published by the Miscarriage Association and Support After Termination for Abnormality (SATFA) have also been recommended for use by NHS professional staff.

  Counselling of bereaved parents or families is, of course, included in the curriculum for medical and nursing education.

  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what percentage of pregnancies end in miscarriage; and what is the ratio of miscarriages to live births in(a) Scotland as a whole and (b) each of the health board areas.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 14 June 1993]: The information for known pregnancies in 1991, the latest year for which figures are available, is as follows:
  545

  Health board of residence

  All pregnancies1

  Spontaneous abortions (miscarriage)

  Per cent.

  Ratio spontaneous losses: live births

  Resident elsewhere but miscarried in Scotland

  119

  119

  —

  —

  SCOTLAND

  88.926

  10,487

  11·8

  1:6·4

  1 Includes births (live and still), spontaneous and therapeutic abortions.

  Infertility
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps are taken to ensure health boards are provided with guidance on the provision of infertility treatment and counselling.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 14 June 1993]: Good practice guidance and advice on the organisation and management of all aspects of infertility treatment, including counselling, is contained in the National Medical Advisory Committee's report on infertility services in Scotland, which was published on 10 March. This report has been issued to health boards and commended to them for implementation.

  Guidance to licensed centres on the provision of treatment, again covering counselling, is also contained in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's code of practice.

  NHS Staff: WTE for selected groups at 30 September 1988–1992

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  District nurses1

  1,190·5

  1,226·4

  1,211·5

  1,713·4

  1,691·8

  Community midwives

  172·4

  194·0

  208·2

  276·7

  272·7

  Health visitors1

  1,517·9

  1,559·6

  1,508·6

  1,546·2

  1,497·3

  Community psychiatric nurses

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  342·6

  356·3

  Practice nurses2

  205·2

  295·3

  583·5

  646·8

  743·6

  1 Data include registered and enrolled nurses working in district nursing/health visiting but not qualified as district nurses or health visitors.

  2 Data for 1988–91 are at 1 April whereas that for 1992 is at 1 October.

  n/a = Data not available.

  There are also combined duty staff as below

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  Health visitor/district nurse

  3·0

  3·0

  7·0

  31·9

  30·2

  Health visitor/district nurse—community midwife

  121·3

  113·7

  114·7

  134·2

  127·7

  District nurse/community midwife

  447·7

  438·3

  415·3

  359·8

  350·7

  Health visitor/community midwife

  15·0

  19·0

  23·3

  39·0

  38·1

  Enterprise zone
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many jobs have been(a) created and (b) lost in each of the enterprise zones on an annual basis; and how many jobs were lost in the area of each enterprise zone in each of the three years before its creation.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 8 June 1993]: Comprehensive information on job losses and redundan-cies is not held centrally. The information on jobs created and lost on enterprise zones is not available in the form

  Electoral Registration Statistics
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the latest estimates of those aged 17 years and over, plus 63 per cent. of those aged 16 years, for each district council area and parliamentary constituency, together in each case with the equivalent year's electoral registration figures, also expressed as a percentage of these population estimates.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 14 June 1993]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave on 9 February, at columns 516–17.

  Health Staff
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many(a) district nurses, (b) community midwives, (c) health visitors, (d) community psychiatric nurses and (e) practice nurses were employed in the NHS in Scotland in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 7 June 1993]: The information requested is shown in the table:

  requested. However, following is the information available on net job creation in each of the Scottish enterprise zones (and which takes account of job losses in the zone):

  Enterprise zone

  Date of designation

  Estimated net job creation since designation

  Clydebank

  August 1981

  3,700

  Invergordon

  October 1983

  700

  Tayside

  January 1984

  3,700

  Inverclyde

  March 1989

  1800

  1 Revised figure based on recent survey of businesses. Includes 76 which were in the zone at the date of its establishment; excludes jobs expected to be created by Mimtec Services Ltd at Faulds Park.

  Cervical Cancer
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many women aged(a) 20 to 40 years, (b) 41 to 60 years and (c) 61 years and over (i) have had cervical

  Cancer of the cervix in Scotland

  Year

  All registrations

  Hospital registrations

  Deaths

  One-year survival rate

  Three-year survival rate

  Age <40

  1985

  129

  129

  24

  0·93

  0·85

  1986

  129

  129

  31

  0·94

  0·80

  1987

  120

  120

  23

  0·98

  0·83

  1988

  144

  143

  30

  0·89

  0·78

  1989

  88

  88

  11

  0·91

  —

  1990

  134

  134

  5

  —

  —

  1991

  127

  127

  —

  —

  —

  Age 40–59

  1985

  150

  150

  58

  0·83

  0·66

  1986

  158

  158

  59

  0·85

  0·70

  1987

  159

  158

  53

  0·82

  0·69

  1988

  176

  175

  44

  0·87

  0·73

  1989

  142

  140

  33

  0·79

  —

  1990

  187

  186

  4

  —

  —

  1991

  175

  173

  —

  —

  —

  Age 60+

  1985

  163

  155

  100

  0·63

  0·41

  1986

  179

  177

  112

  0·66

  0·42

  1987

  182

  180

  108

  0·61

  0·41

  1988

  139

  135

  78

  0·61

  0·39

  1989

  146

  139

  56

  0·68

  —

  1990

  169

  167

  41

  —

  —

  1991

  151

  148

  —

  —

  —

  Notes:

  Cancer of the cervix (ICD-9 1801) in Scotland: numbers of new cases registered, numbers of cases registered from hospital records2, numbers of deaths up to 31 December 1990 and one and three year survival rates3 by age and year treatment commenced.

  1 International Classification of Diseases Ninth Revision—Code 180.

  2 Most registrations are made on the basis of medical records or pathology reports. Selecting cases registered from hospital records excludes a small number of cases notified to the registration system only at the time of death. Most of the such cases will be of persons, usually elderly, who were not treated.

  3 The survival rates were calculated using the 'life table' method and represent the proportions of survivors at the first and third anniversary of the date treatment commenced.

  Passive Smoking
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what statutory provisions govern the extent to which, or means by which, a person can sue for damages or compensation for illnesses caused by passive smoking in the workplace; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 8 June 1993]: There are no statutory provisions expressly dealing with illnesses caused
  548
  cancer diagnosed, (ii) have died from cervical cancer and (iii) have undergone treatment and survived, in each of the past seven years.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 8 June 1993]: The information requested is detailed in the table:

  by passive smoking in the workplace. However, regulation 6 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, section 4 of the Factories Act 1961 and section 7 of the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963 make provision for the ventilation of workplaces. Regulation 25(3) of the 1992 regulations also deals with the provision of suitable arrangements in rest rooms and rest areas to protect non-smokers from discomfort caused by tobacco smoke.

  Breaches of duty under these provisions are actionable in so far as they cause damage.

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

London Underground: Ticket Facilities
Lord Belhaven and Stenton Lord Belhaven and Stenton gasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will ask London Underground to withdraw their warning notices to travellers without tickets, in view of the fact that on many Underground stations tickets are either not available or difficult to obtain.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, no. During 1992–93, 99.93 per cent. of London Underground's stations had at least one ticket purchasing facility available.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. It hardly falls within my personal experience, but perhaps that is just my own. Is he aware that on some stations when the ticket office is closed the machine will take exact money only and staff send passengers into the system with an instruction to pay at the end of their journey? Is he further aware that those people may be fined if they are caught by ticket inspectors? Does he agree that that is a totally unacceptable situation?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the responsibility is clearly on the customer to travel with a ticket. If one did not have the right change, one would be expected either to obtain change to the right value or to buy a ticket with the money available and pay the difference at the end of the journey. Alternatively, a member of staff who is unable to open the booking office could provide the passenger with a note which is stamped and signed, authorising travel and payment at the other end.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it might help if he were to take an occasional trip on London Underground? Would he then begin to appreciate that the problems to which his noble friend alluded are an everyday occurrence? Is it not fundamentally wrong that the financial pressures imposed on London Underground at the present time have led to substantial destaffing of stations and added to the anxieties felt by so many people, particularly women, about security for their person?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord must be a little more careful when he poses those sorts of questions. I travelled on the London Underground yesterday.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is a sad reflection, whether on the
1418
Government or the management of London Underground, that at the time when the new automatic ticketing facilities were being installed on the London Underground system the stored value ticket, which is similar to the phone card or the card with which we can buy food in the canteen across the street, was well in use, particularly in Hong Kong? Is he aware that London Underground were putting in an already obsolete technology? Will he at least undertake to ask London Underground whether they see the merit of putting in more up-to-date technology, which would be much more convenient for passengers and save a great deal of time for the staff who sell the tickets and replace the change in the machines?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I found the facilities on London Underground considerably improved from the previous time that I travelled on it. It was a considerably more updated service.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we are all now told that we are customers and not passengers? Does he agree that the word "customers" implies that those selling the services want to satisfy us? The way in which the noble Earl answered the Question suggested that travel was a favour that was being conferred upon us and that we ought to accommodate our convenience to that of the Underground. Is that compatible with being a customer and the attitude towards customers which I thought the Government were trying to encourage?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am sure that nobody is treated as more of a customer than the noble Baroness when she travels on the Underground. It is precisely because of the service that London Underground wishes to provide that there is such a high percentage of the machinery working. That is improving and has improved considerably over recent years.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, since the noble Earl is now such a frequent traveller on London Underground, does he agree that he might do better if he were to travel before breakfast, before lunch and before dinner to learn a little about London Underground? Will he now address himself to the question that I posed about destaffing and the financial difficulties that London Underground is undergoing which have led directly to that situation?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, investment in London Underground is at its highest level. It has substantially improved. It is for London Underground to make the best use of the resources available to it.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that some of the machines on stations which state "Exact money only" do not take 50p pieces? Can he ask the manager of London Underground what one is supposed to do in that situation?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I came across that exact problem yesterday, which is why I looked into

1419
the matter. The problem has been that a number of people have been fiddling by covering 10p pieces with silver paper to convert them into 50p pieces, which has fooled the machinery. I am glad to tell my noble friend that with modern research a new machine is being devised and installed which will take proper 50p pieces.

Smokers: Surgical Treatment Policy
2.43 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich Lord McColl of Dulwich asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their policy towards patients who require surgical treatment and who smoke.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, every citizen, whether a smoker or not, has the right to NHS care and treatment on the basis of clinical need. In deciding what form of treatment is appropriate for individual patients, clinicians will need to exercise their professional judgment in the light of resources available.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, does she agree that, if a surgeon deems that it would be unwise to operate on a patient because of his smoking habit, which would preclude a successful outcome to such treatment, that would be a perfectly reasonable course of action?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, yes.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, is the Minister aware that her words were ill-conceived when she indicated that doctors can play God? Does she not agree that that encourages doctors to prescribe punishment, especially when they turn away a smoker? What about the cases of a pregnant prostitute, a homosexual suffering from AIDS or a drink-driver who may have suffered an accident on the roads? I agree that doctors have to use their clinical judgment. But if someone needs treatment, the National Health Service is there to provide that service, irrespective of that person's habits or lifestyle. I hope that the Minister will therefore reinforce that point. There is a right to clinical judgment, but the Minister must not allow her attitudes and vision to be impaired by the anti-smoking lobby.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the Government's position is absolutely clear. The General Medical Council has also made it clear that treatment should be available to all parts of the community. The Government fully endorse that view. Clinicians have always had to make difficult judgments in setting clinical priorities. Smoking is only one of a number of factors, such as age, weight and family history, which clinicians have to take into account when deciding whether or not to operate or treat a patient. It is not the role of doctors to act as agents for punishment for any sort of lifestyle. We do
1420
not encourage that. We want them to exercise their clinical judgment, for which they are trained and educated.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, will the noble Baroness draw to the attention of her noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Carmyllie the contradictory situation that prevails in the Tayside Health Board? Its consultants are indicating that they may refuse to treat patients who smoke while, at the same time, it has substantial investments in tobacco companies. Will the noble Baroness examine the position in regional health authorities and health boards in general to ascertain whether or not they have investments in tobacco companies?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am too intrepid to cross the Border. It is a matter that I shall discuss with my noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Carmyllie.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the noble Baroness and her department be good enough to look into a statement issued by the National Health Service that smoking-related illnesses cost the NHS £400 million every year? Surely that should tempt the Government to ban the advertising of cigarettes and pipe tobacco.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the Government have made it absolutely clear, not least in their evidence to the Select Committee, that they accept that effective controls on tobacco advertising are a key element of the strategy aimed at reducing the harm from smoking. That is why we have developed stringent voluntary agreements with the tobacco industries.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, in view of the large costs to the National Health Service of treating self-induced conditions, while it would be utterly wrong for the health service to deny treatment to those people who have need for it, some warning should be given that they would be given low priority on the waiting list? They are people who positively induce, by their own decision, a condition for which they may eventually need treatment.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, it is a matter of risk and benefit: the risks of treating a patient and the benefit of the treatment once it is given. That is a decision for clinicians and we would leave it to clinical judgment.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that smoking-related illnesses are one of the greatest scourges of the present day? Would she also agree that there is good evidence, not only that they are an important cause of lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, but that smoking is the principal cause of peripheral arterial disease? Is it not the case that many individuals operated upon for peripheral arterial disease and coronary by-pass surgery who continue to smoke, find that the arteries gradually become occluded as a result of their continuing habit? Is it therefore surprising that, while a doctor's continuing duty of care must be paramount

1421
in the medical profession, some surgeons prefer to operate upon those who are non-smokers or who agree to give up smoking?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I had a distinguished father-in-law who lived by the axiom, "moderation in all things— and not too much of that". It is an axiom that I adopt in most of my life, but not in smoking. Smoking is a devastating cause of death. In 1,000 young people who smoke regularly, on average one will be murdered, six will be killed on the roads and 250 will be killed before their time by tobacco-related diseases. It is quite right that those of us responsible for promoting the health of the nation should take on the issue, as we are, through voluntary agreement and negotiation with the tobacco industry.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will the noble Baroness confirm that, although smoking may or may not cost the National Health Service some £400 million a year, smokers contribute £8 billion a year in additional taxation? Does she agree that there are many other lifestyles which contribute to a person's illness; for example, obesity, drink and all kinds of other life-time habits? I shall not list them all. But I sincerely hope that the noble Baroness will make it absolutely clear once again that every patient, no matter what his lifestyle, has equal access to proper health care and proper health treatment. That is the issue, and that is the issue I want her to clarify completely now.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thought that the position was clear. It is up to clinicians to decide whom to treat and on whom to operate, relying on certain factors which they take into consideration such as age, weight and family history. There is no ambivalence on this subject. It is up to clinicians to make their own decisions in the light of their clinical judgment.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the noble Baroness must be aware that the Question asks whether the Government have a policy on this issue. She ought to know that some of us are quite relieved that the Government do not have a policy on this issue —and no other government in the future should have a policy for deciding who will be treated and who will not be treated. Such decisions should be left with the clinicians on the basis of the cases that they see. Many of the other questions today have been hypothetical, but I hope that the situation will continue as it was and that decisions will be left at the sharp end, with doctors dealing with medical problems individually and not in batches.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, that is the policy. But of course the Government also try to prevent people from smoking because we know that it is the biggest cause of preventable death in this country. We always return to the fact that it is up to clinicians to exercise their clinical judgment.
Lord Kinnaird: My Lords, after Question Time, if any noble Lord should have a few minutes to spare, I would he delighted to offer him a cigarette.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, will the Minister assist on this point? If stringent voluntary arrangements by way of restriction on cigarette advertising are good, why are obligatory restrictions bad?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, we know that voluntary agreements work. This country has a better record in terms of reducing the consumption of tobacco than any other European country bar the Netherlands. When we look at those countries which have banned tobacco advertising we see that their success in preventing the consumption of tobacco smoke is less good than ours. We know it works and we will continue with it.

Organic Farming
2.54 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam The Earl of Clanwilliam asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they intend to support organic farmers with a sum proportional to that given to the Countryside Commission in support of the Stewardship Campaign and, if not, why not.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe): My Lords, the Government are considering responses to our consultation documents on the several schemes to be introduced under the EC regulation on agriculture and the environment. Decisions on the precise allocation of resources between these schemes will be taken in the light of those responses.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, which is understood. I fully agree with the aims and ambitions of the Countryside Commission and of the Stewardship Campaign. I am sure that the £35 million that they have been offered will be truly spent. Does my noble friend agree that in the Stewardship Campaign the items that are of importance contain, for instance, the conservation and restoration of hay meadows, at £70 a hectare, and the regeneration of grasslands with a light application of well rotted manure? Is that not exactly what organic farming is about? Why should not the same happy state of £225 a hectare for grasslands equally apply to organic farmers?
Earl Howe: My Lords, decisions have not yet been taken on the final shape of the aid package under the agri-environment arrangements. However, I think my noble friend would agree that the size of the aid scheme for organic farming must be viewed in the light of the very small size of the organic sector, which currently comprises less than 1 per cent. of land area. One of our objectives is to triple the area of land farmed organically, which would be a very worthwhile increase.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, can the noble Earl define in precise terms what he means by an organic farmer? Is there such a thing as a farmer who is part organic and part non-organic?
Earl Howe: My Lords, it is certainly possible for a farmer to farm under conventional systems as well as organic systems. Organic farming and production systems are designed to promote management practices which aim to avoid the use of agro-chemical inputs and which minimise damage to the environment and wildlife. Among the objectives of organic farming is the maintenance of valuable existing landscape features and adequate habitats, careful attention to animal welfare and consideration for the wider social and ecological impact of the farming system.
Lord Renton: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that food produced by organic farming is said to be better for people's health than food produced by other means? Does he accept that organic farming is quite compatible with the set-aside policy? Will he bear those factors in mind when developing the various schemes that he has mentioned?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I would take slight issue with my noble friend on his first statement. The fact is that we have very strict controls on the pesticides and other chemicals used in farming and food processing; so it is not generally necessary to buy organic food to ensure a good and healthy diet. But it is equally true that some people prefer food produced organically; and their demands should be recognised.
My noble friend makes a very interesting point with regard to set-aside which, I do not think organic farmers should forget, does assist them, particularly with regard to the amount of area payment that they receive, which is based on regional yields as opposed to organic yields, as well as in helping them to convert to organic systems.
Lord Carter: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the other and shorter definition of organic farming, which is a system of farming that is based on muck, mystery and magic? Is he further aware that opinion among conservation bodies is somewhat divided regarding the environmental benefits of organic farming? The case is generally regarded as not proven. If the Government are to grant-aid organic farming, what steps will they take to ensure that some genuine environmental benefits result?
Earl Howe: My Lords, well practised organic farming is a system which makes the best use of available natural nitrogen resources. But the skills needed are specialist skills and it has to be done well. If it is not done properly, it should not be assumed that organic farming is necessarily better for the environment. With regard to the noble Lord's second question, he will be aware that the standards laid down by UK ROFS, the supervisory body for organic farming, stipulate very detailed organic rules which all organic farmers should be following.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the kind assurance that the intention is to treble the amount of organic farming presently in hand, which will create a system of some 100,000 hectares. If that is to be the case, I am confident that my noble friend will ensure that enough money is
1424
available to encourage them to do it against the intervention of our EC competitors, who are flooding the market with highly subsidised goods.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I take note of my noble friend's comments. He is of course quite right in that certain other EC countries have seen a dramatic increase in their organic production over the past few years. As regards Germany, the rate of expansion was far too rapid, resulting in serious disruption of the market. As I have said, we must remember that the organic sector is still small and its growth should be managed carefully.

Crown Estates: Treasury Income
3 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing Lord Orr-Ewing asked Her Majesty's Government:
What has been the average annual income received by the Treasury during the last 40 years from Crown lands in the personal possession of the Sovereign.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, Her Majesty surrendered hereditary revenues, including the Crown Estates, on accession to the throne. The Crown Estates' surrender to the Treasury has averaged £14.4 million per year over the past 40 years. Her Majesty has retained revenues from any Crown lands in her personal possession.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the media seem very reluctant to publish that income but very keen to say how much the Crown is costing? Is it true to say that the Civil List cost was £7.9 million in 1991? Is my noble friend aware that the presenter, in opening the recent BBC debate on the monarchy, said that the Queen paid no tax at all during her 40-year reign? That seems to be untrue. The result of the debate was very even, 128 people believing that the monarchy should not be retained and 131 believing that it should. Does my noble friend agree that that result might well have been different if the very substantial figure of voluntary payments of £14 million a year had been known to the people present at the debate and to the millions looking in?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I did not have the opportunity of watching the programme that my noble friend mentions. In my original Answer I said that the average figure over 40 years was £14.4 million. In 1987–88 the Crown Estate Commissioners paid over to the Consolidated Fund some £35 million: that had doubled by 1992–93. The estimate for this year is some £72 million— a very considerable contribution.
The Earl of Perth: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the figure at this time is not £14.4 million. Last year, it was over £70 million and this year it is a good deal more. The figures more than cover the expenses for the upkeep of the monarchy. In other words, the taxpayer is getting a very good bargain from Her Majesty the Queen. Will the Government ensure that those facts are far more widely known to one and all?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Earl is right. I am sure the fact that this Question has been asked will be recognised by the media of this country and that the information will be known by all subjects of Her Majesty.
Lord Richard: My Lords, since, on the figures, this is an extremely good bargain for the Government, may I take it that they have no plans to change the situation?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we have no plans to change it.

Health Service Commissioners Bill [H.L.]
3.4 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate the enactments relating to the Health Service Commissioners for England, for Wales and for Scotland with amendments to give effect to recommendations of the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission. I beg to move that the Bill he now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.— (The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Probation Service Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to the probation service and its functions and to arrangements for persons on bail and the rehabilitation of offenders. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.— (The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

National Lottery etc. Bill
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Astor I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the National Lottery etc. Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 and 2,

Schedule 1,

Clause 3,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 4 to 10,

Schedule 3,

Clauses 11 to 33,

Schedule 4,

Clause 34,

Schedule 5,

Clauses 35 to 37,

Schedule 6,

1426

Clauses 38 to 44,

Schedule 7,

Clause 45,

Schedule 8,

Clause 46,

Schedule 9,

Clauses 47 to 59,

Schedule 10,

Clauses 60 and 61.

—(Lord Hesketh.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Railways Bill
3.5 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
I believe that at the start it is right for me to say that I find it strange to take part in a transport Bill without the late Lord Underhill. The House is the poorer for not having his presence and his expertise available to us today.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that in this country there is a special attachment to the railways and people want to see the best use made of them. The railways do indeed have an important role to play in the country and in the economy. The Government recognise that and are committed to providing the railways with a sound and long-term future, to maintaining the rail network, to safeguarding continuity of service and to continuing to pay subsidy for socially necessary services.
But we must face the facts. Rail's share of the passenger market has dropped from about 20 per cent. in the 1950s to about 8 per cent. to 9 per cent. now. Over the same period rail's share of the freight market has fallen from 40 per cent. to 7 per cent. It is self-evident that public sector ownership is not a solution despite continued heavy investment in the railways by the taxpayer. We must look to other arrangements to provide the solution that we all want. We must look to alternatives.
Let us not forget that nationalised industries used to cost the taxpayer £50 million every week. In 1978–79 the cost was £2.6 billion, more than a third of that year's NHS budget. That was manifestly wrong. We have returned many of those industries to the private sector against the trenchant opposition from the parties opposite and we will doubtless hear the same rants again today. Those industries are again making profits and they now contribute around £2 billion a year to the Exchequer in corporation tax which has allowed us to spend record amounts on social security, health and British Rail.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, will the Minister give way?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, no; I must continue. The transport sector is a particular success story. No longer is the taxpayer having to fund investment in buses or aeroplanes nor improvements at London's major airports. Trade at Tilbury, London's major port, is no longer in decline as it was

1427
in the public sector. The privatisations of British Airways, the National Bus Corporation, the National Freight Consortium and Associated British Ports, are fine examples of the success of the Government's privatisation policies.
Let us not forget that in 1980–81 British Airways cost the taxpayer £137 million whereas in 1990–91, BA contributed £31 million in corporation tax while most state-owned airlines were still loss-making. That is but one example of a former nationalised industry which has flourished when transferred to the private sector. So it is right that our railways should also be allowed to receive the benefits of the private sector.
I would be the first to acknowledge that over recent years improvements have been made by British Rail and I am sure that your Lordships will join me in paying tribute to the staff, the management and the board of BR. However, while BR remains a public sector monopoly, subject to all the constraints of a traditional nationalised industry, there is a limit to what can be achieved. Public dissatisfaction with railway services has grown and we must respond to that.
There needs to be increased consumer choice and greater responsiveness to the needs of rail users. The private sector operates in a culture where the needs of the customer can be put first. We believe that the way to improve rail services is to create the maximum opportunities for the private sector involvement in the management, operation and financing of the railways.
The Government's proposals will provide the fresh approach needed to revitalise the railway industry and allow it to make the most of its advantages. We want the country to be able to regard the railways not only with affection but with pride.
Our proposals were set out last summer in a White Paper. The key elements are to split responsibility for infrastructure from the operation of services and give it to Railtrack, a Government-owned company independent from BR; to franchise existing services to the private sector; to give new operators access to the track to run passenger and freight services and to transfer BR's existing freight and parcels business to the private sector.
Since the White Paper we have been filling out details of our policy in a series of consultation documents, policy statements and reports. These documents have covered a number of key issues including franchising, pensions, arrangements for ensuring safety, network benefits, the role of the consumer committees, charging for access, the future of the British Transport Police and, most recently, the Government's proposals for the future of BR's rail freight business and for rolling stock ownership, procurement and finance. I hope that noble Lords also find helpful the policy guide explaining our policy on many of these issues, which was made available in advance of this debate, together with the Notes on Clauses.
The Government have also welcomed the contribution to the debate made last month by the report of the Select Committee on Transport in another place. A particular focus of that report was the need for a
1428
gradualist approach. We agree. There is a great deal of work to do and we want to get it right. We are taking a gradualist and flexible approach. As the Economist stated:
"The strength of the MacGregor proposals lies in their flexibility".
Your Lordships' consideration of the Railways Bill is an important part of this development process. I hope that your Lordships will find it helpful if I spend a little time explaining where we have now reached in the key areas of our policy for the railways.
Franchising is, we believe, the best way to introduce private sector management and private sector capital into loss-making services while providing safeguards for socially necessary services. The Government's plans for the restructuring of BR's passenger network into the 25 businesses based on BR's profit centres that will be the basis for franchises were announced at the end of last month. Their final form will depend on further work and Royal Assent to the Bill.
I would also mention here the future role for the passenger transport executives. The Government have made it clear that they see a continuing role for the PTAs and the PTEs in specifying and paying for local passenger rail services in their areas. We want the PTAs and PTEs to be fully involved in the new structure. To that end, the PTEs will be jointly involved with the franchising director in granting each franchise covering PTE services and will be co-signatories to the franchise agreement.
Concern has been expressed that dividing up passenger services into franchise units will lead to a loss of network benefits that are valued in the present system. The Government are meeting these concerns in a number of positive ways.
Franchising will take place progressively and on the basis of the timetable existing immediately prior to franchising. Railtrack will be responsible for producing the working timetable for the whole network and a national timetable will be published for all licensed passenger services. Through ticketing will continue to operate across the network and operators will be required to participate in common ticketing and revenue allocation arrangements.
The Government have also announced that all franchisees will be required to participate in discount fare schemes for senior citizens, disabled people and young persons. And, in recognition of concerns about future fares levels, we will place a duty on the franchising director to have regard to the interests of passengers in considering the arrangements for securing reasonable fares. We will be bringing amendments before your Lordships' House to fulfil these commitments.
These measures will ensure that the benefits of the current unified passenger network are not diminished. Indeed, we firmly believe that private sector involvement will lead to new initiatives which will benefit existing rail users and attract more passengers to the railway, just as it has done with buses, ports and aviation.
A consistent theme in our proposals is the need to ensure continuity of service for passengers. For example, arrangements will be put in place to ensure

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that the assets necessary to run a franchise can be transferred from one franchisee to the next. A further important element is the procedure we will establish in the event that a licensed railway operator should become insolvent. Under this procedure, where an operator is, or is about to become, insolvent, the court may make a "railway administration order" in respect of the company with the dual purpose of transferring the undertaking of the business to another company and of continuing to provide the service pending that transfer. These are strictly safety net powers. And, in the case of franchised services, we do not believe that they are likely to be needed since before awarding a franchise the franchising director will look at the financial standing of bidders and their management competence. But the provisions in the Bill give extra security to passengers.
Safeguarding continuity of service is also a feature of the new closure procedures. The franchising director will be under a duty to secure continued provision of the services concerned unless and until consent to closure is given after the necessary statutory procedures have been completed.
There have been concerns expressed that privatisation will lead to widespread closures. These fears have no foundation. There is no hidden agenda for a closure programme. The provisions in the Bill simply create procedures for the new circumstances of the passenger railway. They are as rigorous as the existing procedures.
The Government are committed to maintaining a strong voice for the consumer. The Transport Users' Consultative Committees and the Central Committee have had an important role to play in representing the passenger. The new rail users' consultative committees which will replace the TUCCs will continue this role and, indeed, we intend that it should be strengthened. We intend to bring forward amendments which will enable the new committees, unlike their predecessors, to consider all aspects of fares. I also want to assure your Lordships that the consultative committees will be completely independent when commenting on issues affecting rail passengers. It is appropriate, however, that they should come under the wing of the regulator who will have a duty to protect the interests of users.
We all recognise that maintaining safety on the railways is of paramount importance. The Government and BR have accepted all of the Health and Safety Commission's 37 recommendations in its report on the safety implications of our proposals. Under the report's central recommendations, all operators, including Railtrack, will have to produce a railway safety case to demonstrate that they have systems in place to meet the required safety standards and to manage their operations safely. We, BR and the HSE are satisfied that the new safety regime will not lead to any diminution of safety on the railways. The safety regime will be implemented by regulations to be made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. Preparation of the regulations is now in hand and there will be public consultation later in the summer.
Another particularly important issue is that of pensions. In January, the Government published a
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consultation paper on their proposals for railway pensions after privatisation. Since then, there have been very helpful discussions with representatives of both pensioners and contributing members to the BR pension schemes, with the trustees, with the main railway trade unions, and with the BR board.
Following this consultation, the Government announced their conclusions last month. We reaffirmed our objective of preserving the security of pension rights enjoyed by pensioners and members while adopting arrangements to suit the new structure of the privatised industry. For serving staff, a joint industry pension scheme for the railways will be set up to succeed the present arrangements. Arrangements will be put in place to safeguard the transfer of pension funds at the end of a franchise, and those staff serving when this Bill receives Royal Assent will have an individual right to remain in the joint industry scheme for so long as they are still employed in the railway industry.
For existing and deferred pensioners, a closed scheme with appropriate support by investment will be set up in due course. The division of funds will be subject to independent actuarial advice, and the pensioners will be able to benefit from any future scheme surpluses that there may be. The Government are content for the pensioners' closed scheme to be managed as part of the joint industry scheme, provided that the governance arrangements are satisfactory. To allow the trustees the time that they need to rearrange their investments to secure the pensions of their members, the pensioners will continue in the BR scheme with the board's remaining employees while this is undertaken.
Final decisions about the structure and funding of the successor schemes will take account of the results of the valuation of the main BR scheme currently being undertaken, and the recommendations of Professor Goode's Pension Law Review Committee.
The Government are committed to maximising the amount of freight carried by rail wherever practicable. To this end, a number of measures are proposed. These include open access to the railway network for freight operators from April 1994; an enhanced capital grants scheme for freight facilities; a new grant to help defray track costs charged by Railtrack, where there are quantifiable environmental and social benefits and the alternative road option is cheaper; and, we are considering the responses to consultation on a lorry weight concession to allow 44 tonne lorries for intermodal freight journeys, where the trunk haul is by rail.
The Government have also recently announced their proposals for the future of BR rail freight. We propose that trainload services, which represent 80 per cent. of total BR freight revenue, should be re-created into three competing but initially regionally based companies by April 1994. That structure will inject competition while retaining long-term viability. Transfer to the private sector is likely to take place in 1995. "Freightliner" handles containerised services. It will need a radical overhaul to achieve long-term viability. We have sought by the end of July, and have already had, a number of expressions of interest. It is

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the intention that European freight services will be privatised as soon as practicable after British Rail has established the business.
Finally, the Government have also recently clarified their proposals concerning passenger rolling stock. We are taking a number of measures to promote the development of a rolling stock leasing market. The measures include approval in the Autumn Statement for BR to lease £150 million of new passenger rolling stock. From 1st April 1994, BR will transfer its passenger rolling stock to newly established public sector companies which will lease the stock to franchisees. We intend that those companies should transfer to the private sector as soon as practicable. The franchising director will be able to give undertakings to lessors that new trains they supply would be used for successive franchises. That should help encourage private sector investment in rolling stock in the early years before an active secondhand market for rolling stock develops, because it will give the lessor a suitable assurance of continuity.
The Railways Bill provides the statutory frame work for the implementation of those policies and is divided into three parts. Part I covers the provision of services under the new regime. Clause 1 and Schedule I provide for the Secretary of State to appoint the rail regulator and the franchising director. The regulator will issue licences and oversee access to infrastructure. He will prevent anti-competitive behaviour and protect consumer interests. The franchising director will carry out the franchising programme in accordance with guidance and objectives given to him by the Secretary of State. The duties of the regulator and the franchising director are set out in Clauses 4 and 5 respectively. Clauses 2 and 3 and Schedules 2 and 3 deal with the setting up of the rail users' consultative committees.
In common with other privatised and regulated industries, operators of passenger and freight services and network, station and light maintenance depot operators will be licensed. Clauses 6 to 14 establish the licensing regime. The licence and conditions imposed in the licence will be a key to regulating the industry. Those clauses provide also for modifications of licences and exemptions from licensing. Clauses 15 to 19 provide the legal framework for access agreements between Railtrack and operators. All access agreements will have to be approved by the regulator. There is provision for the amendment of access agreements in limited circumstances and, as with licences, there is provision for exemption.
The franchising of passenger services is dealt with in Clauses 20 to 27. I would draw noble Lords' attention particularly to Clauses 24 and 26 which deal with the transfer of franchise assets and the role of the franchising director in the event of failure to award a franchise, to which I referred earlier. The role of the PTEs in the provision of franchised services for their areas is provided for in Clauses 28 to 31.
Clauses 32 to 42 cover closure procedures. As I have already explained, those procedures are just as rigorous as the current procedures, but they have had
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to be adapted to fit the new circumstances of the passenger railway. The franchising director's powers in relation to securing continued provision of services either in agreements with third parties or through his wholly owned company are contained in Clauses 43 to 45.
The remainder of Part I contains a wide range of other measures needed to underpin the provision of railway services in the new regime. I would mention here particularly Clauses 49 to 52 which deal with the enforcement powers of the regulator and the franchising director in respect of licences, access agreements and franchise agreements. Clauses 53 to 58 and Schedule 5 are concerned with railway administration orders, winding-up and insolvency, and also provide for government financial assistance where railway administration orders are made. Clauses 59 and 60 deal with competition law aspects of the provision of railway services. The requirements for the keeping of registers and the publication of annual reports by both the regulator and the franchising director are covered in Clauses 64 to 67. Finally in Part I, I would mention the duties and functions of the central committee and the consultative committees which are set out in Clauses 68 to 71.
Part II of the Bill provides for the restructuring of BR. The powers it contains will enable companies to be formed out of BR, and for those companies to be transferred to the private sector. Thus the passenger franchise units will be formed first as companies within BR as will the freight businesses. The creation of Railtrack as such a company for transfer to the direct ownership of government in April 1994 will also happen under the powers in Part II of the Bill. The company-forming powers will be found in Clause 77. Transfers will take place under Clause 78 in the case of franchise companies, or otherwise under Clause 82. Clause 79 empowers the franchising director to make transfer schemes which will be the mechanism for ensuring the smooth transition from one franchise to the next.
Clauses 84 to 90 contain supplemental provisions in respect of transfer schemes, but I draw the attention of noble Lords to the important provision in Clause 86 which confirms for the avoidance of doubt that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 apply to transfer schemes made under this part of the Bill.
Part II of the Bill also makes a range of provisions for the bodies to be created out of BR in respect of their ownership and finances as well as other miscellaneous financial and supplemental provisions. Noble Lords may, in particular, wish to note Clause 106 which sets out the Secretary of State's objectives in respect of disposals.
Part III of the Bill contains a range of miscellaneous, general and supplemental provisions a number of which will be of particular interest to your Lordships. Clause 110 facilitates the making of the regulations under the Health and Safety at Work Act etc. to implement the new safety regime. Clause 111 deals with the control of the railways in time of hostilities and emergencies. Clause 113 deals with railway heritage and contains provisions to enable a

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scheme to be made which will ensure that the historical records and artefacts of publicly owned railway companies, the board and its subsidiaries can still be offered to the institutions such as the Public Records Office or the National Railway Museum at York.
Clause 114 provides for the Railways Board to be discharged from its existing statutory duties progressively as new bodies take over. Clause 116 will allow new railway operators, as BR does now, to make by-laws and Clause 117 will enable the Secretary of State to make regulations that will give new operators the ability that BR has now to operate penalty fares schemes. Clause 118 exempts certain railway agreements from the Restrictive Trade Practices Act. Clauses 119 and 120 deal with future arrangements for the British Transport Police and enable the Secretary of State to make a scheme for its organisation, control and administration.
Clause 121 introduces Schedule 10 which deals with the important issue of pensions which I covered in some detail earlier. Clause 122 deals with another issue of importance to employees— that of concessionary travel facilities. Clauses 123 to 129 contain financial provisions to allow the provision of subsidies and grants in the new railway, including the measures aimed at encouraging the carriage of freight by rail (Clauses 124, 126 and 127) to which I referred earlier. I would also note Clause 128 which provides for financial assistance for management/employee buy-outs.
We believe that the railways will benefit from private sector involvement in the same way as have other privatised transport industries. We have led the world in our privatisations policies. We have taken the lead in seeking to privatise our national railway system. Other countries, particularly in Europe, for example, Germany, are now thinking along the same lines and I am sure that once again they will follow our lead.
This Railways Bill represents a major change in the railway industry. Its purpose is straightforward. It will provide the means to bring about the improvements in the quality and quantity of services that we all wish to see. I commend the Bill to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. — (The Earl of Caithness.)
3.30 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the whole House will wish to join the Minister in his kind thoughts about the late Reg Underhill. It is sad but somehow appropriate that this Second Reading debate should coincide with the day on which the memorial meeting for the late Lord Underhill will take place. I hope that the House will forgive me if I leave the Chamber for a short time in order to attend that memorial meeting. The Minister was right in saying that had my noble friend been spared he would have been utilising his considerable talents in dissecting and articulating his opposition to the Bill, as he did so powerfully when we debated the paving Bill. We miss him very much on these Benches and he is missed throughout the House.
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I thank the Minister for his gallant attempt to explain this inexplicable and implausible Bill. He seemed to approach his task with all the zeal and conviction of a still further John Major fight-back speech. Perhaps that was understandable because the Bill has scarcely a friend in the world. It is the Group 4 Bill; the Bill from which all common sense— political, commercial and even ideological — has been allowed to escape. It fragments the railways system at a time when we need a national system.
The point was put very well by a representative of the French railways, the SNCF, in an article in the Observer a few weeks ago. He said:
"Who on earth could bother with privatising little chunks of the system while we are building an integrated European transport system for the next century?".
That encapsulates it all. Even the former Prime Minister had not pushed this idea. It germinated with the present Prime Minister's wistful but misplaced nostalgia about restoring the old LNER, LMS and the Great Western Railway. Of course, he could only have read about those matters. The idea moved into another phase of development; the half-baked and half-boiled idea in the Government's previous election campaign. It changed again with the White Paper, which was issued and then savaged in an unprecedented way by the Conservative-dominated House of Commons Transport Committee. The Minister says that the Government have responded to those criticisms, as indeed they have formally. but that response was pretty derisory. We shall return to those points when we debate the matter in Committee.
But, of course, it was during the Committee stage of the Bill in another place that the Government resisted nearly all the issues that the Minister spoke about. They resisted Labour and Liberal Democrat amendments about the need to protect the integrity of network benefits. They resisted the need for a national timetable. They resisted the need for Railcards, other than for people suffering with disabilities. They also resisted the need for the London Travelcard.
So what suddenly changed it all? I will tell your Lordships what changed it all: it was a few Conservative Back-Benchers who adopted the amendments at the Report stage of the Bill in the wake of the Newbury by-election results. That is what caused the change. It was not a listening government; it was not a thinking government. The fact is that the Government changed because they panicked. I do not believe that they have thought out those changes in the light of the concept of privatisation or commercialisation — whatever nom de plume they prefer to use— that they have now developed.
We take the view, together with the Transport Committee of another place, that the fundamental flaw in the Government's approach has been a lack of a proper integrated transport policy. There has been no coherent strategy dealing with railways as part of an entire transport system; a system which relates railways to roads, ports and airports and which talks coherently about an infrastructure policy. We have made that complaint over and over again, but to no avail as far as this Government are concerned.
Neither have they given the country any coherent idea of the railways system that they think the country

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should have, other than virtually to dismantle the present system. In their White Paper the Government dealt wholly inadequately with the crucial issue of investment. They expressed the hope, which was reiterated today by the Minister, that somehow or other private capital would be attracted to refurbish our much-neglected railways system. After all, during the years of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, the railways were not only substantially neglected but virtually discarded in favour of the priority given to roads. That prior ity has been qualified only marginally by the present Administration because, despite Ministerial protestation of support for the railways and a determination that we have heard again today that freight should increasingly be transferred from road to rail, they have sacrificed British Rail on the altar of dogma. The investment in British Rail simply does not begin to compare with that in France and Germany.
The last time that I mentioned that subject the Minister accused me of being unpatriotic; a rather childish observation. But the fact of the matter is that that is the reality. Those countries recognise that a railways system is crucial to the operation of a single market in Europe. We have woken up late, if at all, to that important issue.
Of course, we recognise that British Rail has major difficulties and that there is a great deal of room for improvement, but not down the route that has been signified in this Bill. The fact is that there have been remarkable increases in productivity. The staff have shown a dedication to duty in the face of the most adverse conditions. But difficulties persist; and they persist substantially due to a lack of a settled programme of investment with all its impact on rolling stock, signalling and track.
The Government's belated conversion to the idea that British Rail could lease rolling stock had to wait for the latest Budget. Why did not the Government act much earlier on that proposal? We put it forward from the Benches in another place and in this House during a period of some three years. Why did the Government have to wait? We welcome the infusion of investment and expertise from the private sector. We believe that British Rail should be able to do what the French and other state railways have done for years. They should be able to go to the capital markets to sustain their investment programmes.
Moreover, access to the British Rail network regarding freight has been tried and has not altogether been found wanting in recent years. But the Government's vastly complex, bureaucratic, ill-considered and costly proposals are another thing altogether. They beg more questions than they ask. How in the medium and long-term can open access be reconciled with operable franchises? How if Railtrack is to make a return on its assets will freight be shifted from road to rail? Indeed, how will the freight side survive at all in an already declining market? Mr. Rifkind, when he was Secretary of State for Transport, announced that there was to be a change; that there was to be considerable movement from road to rail. It did not happen.
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How will the Government's environmental goals come within sight of fulfilment? How do the Government expect morale in British Rail to be maintained in the rump which will remain to manage the infrastructure and residual services that have not been cherry picked? How can the Government provide meaningful answers to those who ask what assurances can be given about rail closures in rural areas with all the pressure for subsidies to be expended in support of Railtrack? What will be afforded for those social service commitments to which the Government say that they are now fully committed? If subsidies are not dramatically increased, there simply will not be enough money to go round. Therefore, is it not ineluctably clear that the Treasury will not go down that road?
We share the anxieties of so many— the National Consumer Council, Transport 2000, rural pressure groups, and so on— who have made representations about the threat of closure of rural lines in the new environment to be developed. Neither we nor they are placated by simple assertions from Ministers that all will be well since the existing closure procedures will continue to operate. We shall live in a wholly changed system. The criteria for operating it are quite different from those that prevail today. Therefore, we support the notion that the role of regional user committees should be strengthened in those procedures and that those committees should be permitted to consider the impact of all such procedures and be free to comment on the findings without seeking the regulators' prior approval.
Listening to the Minister this afternoon one would have thought that the Government are putting forward a very simple series of ideas. That was not the view of Mr. Christopher Fildes writing in the Daily Telegraph on 24th May who said:
"What is now being wished on BR is a total reorganisation — 'route' [sic] and branch— with complexity built into it. They start with a straightforward management structure. They finish up with John MacGregor's train set.
To operate a train on this set, you must first get a franchise from a modern version of the Fat Controller. Then you lease your stock from a leasing company and you rent space on the line from Railtrack— which in turn puts all its maintenance and engineering work out to contract. In the middle, working the signals, is the regulator. And behind him, pulling the levers, is Mr. MacGregor. In terms of running the railway, all this adds to the number of things that can go wrong. A bankrupt contractor, a terminated franchise, a leasing company that turns (as some do) into a financial black hole, a stand-up fight between the people with the trains and the people with the track— all or any of these could leave the Yorkshire Pullman delayed indefinitely".
No wonder the late Sir Robert Adley, whom we miss, called this "a poll tax on wheels".
The bureaucracy is incredible. We shall have five new bureaucracies, 25 to 30 separate operators and five government agencies— Railtrack, a franchising director, the regulator, whose office I suppose will be called "Ofrail", and the Health and Safety Executive. There will be a joint industry body to deal with through ticketing. We shall have the statutory rail users committees and the PTAs. Huge numbers of legal agreements will have to be negotiated and signed. There will be train operators signing up with station

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operators and then with operators of marshalling yards. There will be 10,000 legal agreements for InterCity alone.
While the Bill is complex, it is a centralised mess. It is complicated and yet vague in so many material particulars. And yet, amidst all that, while we must recognise that the Bill is an enabling Bill, it seems extraordinary that one of the principal agencies to be inaugurated by the Government — Rai1track— does not even merit a mention. There is not one mention of it in any of the 132 clauses. As the author of that article put it, never have any government played such a significant part in "playing trains" as this government. The funding, the powers and the remit of the agencies are all to be determined by Ministers but that is not declared in the Bill. That is all to be done later.
What about the cost? Research has been undertaken for Transport 2000 by researchers who were previously employed by the Government in another transport field, so I suppose that their findings must be reasonably authentic. They reached the conclusion that the net cost of operating the railways will increase by 15 per cent; that is, by some £500 million, even taking into account the net savings and the extra revenue generated by the private sector. Is it worth the risk? I should like to know what the Government say about that because it was not mentioned in the speech that we have just heard. What will it cost in the Government's view? How will the availability of subsidies be affected? What will be the impact on fares and on closures?
I turn now to the question of network benefits, discounted through tickets, railcards having national validity, seat reservation systems, information services and so on. Those are extremely important matters. Eighty per cent. of all rail journeys are undertaken using discounted fares and in the new system 50 per cent. or so of journeys will involve travel on more than one operator's train.
Initially, the Government resisted any statutory protection for those benefits except for people with disabilities. They said that it could all be left to the commercial judgment of the operators. However, we are now promised amendments to maintain some of the benefits, perhaps for senior citizens and young people but not for the family railcard. There are no very clear assurances, apart from an undertaking to resign on the part of Mr. Norris, if the Travelcard is not preserved. I wonder whether this Minister will resign if those benefits are not fully protected.
I warn the Government that on these Benches we shall scrutinise their amendments with great care, recognising their temptation to minimise statutory provision for those benefits lest they operate as disincentives to the operators. It is not fanciful to say that because the Department of Transport's own document issued only a few weeks ago— it was leaked —stated:
"The most likely scenario is that the existing Travelcard will disappear and it will be some years before operators are prepared to agree amongst themselves that some kind of successor is needed".
That is what the Department of Transport's own leaked document said.
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These are the questions that I wish to ask the Minister. Will the Government insist that benefits will relate only to full fare through tickets? We know that operators operating their own services may perhaps have an incentive to provide discount fares, but what incentive will there be to provide those discount fares to other operators' stations? Looking at the precedent set by the bus services, which did not figure markedly in the Minister's recital of successful privatised industries, we know that following deregulation travel cards massively declined. Only about one-quarter of the bus operators seemed to accept each other's tickets. They do not see it as being in their commercial interests so to do. Therefore, we shall press for the Secretary of State, the franchising director and the regulator to ensure that the complete range of through tickets and other benefits, all of which are much prized by their users, will be maintained.
We shall concentrate also on investment when we scrutinise the Bill. What long-term framework for investment is to be put in place? The Minister said nothing about that. What faith is there in a government who slashed the grant to British Rail's loss-making services by 23 per cent. and allowed investment in the existing railway system to decline to the lowest level since 1948 with further plans to halve railway spending over the next three years? All that has put and is putting the railway equipment manufacturing industry at grave risk. There is a dearth in orders for railway equipment compounded by the uncertainties promoted by the Bill. It is no wonder that people in York are deeply worried.
Coupled with that, the Government have been content to see fare rises. The worst of those have been on Network SouthEast for London commuters at more than double the rate of inflation. That was all to ripen the railways for privatisation and deregulation. That is not just my view; it is the view of the commuter groups, the Capital Transport Campaign and consumer and local authority groups. Today, London commuters already pay well over twice the European average. It all amounts to a disincentive to use the railways and public transport in favour of cars— that means more congestion, more pollution and much diminished prospects of the Government's undertakings to reduce the already high level of pollutant gases.
So far as concerns franchising, nothing could be more ludicrous than forbidding British Rail to compete for franchises. The Government concede that other European state railways will be able to do so, but not British Rail. They refuse to acknowledge that BR could provide a bench-mark against which services to be provided by all those private operators that are queueing to offer those services could be judged. It is also wholly inconsistent with the Government's own self-proclaimed philosophy that the public sector should be tested against private contractors, and vice versa. Even the present Government have never debarred local authorities and public contractors from compulsory competitive tendering under the Local Government Act 1988. It has been tried and actually the public service has come very well out of those operations.

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I should like to say a word about pensions. The Minister was very reassuring in that respect. However, our anxieties, which simply mirror those of people outside, are not yet allayed. The trouble is that the problems have arisen from the Government's own doing. In January they produced a consultation document advancing one option for discussion which permitted the Government to take over a share of the fund in consideration for which the state would assume responsibility for railways pensions. That would produce a windfall of about £4.25 billion for the Treasury —not unhelpful in mitigating the largely self-inflicted PSBR disaster. However, the Government say that they are now rethinking the whole matter; but it was the Government that put forward the idea.
We shall seek to insist upon the following: we want to protect the pensions rights of retired former BR and existing employees; we want to safeguard the assets and surpluses of the BR pension fund; we want to secure full parliamentary accountability as part of the Secretary of State's duties in pensions matters, together with the rights of trustees; and we want to create a living pension fund for all present and future railway industry employees on the basis of the existing BR scheme. Those are the criteria against which we shall judge what the Government say.
We are not satisfied with the Government's assertions about safety. Again, I do not have time to go into that aspect today. However, it is something at which we shall look with great care.
The burden of proof to substantiate the value to the nation of proceeding with the proposals rests fairly and squarely on the Government. It falls on them to establish that the new system will work and that it will work efficiently. I submit that they have hopelessly failed so far to discharge that burden. Nothing the Minister said today has helped them to do so.
3.53 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I find this to be an arid and confusing Bill. The poverty of its substance is hidden by size. It is quite a good rule that a big Bill is often a bad one. That is certainly the case in this instance. The Bill is muddled in its underlying principles and thoroughly untidy in its practical application of them. Overall, there is no sign of any understanding whatever of the role of the railways as part of a public transport system and, indeed, of the role of public transport in a balanced transport policy. I disagree totally with the Minister when he leads us to believe that it is a privatisation Bill like any other. Irrespective of whether or not we approved of those Bills, this is a different measure altogether. It is a question for argument whether it represents genuine privatisation.
I first met the present Secretary of State during the course of a rail journey between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Newcastle upon Tyne over 20 years ago. He made it a very pleasant journey. I found him to be a man of liberal instincts and full of common sense. I can only believe that it is the current byzantine state of the Conservative Party which has distorted his judgment
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and has obliged him to bring forward the Bill, first in another place and now in your Lordships' House. I believe that he and his colleagues will come to regret it. It is a political disaster and it will not work. On present form, we cannot rule out a personal Statement by Mr. MacGregor at an early date in another place.
We are left with a Bill so fundamentally flawed that, although I am. sure your Lordships will try very hard to make it better, it is likely to become worse if amended in Committee. It will lose whatever logic—however perverted that logic may have been—which originally, in the first instance, inspired it.
We are all aware of the danger of seductive romance in the railways. Therefore, perhaps I ought to say something that any one of at least six former transport Ministers present today in the Chamber may say, including the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who was, I believe, Minister of Transport almost 40 years ago. Despite the romance of the railways, which catches us all from time to time and makes us a little soft hearted, I certainly want to see an efficient cost-effective system which will lead us into the next century and beyond. We cannot deny, although sometimes instinctively we do, that we live in the age of the motor vehicle. We cannot expect the railway to be restored to its position of a century ago.
At the time of the publication of the Beeching Report 30 years ago, I found myself rather in the position of the man in a Bateman cartoon. As a Member of Parliament in another place, I dared admit that there was something to be said for it. It was wrong in the extent of the cuts that it proposed; it was wrong in many particulars; and it was also wrong in taking a short-term view. However, I entirely agreed—and, indeed, said so at the time, to my peril—that it was necessary to take a hard look at our railway system and to concentrate resources on modernisation where it was most needed.
Finally, in order to establish my credentials for criticism, perhaps I may add that, as Secretary of State, I certainly found an excessive suspicion of change— I put it no higher —on the part of much of the management and all of the trade unions at the time. But, despite those matters, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said. There is much in our railways today of which we can be proud. Of course we complain, and we are right to do so. We should complain if our trains are late, are cancelled, are dirty or are impossibly crowded. Indeed, the public should complain if some of the staff with whom they come into contact are perhaps less willing to help and less friendly than those we tend to find in our local supermarket. At some levels, staff are still enmeshed in problems of procedure and still loathe change.
Anyone who has had ministerial responsibility in such matters has to say that the trade unions are not always models of co-operation and seldom allies in change. Yet, despite those factors—which I believe we must readily admit—we have a great deal about which to be pleased in the railways today. We have our personal preferences. I refer to the East Coast route which, when I first knew it many years ago, used to get me to Stockton-on-Tees in up to five-and-a-half hours and now gets me there in three hours.

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I welcome the development of urban rail services and their flexibility. It is also good news that we now have ThamesLink and that there have been improvements to our railway stations, including the magnificent reconstruction of Liverpool Street. Moreover, we have imaginative, although sometimes difficult to understand, fare structures, and much better marketing. I have to say, however, that I still do not like being called a customer. I much prefer to be called a passenger on the railways.
Of course, the grass is greener on the other side. But, by the Government's own account—the Minister said this today —there have been impressive rises in productivity in recent years, particularly in the past five or 10 years. In my view it would have been wise to build on that increase in productivity and particularly to allow the new regime of business-led profit centres to show its mettle. That would have been the first and wisest course to follow.
I would have gone further and given the private sector more scope to tender for some of the maintenance and renewal of infrastructure services at present carried out in-house. That would have been one way of introducing a much larger private element into the public sector. I would not have complained either if Ministers had kept up pressure for change and for better performance. Indeed, that approach would have been my alternative, building on the changes which we have already seen.
If that approach was not attractive to the Government, there were others available to them. All of us, for a moment perhaps, had a sentimental thought about restoring the old, much loved railway companies. As the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, suggested, we might have wistfully supposed that to be the solution. But despite being the Prime Minister's own suggestion, it soon disappeared without trace. It would nevertheless have commanded a degree of public support. If privatisation had been in the form of the LMS, LNER, GWR and Southern Railways, perhaps with a dowry, I am not promising that noble Lords on this side of the House would have supported the legislation but they would have seen greater logic in it.
I am not recommending this next course, but the Government might have released British Rail from its obligations on closures and from the necessity for the Government to consent to them. The Government could have taken the pressure off British Rail as regards fares. Every Secretary of State has occasionally summoned the chairman of British Rail, and without giving him any direct instruction, has hinted that rail fares ought not to rise or ought not to rise to the extent that British Rail preferred. It would have been possible for the Government to remove those pressures on the railways board and for the the board to be told to conduct its business on the same lines as any other business. That at least would have been a logical way of allowing the disciplines of the market to rule.
There is another way in which the disciplines of the market could have been allowed to play their part. Useful interim steps could have been taken such as removing subsidies to long distance commuters—
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those subsidies often apply on InterCity routes—particularly as regards season ticket holders. Certainly, there is no good reason— if the market is to determine these things— why those who live and work in London and elsewhere should subsidise those who choose cheaper housing and a higher quality of life in Norwich, Salisbury or the Cotswolds. That would have been a logical course for this Government to follow: it is however one of several courses that they rejected.
We are left with a Bill which will be a paradise for lawyers and accountants and which is certain to be amended in the next five years. The Bill will involve more and not fewer civil servants in its administration and will lead to political and not management decisions being taken over important issues. And it will not improve life for the travelling public. Nor will it improve Britain's economy. This is not a formula for stability. If changes had to occur, there was much to be said for obtaining a much larger measure of consent than this Bill now commands.
The Government are dealing in this legislation with a highly integrated system—track and vehicles, given modern technology, coming much closer together. They are dealing with a highly subsidised industry, which will remain so. All the arguments were in favour of keeping the industry together and not breaking it up. I remember when I was responsible for the railways that my officials in the Department of Transport, who were often talented people, spent a great deal of time monitoring and second-guessing the work of British Rail. In turn Treasury civil servants monitored and second-guessed the work of my department. But henceforth the distinguished and talented civil servants in the Department of Transport will be monitoring and second-guessing Railtrack, the regulator, the franchising director and the residual British Rail. The Treasury will be monitoring and second-guessing the Department of Transport as it monitors and second-guesses Railtrack, the regulator, the franchising director and the residual British Rail. Each will be monitoring and second-guessing each other.
That is a ridiculous situation. I find it difficult to understand why Ministers, to whom I am frequently prepared to give the benefit of the doubt, should have brought such a totally unsatisfactory Bill before this House. The Bill proposes the dismemberment of a highly integrated transport system when, as I said, technology ought to be bringing it closer together. It is an ill thought out mixture of privatisation and regulation of a system that will remain highly subsidised. The outcome will be waste, frustration, bureaucracy and perhaps a few quick profits for the lucky ones. It is a mistake for which not only the Government but also Britain and the travelling public as a whole will pay.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, expressed the fear that amending the Bill might distort its logic. I beg him not to spend too much time worrying about that or searching for the object of his concern. I followed his speech closely and

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I agreed with almost everything he said, but as an old friend I also beg him not to fall for the romantic nonsense of the old railway companies. Their industrial relations were appalling and many of the practices we have today stem directly from employers who even managed to invent the Labour Party as the only way their employees could see out of their appalling predicaments. They were not even particularly good managers because not one of those companies was financially viable.
It says a great deal about the origins of this Bill that it is where ministerial thinking on this issue began. Even the Prime Minister, who I think is an able chap, and the present Secretary of State for Transport—many people believe he is probably a Labour Party mole in deep cover—were taken up with the fantasy world of "Brief Encounter" and Tubby the odd job engine. But at least for the past four years the Government have tried, with all the massive resources at their disposal, to find a sensible and efficient way to privatise the rail network. The extent of their failure is embarrassing. Although it has only 7 per cent. of the passenger market and 10 per cent. of the freight market, British Rail is seen by the Government as an unacceptable monopoly which has to be broken up next year almost at any cost. Yet we have no idea, even at this late stage, how it will all work out.
Not surprisingly the potential bidders for the railways are not wildly enthusiastic. A year or so ago the Government's banking advisers did a fantastic job in getting a lot of people interested in the railways. That was a mistake. If they had interested fewer people they might have been able to have another bite at the cherry, because all of the first lot are now pretty disenchanted.
Let us consider a few of the comments they have made. Richard Branson expressed interest in the London to Edinburgh route. He now says that he is not interested except as part of a consortium. When General Electric was asked for its views it replied: "It's too early to say". Mr. James Sherwood of Sea Containers, another prominent name, said that he is against any obligation to run loss-making services or any statutory investment requirements. I understand him, but it is a significant reason for not wanting to become tied up. The managing director of Sally Line said:
"We would only be interested in a south-east franchise but it is difficult to read and we probably won't enter".
Within the past couple of weeks the finance director of National Express summed up the present state of play when he said:
"We are looking at rail privatisation closely, but it is not clear how it will work. The Government make statements, for example, on the need for Railtrack to make an economic return. That conflicts with other aims, such as making the operating franchises attractive."
A senior banker—who for reasons I do not fully understand did not wish to be named—has been quoted as saying that there would be very few bidders. However, we know that every cloud has a silver lining. He went on to say:
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"The government will probably have to give it away. There is the prospect of extra capital gains, asset-stripping and a reasonably stable profit flow in the short term. You have a duty to go for it, but I don't want to hang around with it".
That is a perfectly sensible and defensible position from his point of view. However, I would be concerned if the Government were not slightly worried about people having such a view.
If those had been the views of major potential investors at this stage in the proceedings of any other privatisation Bill, the issue would have been aborted. If it had not been, if they had pushed out a prospectus with that degree of optimism the Minister, and probably the entire railway department, would have found themselves doing time in Ford open prison.
Aborting the proposal at that stage was exactly what happened to the original idea of selling British Rail as a single unit, because Ministers finally realised that British Rail is fundamentally different from any of the other state industries. That has nothing whatever to do with emotion. I was sorry to hear the noble Earl make the similarity between the two his first argument. I have great respect for the Minister. Having been a junior Minister myself and having had to speak arrant nonsense from the Dispatch Box, of which I did not believe a word, I understand his problem. We share the same railway station on windy mornings in the winter. However, that is a serious point, because if the Government still do not understand that, it will not be possible to legislate sensibly in this area.
What are the key features which make British Rail uniquely difficult to privatise? This is one of those issues where there is good news and bad news. I shall begin with the good news. Railways are very simple. Unlike British Telecom or an airline, they do not deal with international regulations, they do not push at the frontiers of science; they are organised on the basis of large metal boxes with wheels, about which we know a great deal, on fixed track, and they have been running for 150 years. We know a great deal about railways. As a result, it is relatively easy to provide any Minister who is interested—and it has been a major problem, for both parties in a number of Administrations, to find a Minister who was faintly interested— with a whole menu of different shapes and sizes of railway from which the Government could choose. They can be big ones or little ones. They can be state-of-the-art railways or conventional railways. The only thing they cannot be is cheap.
That brings me to the bad news. The bad news is that, to the best of my knowledge, no passenger railway system in the world breaks even. British Rail has not been financially viable for at least the past 60 years on any commercial basis. Nor were its predecessors. I put it to the House that that cannot be coincidence. Different governments in different countries, and different railway administrations in different countries have addressed the problem. If there was some simple way of meeting that particular embarrassment, somebody somewhere would have discovered it by now. Unless the Government's objective is simply to get rid of the problem regardless of the effect—and that may be their objective, albeit

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unspoken—if they believe that this Bill will produce the first truly profitable railway system in the world, that is a nonsense.
There are reasons why that is so. The argument is not based on emotion but on certain specific features of passenger railway systems. Nearly 50 per cent. of the cost is in the track, which has to be paid for by the user. Unlike buses and aircraft, there is no secondary market. In his opening speech the Minister mentioned an attempt to produce a secondary market, but that is purely an alternative to British Rail's ability at present to pass some rail stock on to other sections of the network. There is not and can never can be a secondary market for railway rolling stock because it will not fit on anybody else's railway. That is a very real difference compared with airlines, which can sell aircraft which are 40 and 50 years old, and buses, which are sold all over the world.
Unlike buses or aircraft— which are always used as the answer— which can go under, over or round other traffic, railways cannot stray from the fixed track. They therefore require a network of track, which is a fixed cost impossible to escape without incurring even greater expense. Again, unlike buses and aircraft, because of the age of the system, in addition to running a railway the system has to maintain 40,000 Victorian bridges, tunnels and viaducts, 125 miles of Victorian sea walls and more than 1,000 listed buildings. Those are not features of British Airways or the National Bus Company. They are unique to the railway.
Therefore, why do Ministers persist in an experiment which is unique to this country and unique to this Government? The first argument, if one uses that word loosely, is simple in the extreme. I am saddened that it was used as the opening argument today. If I give it in all its complexity and subtlety it is: British Airways, British Gas and British Telecom have been successfully privatised; ipso facto the privatisation of British Rail will be successful.
I have spent some time trying to explain why I believe that argument to be total nonsense. I now turn to what seems to be the main argument—the lack of confidence on the part of the Government in the style and competence of British Rail's management. They say that it has produced a culture which cannot be changed in any other way. I find that argument extraordinary. It completely ignores the Minister's powers over board appointments. He appoints and therefore can fire the chairman, the chief executive and the senior executives responsible for finance and planning, group services, engineering, operations and safety.
If the management of British Rail is the key problem— and I do not think it is—rather than go through all that expensive upheaval, why does not the Minister change those of his appointees he believes not to be up to the job? He is unlikely to get better ones from industries which have never had any connection with the railway industry, but at least it would he more scientific than throwing the whole system into the melting pot and hoping that something unspecified but better emerges.
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However, does all that matter? There is a view that the railway is not worth keeping at anything like its present size. I believe that view to be profoundly wrong. I long ago became highly sceptical about cost/benefit analysis, but it really would be disastrous to ignore the economic cost of road congestion and the role which railway investment can play in its containment and to some extent its reduction.
We talk in this House a great deal about our competitive position in Europe. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, touched on that in passing. It is generally accepted within Europe that transport accounts for about 15 per cent. of the total cost of finished, manufactured goods. Against that figure of 15 per cent. of the total cost, let us compare UK rail investment per head of population with that of our main European industrial competitors—Germany, France and Italy. If we measure it on a dollar per head basis, in the UK we invested just under seven dollars per head. In Germany, it was three-and-a-half times as much at 24 dollars a head; in France, it was five times more than the UK at 37 dollars per head; in Italy, it was seven times more at 50 dollars per head.
Clearly, our European competitors take a fundamentally different view from us about the economic value of rail investment. I do not believe that there is any evidence which demonstrates that they are abysmally wrong and mistaken in what they are doing and that we are so far ahead of the Germans, the French and the Italians that we can treat it as a joke.
The problems which face British Rail are not problems of line management; nor are they problems of public versus private ownership. The problem is the price we pay for a succession of governments who have refused, at great cost to the nation, to provide clear and attainable objectives or any kind of consistent investment programme.
This is a bad Bill, but, with a more open mind on the part of the Government in Committee, it could probably be made to work. I am a great believer in the old Marxist slogan that all problems have the seeds of their solution within them. It does not always work out, but alternatively, if the Government persist in this exercise in what can only be described as primitive dogma, outdated in every other part of the House, they will, of course, have their way. If that happens, they will pay a heavy political price, and rightly so. If that happens, as always, it will be the nation which will pay the full costs for many years to come.
4.23 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, perhaps I may first join the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, in expressing my sadness and, from these Benches, our sadness, at the absence of Lord Underhill, for whom we all had a very affectionate regard. I express the hope that the memorial meeting for him this afternoon will be worthy of a lovable, able and powerful man.
The question with which we have to deal this afternoon is difficult. I was a Member of another place in 1948 when the Bill was carried through to nationalise our railway system. I am glad to say that, although I do not look back on many of my past

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speeches with particular pleasure, on that occasion I prophesied that it would be a disastrous measure, and a disastrous measure it has proved. It is with the inheritance of that legislation on the nationalisation of the railway system that the present Government have to deal.
What the Government should do is obviously a difficult question. It is obvious, and has been made even more obvious from the earlier part of the debate, that real problems arise in dealing with the existing situation. That situation, I stress, was not created by the present Government, nor by the Conservative Party; the Government inherited it. It would have been easier, if they had been less resolute, just to let it be and to let the railway system continue, with all the defects and faults which have been outlined by noble Lords opposite already in this debate, with the low percentage of goods carried as rail freight, the falling number of passengers and the general weakness of the system.
It is, therefore, much to the Government's credit that they have had the courage to face what is obviously a difficult situation, a problem where no remedies are plain and where it will be necessary to show great courage and determination in legislating to improve matters. I very much welcome the display of resolution and hope that the Government will be quite resolute in pressing ahead with the measure, accepting, if necessary, amendments that are shown to be right, but maintaining the main structure of the Bill.
The main structure is, after all, aimed at— to use a rather ugly word— privatisation and ending the period of a nationalised railway system. One of the strong arguments for privatisation, both in this case and in the case of other activities which in the past have been privatised, is this. If one works in a state-owned industry, one has no reason to accept or believe that one's earnings will depend on service to the public and the public's willingness to pay for it. One is secure in the sense that one is remunerated, regardless of whether the public is satisfied or attracted or whether public sales are built up. As a result, one has quite a different approach from that in an industry where one knows that it is only by gratifying and serving the public, giving it what it wants, that one will obtain one's earnings. There is a profound psychological difference.
We have seen that with British Rail, as the years have passed. I cast no reflection on the staff of British Rail who are an admirable lot and in many ways responsible and hard working. But the fact remains that they know, from the top to the bottom, that their earnings and remuneration do not depend on gratifying the public— giving the public what it wants by serving it.
The result has only too easily to be seen by those of us who travel. Perhaps I may quote two small personal examples. First, I use Paddington Station fairly regularly, and, as some noble Lords will know, there is a vast open space of white marble, with hardly a chair on it, where we assemble to wait for our train. "Wait for our train" is the operative phrase because an
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announcement is never put up as to which platform the train will go from until about two or three minutes before it is due to start. One stands on that great concourse. I hope that what I am about to say will not be regarded as indelicate, but there is such extraordinary disregard for the comfort of individuals that the gentlemen's latrines are entered only on payment of 20 pence— a complete disregard for the comfort of certain individuals if one has to wait for a train, as one often does, for a very long time.
Another example from memory is of a train on which I travelled from North Wales a couple of years ago. It was scheduled to go into Euston. Without any advance warning, or any warning until we were already two hours late, we were told that we were not going into Euston but into St. Pancras. No one had bothered to tell St. Pancras that. When the train entered St. Pancras there was not a porter or an individual to be seen; there was not a trolley to be seen nor any indication of where a taxi could be obtained. I am sure that many of your Lordships can quote heaps of such examples. They contrast very much with what is to be found in other systems of transport.
The airlines— I have some experience of them— do not treat their passengers in that inconsiderate way. Nor do the coach companies. It is of the essence, not of any human defect but of a defect in the system, that if one has a state-owned, nationalised system, as the years go by it increasingly ceases to have regard to the interests, the wishes, the tastes and the comfort of its customers. That again is a powerful argument for bringing the present system to a conclusion.
There are many other arguments in favour of doing so. There is the argument which has already been adduced: that far too little freight is now carried by rail and far too much on the road. Indeed, one of the noble Lords who has already spoken has pointed out that the actual amount of rail-carried freight has fallen in recent years. There is the general weakness of the system in that way. It is a very considerable argument in favour of changing the system.
It is important that we should introduce into our rail system a new attitude of mind among those operating it— an attitude of going all out to get custom, to give the public what the public want, and to secure that that service, whether in the carriage of freight or of passengers, is provided in the way that the public want.
Whether the Bill as it stands will precisely and fully serve that purpose is a matter of very legitimate argument. I concede that at once. However, that a substantial change is needed from the system of state ownership is overwhelmingly borne out by the state of the industry. It is very important indeed that we should understand that. Therefore when we discuss the long, detailed, complicated Bill, we should have that very much in mind.
It will be a complicated Bill. It will be a difficult and complicated Committee stage. I do not believe that any of us need have any illusions about that. On that point I should like to say to the Minister that I very much hope that it is not the Government's intention to pursue most of the discussion of the Committee stage in the watches of the night. I commend to him the fact

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that there is a day called Friday and that it is at least physically possible for your Lordships' House to meet, as it used to meet, regularly on Fridays during daylight hours for the proper discussion in particular of complicated Committee stages. Without wishing to waste further time on the point, I am quite sure that the arrangement of business in your Lordships' House latterly has failed to give due weight to that. We have spent unnecessary time in the watches of the night while the Fridays have been allowed to go by, week after week, without being used. I hope that my noble friend in charge of the Bill will exercise his considerable authority and that if the government business managers suggest late sittings, he will insist, on the contrary, on full debates on Fridays from perhaps 11 o'clock in the morning (which is the normal time of sitting on a Friday) until six o'clock or seven o'clock, or at any rate until the late afternoon. I urge that upon him because it is important that the Bill should be properly and fully discussed.
I listened to the speeches from the other side and, if I may say so, without presumption and impertinence, there is obviously a certain amount in them. I am sorry that that remark caused such surprise. The modesty of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, in indicating surprise at that is very touching. But in fact there are serious points to be discussed and the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, knows that, apart from his happy party political controversy. I hope that we shall have the opportunity of discussing the Bill carefully and fully because it is important. I believe that we are deciding on the structure of our railway system for many years to come. It is a decisive moment in the history of that system which is so enormously important to us in this country. It is surely necessary that we should get it right. I have sufficient confidence and admiration for your Lordships' House to believe that we are much better equipped, if we are given the chance to discuss it properly, to get the matter right, than is any other organisation of government.
Finally, I hope that weight will be given to the fact that with privatisation, private investment will be possible in the railway system. One cannot have private investment in a state owned industry. One cannot have private investment in a nationalised industry. Therefore if one is to move over to investment from the private sector, one has to move the organisation into the private sector. That is proposed, somewhat laboriously and highly complicatedly, in the Bill. However, it will enable a new source of funds to supply the manifest needs for investment in our railway system. I believe that if your Lordships and the Government between them can get the matter right, they shall take a major step in favour of the strength of the British economy by giving us the efficient railway system that we have lacked for so many years.
4.37 p.m.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, I wish to concentrate on the relationship between the proposals in the Bill and the future of investment in the railways, a subject touched on at the end of his speech by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. However, I apologise in
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advance to the House for the fact that I shall not be present at the conclusion of the debate because I have a long-standing engagement elsewhere.
The Government have argued that their plans for the railways will lead to a significant increase in the quality of rail services. Everyone knows that the key to quality in rail services is investment— investment in better rolling stock, in better track, signalling and the general rail infrastructure. Most of the failures and frustrations associated with the operation of British Rail are a function of a lack of investment. On those lines which have been modernised in recent years service is typically very good indeed. It is on those lines which have been neglected that the horror stories abound.
Therefore, the fundamental criteria by which the Bill needs to be judged, are these. First, will it lead to a significant increase in the volume of investment in rolling stock and infrastructure? Secondly, does it provide the right incentives to encourage investment in the modernisation of assets which typically must be amortised over 25 to 30 years? Thirdly, does it provide for the co-ordination of investment decisions, which is vital when dealing with such a long time horizon?
In addressing those questions there seems to be no understanding on the part of the Government of either the vital importance of investment for the future of the railways or the criteria which any sensibly run business would apply to such investment. On 25th May this year in another place the Secretary of State for Transport declared with some pride that the overall interest charge on the accumulated debt of British Rail was £81 million a year, whereas the accumulated interest charge on the debt of SNCF to the French taxpayer is £1.3 billion a year.
That was a matter in which the Secretary of State took pride. He should have been deeply ashamed, for he was simply acknowledging the failure to invest in British Rail on anything like the scale of investment there is in French railways. As any sensible businessman knows, the interest charge is simply the counterpart of borrowing for long-term investment. No successful business, particularly a highly capital intensive business like the railways, can be efficiently run if all the investment must be financed out of current receipts and the cost not spread over a number of years by borrowing. That is what the French have done and their investment is beginning to pay substantial dividends as the TGV network starts to generate profits.
What have the French got for their £1.3 billion a year? For the same amount of money that this Government spend every fortnight on unemployment benefit the French have captured the lead not only in the railways but in the provision of rail equipment. French designs and French equipment are now being sought all over the world. Moreover, the French investment in the TGV has rejuvenated the regions of France. When the Channel Tunnel opens, French TGVs will speed to the tunnel direct from 15 French provincial cities at over 150 miles per hour. On the other side, to our national shame, trains will totter up to a single destination in London at, if they are lucky, 60 miles per hour.

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The example of investment in the TGV should also teach us another lesson; namely, that technical advance in rolling stock cannot be meaningfully separated from technical advance in infrastructure. They are inextricably linked. For example, there is no point at all in building rolling stock which can travel at very high speeds if there is not the quality of track and efficiency of signalling which will permit those high speeds to be attained. Yet the fragmented structure for the rail industry that is proposed in the Bill will not only militate against the co-ordination of investment in infrastructure and rolling stock, it will also create no incentive whatsoever for the heavy investment programme in infrastructure, particularly in signalling, which the industry desperately needs today.
The responsibility for investment in infrastructure will lie with Railtrack. The Government have provided no information about the way in which the investment strategy of Railtrack will be determined other than to say that the company will be expected to cover the costs of its investment from the fees which are charged to track users—a highly inefficient approach. What are to be the borrowing powers of Railtrack? Will it still be subject to the Government's external financing limits? More importantly, what will be the incentive for Railtrack, the monopoly provider of infrastructure, to invest at all? After all, it is not responsible for running the services or directly responsible to the passengers at all.
It is notable that in the case of Swedish railways, where a similar separation between the responsibility for track and the responsibility for services has taken place, the separation was preceded by an extensive programme of infrastructure investment. The Swedish Government have assumed responsibility for ensuring that a high level of infrastructure investment is maintained and they subsidise long-term track investment. Nothing comparable is planned here. Not only does the fragmentation of the industry militate against any coherent investment strategy in infrastructure, it also seriously endangers any coherent purchasing strategy for rolling stock by the franchise holders, with all the economies of scale that a long-term coherent buying strategy could bring.
In the process of discussing the Bill in another place, the Government have been struggling to create an environment for investment in rolling stock by steadily rowing back from their rhetoric about consumer choice. I was rather surprised to hear the Minister refer to consumer choice today. The Government have been forced to recognise that long-term investment strategies by franchise holders are incompatible with the Government's professed devotion to free access. So in the Independent newspaper earlier this year, the Secretary of State told us that the Government will allow what are euphemistically called "exclusive franchises"—in other words, monopolies—to appear on specific lines to facilitate investment.
It is not only the long-term proposals for investment in rolling stock which are defective. Provision of rolling stock today is blighted by the
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uncertainty created by the Bill and therefore the inability of British Rail to make medium or long-term investment plans. Just last Monday 900 engineering workers in York, Derby and Crewe were made redundant by ABB (the former BREL), Britain's largest manufacturer of rolling stock. That announcement was made just three months after ABB had declared that altogether 3,500 jobs were at risk through shortages of orders for rolling stock. The truth is that the Bill has eliminated any semblance of investment planning for rolling stock investment and has shattered confidence in the supply industries. Those redundancies and the further decline of Britain's rail engineering industries are the direct responsibility of the Government and this Bill.
It is clear that when at last the time comes to reorder rolling stock and get investment going again, perhaps in 10 years' time or so, whether for British Rail or for the new franchisees, buyers will look abroad to buy off-the-shelf packages rather than wait around for British production lines to restart. Once again, under this Government, indigenous manufacturing and export industries will have been undermined and the balance of payments weakened. Once again the policies of this Government have contributed directly to the erosion of the skills and productive base of British manufacturing industry.
The Transport Select Committee in another place, in its report published on 27th April, presented detailed recommendations to overcome weaknesses in the Bill, which is so biased against investment. A theme which runs throughout those recommendations of the Select Committee is the need to co-ordinate investment plans between Railtrack, the franchise holders and the residual activities of British Rail. That co-ordination is fundamental to the future of investment in the railways. Yet the Government persist in treating it in a vague, off-hand manner.
There is one organisation with the experience and expertise to perform the task of investment co-ordination. That is British Rail. But, as we all know, that is the one organisation that will not be allowed to do the job. If there is one dominant characteristic of the Bill, other than a total lack of long-term thinking, it is hostility to British Rail. That is particularly evident in the bizarre fact that British Rail will not be allowed to bid for franchises, a subject that I am sure will be covered extensively in Committee.
However, I wish to pick up one point on that topic from the proceedings in another place. While desperately trying to defend his decision not to allow British Rail to bid for franchises, the Secretary of State declared that BR would have an unfair advantage. It is worth quoting his argument in full. He said:
"If BR were to bid … it would always tend to make the most optimistic assumptions, believing that, if its forecasts proved unrealistic, somehow or other the taxpayer would be there in the background to bail it out".— [Official Report, Commons, 25/5/93; col. 786.]
That statement by the Secretary of State raises an interesting question. Suppose that a franchisee makes a bid on overly optimistic assumptions and subsequently finds that it can no longer operate its

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franchise; what will happen then? Will the service simply close? Will BR be expected to step in to clear up the mess? We have had the answer from the Minister. There will he something called a Railway Administration Order ensuring that services will be maintained; in other words, the taxpayer will pick up the tab. The Secretary of State's approach is yet another example of the muddled thinking evident throughout the proposals in the Bill.
There is clearly a strong economic case for substantial investment in our railways. There is a strong case which the Labour Party has been putting forward for some time, as my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis pointed out, for private sector involvement in British Rail's investment programme. But that should take place within the coherent, co-ordinated framework of maintaining the integrity of the national system, creating a secure, long-term basis for investment. The proposals before us will do nothing to achieve those objectives.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I feel qualified to speak on this issue because the Bill is so broad and based on so many assumptions that most people could take a wild stab at it and probably hit a potentially disastrous problem.
I start by making it clear that I am not averse to the concept of privatisation. There have been some notable privatisation success stories, such as that of the electricity industry. However, the Bill will not, as the Title suggests, lead to the immediate privatisation of British Rail. In fact, it leaves most of the system in the hands of the Government, which means that the Government will retain the ability to intervene in the franchised railway system, arguably to a greater extent than they are at present able to do in British Rail.
In the past privatisations have been popular with the public. It was possible for the Government to ensure that a lot of people made a profit— that was especially the case with British Telecom— by deliberately undervaluing the share price. In my opinion, that profit was made at the expense of the country which, after all, owned the asset.
The privatisations that have taken place were politically safe. It was never even considered to be an issue that there should be a reduced telephone service or that areas of the country would no longer be supplied with gas, electricity or water. That is not the case with the limited privatisation of services on British Rail. It would be interesting to know how much of a bribe, in the form of subsidy, the Government are prepared to offer the private sector so that there will be enough potential franchisees to allow the privatisation to appear credible.
My main problem with the privatisation is not that there will be a reduction in the quality and quantity of services, which the Bill will make almost inevitable through cuts in labour costs leading to large scale job losses, but that a large number of unprofitable lines will close. I feel that Beeching would look kindly on the Bill.
There are two main aims behind the Bill. The first is to introduce competition into the rail system and so
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promote efficiency. The second is to attract investment so that the taxpayer will not be burdened to the same degree with the onerous direct responsibility of subsidising the rail transport systems that now exist. Both aims are entirely sensible, and I support them fully. However, I feel that there is little evidence that the Bill in its present format will achieve them.
The Bill is vague and relies heavily on the assumption that, as privatisation has worked in other industries, it is a foregone conclusion that this privatisation will be a resounding success. The Bill assumes that private companies will vie with one another for the opportunity not only to run the railway system, but that they will be prepared to make enormous financial commitments to the long-term future of the railway network. The limited interest of companies in becoming franchisees and the wide spread belief in the country and the business community that the Bill has little real credibility severely challenge that assumption.
Unless there is a significant increase in the number of companies willing to become franchisees, the first aim of the Bill— competition— will be called into question. I fail to see how competition will be generated if only one company bids for a line. British Rail has been denied the right to tender for the franchise of lines, although it is obvious that it would be the natural contender to act as a franchisee and could also act as a yardstick by which the bids of other companies were assessed. Do the Government really believe that a company that has had no experience of running the complex operations of a rail network, will automatically, by virtue of being a private company, be more efficient than British Rail? I do not believe that.
The concept that the new franchisees will be in a position to make large capital investments in the infrastructure of the network is also, I feel, inherently flawed. The rail network is inefficient largely because it has been consistently under funded. The road network has taken priority over the rail system for a long time. It is easy to blame British Rail for being inefficient, and I agree that innovation and new managerial practices can only be of benefit to the system. However, blaming management exclusively is to ignore the much larger and fundamental problem that the system itself needs massive amounts of capital investment. An example is the western line, which will need £800 million spent on the track and signalling infrastructure. The best management in the world will not improve the service until the system is upgraded.
The problem affects the entire rail network. Any improvement will take a considerable time. Is it reasonable to believe that the new rail companies will be able to invest heavily enough to upgrade the system? Considering that the number of passengers who actually use the system will not suddenly and dramatically increase, is it feasible to expect the money for capital investment to come from the new franchisee's fare box?
Passenger figures have been shown to be linked to the economy. I use the InterCity service between London to Newcastle quite regularly: it is quicker than taking my car or getting on a plane. However, I

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would not feel compelled to use the train system simply because it was run by a company other than British Rail. The only reason I would consider using trains more frequently would be price. Privatisation will not lower the prices to which companies will be forced to gear their ticket structure. It is obvious that without the benefit many lines receive through cross-subsidising within the system, many less popular lines will be forced to raise prices and it will be those lines that conceivably have to close.
The fact that the Government expect the new companies to make large contributions through the charges imposed by Railtrack will make many potential franchisees consider carefully before entering the market. Franchisees are already faced with a bewildering number of uncertainties regarding the operating costs of the system. How much will it cost them to run on individual lines? How long will their franchise term be? How much will the rental charges of the rolling stock account amount to?
With the paucity of information about running costs that is available at the moment, how much will it cost to run a line when the expensive rail cards and administration of through-ticketing are added? All those problems will have to be addressed before a realistic bid is tendered. In many cases bids will be dependent on the amount of subsidy available. The aim of the Government to reduce subsidies in the future will have to be taken into account by the franchisees, as will the eventual upheaval caused by the intended privatisation of Railtrack. Those major problems are the reason why at present there is little fervour for the Bill. It is also possible that many bidders will realistically aim for the amount of subsidy that they are able to achieve and, along with a reduction of their main unit cost— which is labour — run a railway that will make a profit but will also mean a rundown in national services. Privatisation in this format will cost the country financially. I do not believe that it will improve the quality of services.
The Bill is a piece of political dogma that has been forced through the other place with little consideration as to whether it makes any sense. Privatisation of British Rail can work in a number of formats, but it is unlikely that it will work in this context. For the majority of franchisees competition will not exist. Large-scale investment from the private sector is unlikely to materialise, and the most damning indication of the outcome of the Bill has already been provided by the recent job losses at ABB, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. The prospect of privatisation has stopped investment and orders for rolling stock and has cost 900 jobs. I strongly urge the Government to reconsider.
5 p.m.
Lord Greenhill of Harrow: My Lords, there are many speakers and I will be very brief. The noble Lord's introduction was helpful and full and the speeches that we have already heard have covered the subject profoundly, and sometimes rather emotionally.
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My knowledge of the railway industry is out of date. For various reasons I thought it would be possible for me to play a small part in this debate. I believe I can claim a minor advantage from the experience of having spent four years as an apprentice on the London North Eastern Railway at a time when the grandfather of the noble Lord, Lord Whitelaw, was chairman. It was the era of silver jubilee expresses and the hard-pressed private enterprise railways. I suppose that those were what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, referred to as the bad old days— I am not even sure that he was born then. But I can say that I experienced those times during the day and night at all levels and they were not bad old days. The loyalties of the railwaymen were to their industry, their company and their colleagues. In some areas the manning of the railways was practically a family affair. Obviously, we do not want to create such a situation but we must hope that any new organisation set up under the Bill will eventually command similar support from its staff.
I left the industry in 1945 and (as everyone should) I have maintained an interest in it, not least because its efficiency is vital to the economy and to all in this country both for business and pleasure. The Railways Bill that we are now considering is a very complex document and many points require clarification. In handling it I am reminded of handling the Maastricht Treaty in weight. But for the man in the street to understand it fully, White Papers, Select Committees and a long debate in the other place are not enough. A simplification document is highly desirable and more careful explanation must continuously be made to the public. The Government cannot be satisfied that the general public have grasped the important changes now foreshadowed, let alone approved them.
British Rail is not universally popular and is a familiar and ready target for criticism. To be a success these new plans, when finally approved— we hope with modifications — must have greater public support. The Bill proposes Railtrack as the core of the railway operation. Initially, it is to be a Government-owned company with privatisation hanging over it. Its leader has been chosen from the oil industry and is a most capable and enterprising man. I am relieved to know that his staff will come from existing trusted and tried railwaymen whose experience is equal to their great responsibilities.
The other vital part of the organisation is the franchising regime, about which I am much less happy. It is an experiment that for the most part must aim to attract the average passenger and as much freight traffic from roads as it can. There is obviously considerable scope for confusion and conflict between those two core organisations. The Government know the identity of the likely franchise holders. I do not believe that the general public know it; I certainly do not. But we hope that a regime of cowboys catering for expenses-paid passengers will be excluded. There is a real danger that the high costs will prejudice the more traditional service of the railway. The experiment must be made to succeed.
I have little doubt that Ministers are aware of the pitfalls and that their intentions are sincere, but the

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public must have more confidence in them. Confidence has not been fortified by the handling of the second London terminal for the Channel Tunnel service. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke with finality about a proposed St. Pancras route without the practicability of the project having been fully tested. The matter is still far from settled. Doubts have followed delays. I know it is a very difficult subject, but we cannot afford delays. We were once the world's pioneers of the railway industry and much has been achieved in the past few years. However, vital time has been and is being wasted. The President of France may be justified in boasting about some of his trains that streak across Community-subsidised farmland, but overall achievement in this country for speedy travel is widespread and the volume of traffic is far greater than in France. In my view, the most important requirement is a vastly better explanation to the general public of what the Government hope to do in their interests. Without that, public support may well fail and ruin the whole proposal.
My final point concerns pensions. I understand from what has been said that this matter is being dealt with, but unless the problem of pensions is solved sympathetically the industrial relations of the whole organisation will be affected.
5.8 p.m.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: My Lords, I may be the first speaker who has not been a Minister in charge of the Department of Transport, a director or an apprentice. However, I have been a passenger on the railway system for a very long time. It is nearly 70 years since, at a station just outside Edinburgh, I was put in charge of a friendly guard to take me to London at the half fare price of £1 3s 7½d. That is one of those totally useless statistics that for some reason has remained with me.
I am quite certain that the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, would say that it was a thoroughly unviable exercise. I cannot remember whether it was the London and North-Eastern or the North British Railway in those days, but to carry me for that price and also to provide a schoolboy with a five-course breakfast for a shilling can hardly have been the most profitable of exercises. However, perhaps it inculcated into me what I think exists in many of us— a considerable interest in, if not an affection for, the railway train.
It was in 1960 that I made my maiden speech in another place on a British Transport Commission Bill. That had been triggered by a journey that I had undertaken on the footplate of the "Flying Scotsman"— he new diesel, as it was then— from King's Cross to Newcastle. Under no circumstances, I was told, was I to bring overalls because that would insult the driver who was so proud of the cleanliness of his cabin. Then from Newcastle onwards a boiler suit was provided so that I could go on the footplate of a steam engine, where the dirt and dust were in marked contrast to the cleanliness, the ride rough compared with the totally smooth one—perpetual turmoil where there had been none before. But both of those engines were monuments to the skill and craftsmanship of the British engineering workshops. This week the comfort
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and the punctuality of the new 225 from Edinburgh to London would be quite impossible to criticise. Yes, much has been said about the rolling stock in France — the TGVs. I have travelled both by night and by day across France. I would say without hesitation that the comfort and accommodation, night or day, of the present British rolling stock is superior to that to be found on the Continent.
Before Dr. Beeching took out his axe I remember having a tour of the Scottish network to see just how hard the railway system and those in charge of it were trying to provide a cheaper but still efficient service. It may ring a bell with my noble friend on the Front Bench if I mention a place called Ballater and the experiment of running a battery car. It charged up at Aberdeen in order that it could go up the hill to Ballater and then it ran down to Aberdeen by gravity. It sounds slightly unlikely but it worked. There was another experiment between Gleneagles and Comrie which involved virtually a bus on the railway line which would stop wherever a passenger wished to get off and would stop where anyone wanted to get on. Both those efforts were popular while the novelty aspect lasted, after which the very fickle general public returned to their motor cars. It is, I believe, the motor car, with the greater independence which it gives, that has been the greatest enemy of the railway. So now, concentrating if I may on the Scottish system, we have a very slimline railway system. I remember the time when between Berwick-on-Tweed and Edinburgh, a distance of 60 miles, there were 19 stations. Today there are only six. The Waverley line, which served that vast area of country between Carlisle and Berwick-on-Tweed, is no more. Motorists groan and grumble about the road congestion as cars queue at the roundabouts on the way in and out of Edinburgh.
What lies before us now? What is absolutely essential is adequate investment in the railway system. Without it the structure of future ownership is totally irrelevant. The point has been made as to whether there is any country in the world where railways operate without a government subsidy, and usually a pretty massive one. I seem to remember, in the days of my maiden speech, that there was one country— the Netherlands. But the Dutch were able to do it only because they also owned the canal system, which was extremely profitable. I wonder whether we have not for years in this field tried to be the odd man out. The railways now are crying out for investment while undoubtedly the Treasury is anxious to reduce its involvement still more.
The Government's intentions and desires, I presume, are to introduce a competitive operation backed substantially by private funds to produce reliability, comfort, safety and speed. As far as I can see, one could introduce such competition by running trains owned by different companies between London and Edinburgh. This very morning in the Scottish press there are reports of the Minister of Transport journeying from London to Glasgow, and on to Dumfries and Galloway, and announcing a very substantial investment in the West Coast line. Undoubtedly, to go back to the days when one could

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go either east coast or west coast from London to Edinburgh would be competitive. Whether or not it would be economic competition is another matter.
Therefore, if I may concentrate for simplicity on the main East Coast line, I understand from the Bill that the Government intend to invite competitive tenders to run trains on it. I find it difficult to see how more than one firm can run trains up and down the same line other than on a very limited scale. There was a time when a Pullman called the "Queen of Scots" inserted itself into the system and wandered rather slowly via Ripon and Harrogate from Edinburgh to London. There is a train on the Scottish system now called the "Royal Scot" which manages to get a slot. There is, too, the "Orient Express". But it must surely be on the most limited of scales because if the 10 o'clock train to Newcastle were run by one company and the 11 o'clock by another, and the one in front broke down, I just have a feeling there might be a little bit of trouble.
Quite honestly, even one company running trains on a track owned by somebody else is not realistic. Dual responsibility is never a good thing, and surely the room for dispute here would be immense. There is an obvious railway network on its own, as it were, and a precisely-defined railway system; namely, Scotrail. It has come in for a great deal of commendation recently from my right honourable friend the Minister. He has been saying some very kindly things about it; giving it the green light for franchising.
Could one not have the company that wins the franchise for Scotrail owning the track—the signals etc.—ensuring safety all round, running the services, producing the timetables and co-ordinating with the other franchisers? In other words, could there not be what in modern-day jargon is called vertical integration? I freely admit that this is a very dangerous line to take economically because it is bound to be difficult and very expensive to maintain a network to serve Scotland's relatively small and widely dispersed centres of population.
One has to consider the famous bridges. It costs £1 million a year to maintain the Forth Bridge. It costs £700,000 a year to maintain the Tay Bridge. There are 9,500 other bridges in the country, including the one at Inverness which was swept away in the flooding of the Ness. Added to that, there are 27 miles of tunnels. Therefore, without the slightest doubt a large subsidy would be needed. All the same, because here one has a separate entity, I believe that it would be an opportunity for trying out vertical integration.
5.23 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, I have received considerable post on this Bill and in fact even more than on the question of Maastricht. Running through all that correspondence has been a widely held view that the Government are determined to force the Bill through the House regardless of anyone's opinion. There also seems to be general agreement that the key requirement for our railways is greater investment in the infrastructure and the rolling stock. That has been accentuated this afternoon in earlier speeches. Those
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of us who use the East Coast line and the Chiltern line, know that if investment has been made then the service is better and much more reliable.
The Government firmly believe that the private sector will bring new investment money, but as one of my correspondents, a retired railwayman from Leicestershire, said, "What franchisee, even on a 10-year franchise, would be willing to risk the kind of substantial investment needed?" and "Who is going to co-ordinate the overall investment plan and decide on priorities?"
The Government have published no financial statement giving the estimated comparative cost to the taxpayer of running the rail services before and after privatisation. I ask the Minister whether that kind of information is available and whether we shall have it at a later stage in the Bill. Some of us believe that the costs after privatisation may well be greater because the subsidies will still need to be paid to support the socially necessary lines as well as many grants which are at present paid by BR. Added to that are the costs of the various policing bodies needed to regulate the railway operators and the not inconsiderable subsidies which may be necessary to attract and to keep the franchises. If these sums were done and if the Treasury has that kind of money available, why has it not made it available to British Rail to fund the long overdue improvements to the infrastructure and the rolling stock?
We ought to be concerned about the safety of the railways. Under the proposed system too many people will have a finger in the pie: the private operators who may or may not have experience of railway safety, Railtrack, the regulator, the franchise director, the residual BR, the Health and Safety Executive and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. Unless there is tightly co-ordinated control and intercommunication, it can only be a short time before there will be a fatal mishap. What will happen then? The buck will be passed on and on and the rail user will be the loser.
Bureaucracy will increase with a need for controls to be exercised by several bodies to ensure that the rail operators carry out the multitude of rules and conditions that are placed on them. The not inconsiderable cost of all that can only be to raise the overhead costs which will have to be met either by the taxpayer in subsidies or by higher fares from the users. The task of proportioning costs and revenue between the various parties operating the railway would also be an extremely labour-intensive and costly operation.
I would like to press the Minister further on the needs of the disabled. Will there be a similar code such as has already been accepted as part of the Channel Tunnel Bill in relation to maximising access or access to information for those with learning and sensory difficulties? Will there be adequate staff training at all stations and at all levels in how to cope with disability and how to be aware of it?
In May of this year the Minister outlined the Government's commitment to consultation with disabled persons and organisations. He promised an amendment in this House to put a duty on the regulator to consult and give due regard to DPTAC in drawing up and promoting a code of practice to

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protect the interests of the disabled passengers. The Minister also gave a commitment to bring forward an amendment in this House to put on the face of the Bill an obligation on the franchising director to require, through franchising arrangements, participation in discount fare schemes for disabled persons, senior citizens and young people. I know that those amendments will be welcomed when the noble Earl produces them. But is it too much to ask him that at the same time he takes into account those people who use the Family Railcard as well as other discounted users?
Users of rail cards will also need to be reassured that the value of the discounts offered will remain at least at the current level and that a discount will continue to be available for a person who travels with a severely disabled person, because most people with disabilities are also those on low incomes. They cannot afford to pay the full fare and many of them, too, would not be able to travel at all unless there is an able-bodied person to accompany them.
I welcome the setting up of the rail users' consultative committees. But the regulatory system to be established must have a clear and comprehensive structure in which the consumers' interests will be best met if the consultative councils are given powers to investigate and comment on all aspects of rail service as they affect the consumer. There is also concern that a duty should be placed on the franchise director to seek the views of the consultative committees on fares and fare structures. I welcome the comments of the Minister in his opening speech on that.
The Bill gives the consultative committees powers to examine discount and special fares, which I take to mean that they could comment on the fares for the disabled passengers, but not for the able-bodied. Does the Minister's promise in another place to preserve senior citizens' and young persons' rail cards mean that the consultative committees will also be able to comment on those fares, but not in relation to passengers in other age groups? We look to the Government to find a way to ensure that through ticketing will still be available and that the travelcard system will survive.
I, too, think it sad that the Government have still to be persuaded to allow British Rail the right to bid to run a service in the same way as any other operator. I cannot do better than quote the Consumers' Association, which states:
"If BR is left to operate routes unwanted by private companies, we fear a large part of the network will become a service provider of the last resort, with little incentive to improve the standards of service. Consumers will be cheated of the promise of more competitive rail services that privatisation was intended to deliver".
I am also deeply concerned about the future of the PTAs and PTEs. Will they be consulted when services in their areas are affected? Will there be a requirement for the Secretary of State, the regulator, and the director of passenger rail franchising to consult the appropriate PTA or executive in the execution of their statutory duties in a given passenger transport area?
I am told that the PTAs actually support financially some 70 per cent. of all regional railway business and one-quarter of British Rail's entire United Kingdom
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passenger rail business. Indeed, in Merseyside, one of the largest promoters, there is a gross cost of £50 million per annum. Surely that would suggest that those are the kind of voices that ought to be heard on the issues raised in this Bill.
There is real concern about the breadth of powers reserved to the Secretary of State and/or the regulator, such as the power to give instructions to the franchising director and to exempt some operators from various requirements. What are the terms in which those powers might be exercised? Can the Minister indicate the nature of the instructions that the Secretary of State might be empowered to give to the director of passenger rail franchising in the exercise of the director's duties? What guidance as to the criteria would the Secretary of State intend to apply in exercising his initial exemption powers in relation to the licensing of railway services, franchise, designation and closure notifications? To what extent will the past investment liabilities of the PTAs be reflected in the franchise price or subsidy?
Like the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, I am also interested in how through ticketing, inter-modal ticketing and railcard discounts are to be practically enforced. What has the Minister in mind to ensure that the cost of any investment in railway facilities made by a PTA during a franchise term produces a fair financial return for the local taxpayer? How will a franchisee's need for certainty in relation to the availability of subsidy throughout the franchise term be reconciled with the annual financial regime within which the PTA, as the subsidy provider, has to work? Those are only some of the questions which will need to be answered in Committee.
I understand that the Department of Transport has given some preliminary assurances to the PTAs and to the passenger transport executives which would define the spirit, in addition to the letter, of the arrangements to obtain between the franchising director and the PTEs. They would also guarantee the ability of the PTE franchising agreement to require acceptance by the operator on single mode and multi-modal travel tickets. They would also guarantee the participation of the operator in concessionary travel schemes for the elderly and disabled. In addition they would recognise that, in the uncertain financial regime from which we are suffering, there would need to be an ability for the passenger transport executive to extricate itself from a franchising arrangement during the course of the franchise term.
I believe that there is also a worry relating to what is likely to be a rather long transitional phase in converting from a nationalised regime to a franchised one. Merseyside is already seeing the effects of appointments made to Railtrack which, directly or indirectly, impact upon the ability of the operator to maintain the quality of delivery in current services.
There is a statutory duty within the Bill for PTEs to co-operate in the conversion to a franchised regime. There is a fear that pressure may mount ultimately on a PTE to compromise its standards and specifications in the pursuit of that duty. For example, Merseytravel has a policy of providing staffing at most stations and at most times—not as a job creation exercise, but in a

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genuine attempt, following market research, to reflect customers' concerns about security and revenue protection issues. It is easy to see the opportunities which may present themselves to those with a largely financial agenda to achieve cost economies by cutting staff.
The Secretary of State recently made an announcement that Merseyrail electrified services, which cover two-thirds of the services which are wholly financially supported by Merseyrail, will comprise a separate franchise area, with the remaining services being part of a larger North-West franchise area. This clearly adds to the difficulties of an organisation like Merseyrail to provide both an integrated public transport system and an integrated rail network. It will lead to a constraining influence on the ability to enforce common standards in the interests of fair play to all customers.
The Tyne and Wear Metro has been exempted from the franchising and licensing provisions of this Bill. I appreciate that Tyne and Wear Metro is owned by Tyne and Wear PTE, and that Merseyrail is owned by British Rail, but would it not be sensible to have a similar exemption for Merseyrail electrified services?
Local government outside the metropolitan areas does not have the same close working relationship with British Rail, but in many areas relationships have been formed which will be very much affected by the superimposition of a new national Railtrack bureaucracy. Many of the regional railways outside PTA areas receive grants from local authorities to continue existing services. District and other councils have co-operated in informal joint agreements to ensure that interdependent services can be continued. I fear that those arrangements may be under threat by this legislation, as grant may be disaggregated on a line-by-line basis, and a "base" service level specified by the franchising authority for each line in isolation.
Many district councils have responded to requests from British Rail to help stations and other infrastructure to be provided, refurbished or even rebuilt. In many cases, local authority finance, in spite of severe budget restraints of its own, has replaced British Rail initiative because local managers seem to have had very little leeway recently to agree other than the minimum cost solutions in capital investment decisions.
The relationship between the franchising authority in defining the "base" service and the local authorities and franchisees when negotiating additional subsidised services for locally identified needs requires more clarification in the Bill. No national bureaucracy will be able to understand local social needs on a line-by-line basis unless it produces a large, expensive, decentralised staff structure which would run parallel with the local authority. It must be recognised clearly that local government budgeting processes cannot make commitments to provide guaranteed financial support for the full length of the five or 10-year franchise periods.
The relationship between Railtrack and the local authorities will be a sensitive one, with Railtrack given a remit to recoup all its costs in the financing and
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provision of essential environmental and social extras and the basic repair and renewal of structures. Will account be taken of past local authority investment in rail infrastructure in the competitive tender agreements to be made on private stations, rolling stock and infrastructure operators? If not, it will be unfair and lead to difficult future relations if that investment were to be ignored to provide a clean sheet.
Commitments given by British Rail when that investment was made must be written into the sale, leasing and franchise agreements to ensure that it will not have been wasted. With major local government and rail management restructuring taking place at the same time, if local government is to have a substantive role in financing additional services and improved infrastructure, it must be involved closely in the local franchising process.
There is a need for a clear statutory relationship to be set out in legislation, and then constructive working relationships can be entered into and developed. At the end of the day I hope that we shall always bear in mind that the trains must be run for the people and not for the franchisees.
5.41 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I welcome the Bill because I believe that it will do something to slow down the long-term decline in the number of passengers and amount of freight carried on our railway system which has been referred to by so many noble Lords. It will do so, as my noble friend explained in his admirable opening speech, by improving the quality of railway services provided; by ending British Rail's monopoly; by creating the opportunities for private sector involvement; and by bringing competition into the system.
Noble Lords may be aware that I spent some five and a half years of my ministerial career in the Department of Transport, and although I never had direct responsibility for the railways during that time, I was always a fairly close observer of what was going on. During that time, the Government reversed the decline in investment in the railway system. Indeed, investment was at record levels not seen since we changed from steam to diesel some 30 years ago. So this Government cannot be said to have neglected the railway system. The Bill represents the next stage of improvement.
One of the things that I admit irritated me, and still does, is the rather futile argument that we hear so often, and heard again today, about public versus private transport. The argument for public transport, in particular the railway, has had a new impetus put on it in recent years by new found environmental considerations. That has given new ammunition to the anti-car lobby. The fact that that lobby, whether it be the party opposite or organisations such as Transport 2000, is funded substantially by railway interests —BR itself, the railway unions or both—should not of course cloud one's judgment about the case made.
I said that the arguments were futile, and I believe that they are. If one is to have a healthy economy in this country and a reasonable standard of living for its citizens, then one needs to support improvement in all

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forms of transport. To say that the need for a by-pass to be built or a motorway widened can be avoided by improving the railway system is just not true. If noble Lords look at their own travel patterns, I would wager that the number of times they can switch mode is few indeed. The same is true to a lesser extent of freight.
The reason that the proportion of passenger journeys taken by rail or bus has declined is not due to lack of investment in either system; it is because over the past 40 years or so people's standard of living has improved and they want the freedom of opportunity and movement which comes from owning one's own car. Nor has the number of cars increased because of new road building. It is because people have become better off. Figures over recent years prove that.
Noble Lords have described this Bill as privatisation of the railways. I rather wish it were, but I understand the reasons the Government have not been able to go the whole way. I am, however, worried that over half the cost of running the railway, the Railtrack element, is to be left in the public sector with uncertain incentive to improve its efficiency and attract more traffic onto its track. I hope that my noble friend will confirm that it is the Government's intention to privatise Railtrack as soon as possible. In the meantime I hope that the Railtrack management will contract out to the private sector as much work as possible. I understand that franchisees will be eligible to bid for Railtrack work, and so there we could have the element of vertical integration that some, including my noble friend Lord Stodart, say is missing, and that is welcome.
Unlike noble Lords opposite, I am a firm advocate of privatisation. The Government have a proud record and the transport sector has been at the forefront. British Airways, BAA, British Transport Docks, National Freight Corporation, Sealink, British Transport Hotels, National Bus: all have been a great success, and I challenge anyone to say that they would rather see them back in the public sector. Indeed, I believe that even the Labour Party (and the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, can perhaps confirm that to me in his wind-up speech) would not now re-nationalise any of them. Investment has been at record levels, certainly many times higher than could have been accommodated in the PSBR. So I am certainly not afraid to see BR on the way to privatisation, even if it is not going as far and as fast as I should like.
I turn now to what I think is one of the most important elements of the proposals, and that is the wish to see the railways carry more freight. I do not know anyone—certainly no one who has spoken this afternoon—who cannot give that objective hearty support. Freight is one area of railway privatisation policy where substantial support for the Government's policies has come from the private sector, particularly the major transport companies which would like a realistic alternative to road. But of course the inflexibilities of the rail system, particularly over shorter domestic journeys, makes it difficult to be price competitive with road.
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The Government have responded positively to the pressure for help with pricing. Freight already gains access to the system at marginal cost, although the commercial relationship between BR and individual customers makes it difficult to get to the bottom of any consistent charging regime for freight access to the essentially passenger network.
The Government have made welcome announcements regarding,
"an expanded system of capital grants for new freight facilities, a new revenue grant to help meet track costs (both grants tied to precise environmental benefits), and a proposal to allow 44 tonne lorries for the road leg of intermodal freight movements, when the trunk haul is by rail".
My understanding of the procedure for determining a rail access grant is that a new freight customer in the first instance seeks to negotiate train paths and access rights to the network with Railtrack. If the charge Railtrack wishes to extract is regarded as too high, the new customer goes to the Department of Transport with an environmental assessment audit to demonstrate the benefits of transferring or placing a freight service on rail rather than road. At the same time, the potential customer demonstrates the extent to which he needs track access grant to make up the difference between Railtrack's charge (which should be confined to its avoidable costs) and what he can afford to make the service viable. So far, so good. But what is to stop Railtrack from "puffing up" its charges in the knowledge that the customer can obtain grant; or more likely, how will Railtrack get to the bottom of its real "avoidable cost", and will it be required to justify to the Department of Transport that it has offered the lowest price to the new freight customer, before the Department of Transport will give any public grant? Those are important issues which need to be resolved quite urgently if private freight customers and new rail freight operators are to have the confidence to develop their businesses and take advantage of the open access provisions in 1994.
I should like to turn to another aspect of the Bill which requires some thought. The Government were persuaded in the other place to provide the regulator with the additional responsibility for the carriage of goods (Clause 4(b)). That is an important addition and is to be welcomed, but it leaves some loose ends to be tidied up. Once such loose end concerns closures.
As I have explained, Railtrack will be responsible for providing the infrastructure on which freight operators will run their services. Much of this infrastructure will be shared with passenger services; some will be shared with other freight users. Occasionally, the infrastructure will be dedicated to one freight service.
We are told that Railtrack will charge freight customers according to what the market will bear, but in many cases this will be no more than the "avoidable cost" of the infrastructure. In some cases grants will be available from the Government to cover infrastructure charges. But avoidable cost will vary according to the number of users sharing the track. Withdrawal of passenger services may therefore have knock-on effects on freight traffic; for example, the increased cost burden shifted on to remaining freight users after the withdrawal of passengers may make the freight

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services non-viable. Alternatively, in cases where there is environmental benefit, the freight services may require a grant to remain viable. But it is very important that the regulator is aware of any such possible knock-on effects before sanctioning any closure of passenger services.
Railtrack will, however, have an incentive to cut capacity requirements. The prospect of increased freight flows paying only marginal costs may not be a strong enough incentive to keep unused or under-used capacity available for future growth. If the Government's policy is to succeed this capacity must be held in reserve.
At the very least the regulator should be aware of the costs of closing facilities which are used or may in the foreseeable future be used for freight. Furthermore, no closure of a freight facility or potential future facility should be allowed without first giving the private sector the opportunity to acquire the facility for operational purposes. At the moment there are no procedures in place for the regulator to be able to assess the implications for freight of any proposed passenger service closure.
Nor is there any requirement for Railtrack, or any other facility owner, to inform the regulator of a closure which will affect freight or may potentially affect future freight carryings. In view of the regulator's duty to promote the use of the railway for the carriage of passengers and goods this seems an important omission and I would be grateful if my noble friend could indicate whether he intends to deal with this matter himself.
I believe that amendments will be needed to Clauses 32 and 34 and I would be prepared to tackle this matter in Committee if my noble friend feels unable to respond positively.
Many noble Lords have rightly spoken of the need for new infrastructure investment in the railways system. I wish to refer briefly to an exciting investment which is about to begin; it is the building of the Heathrow to Paddington express. I declare an interest in that I am associated with BAA, which is putting up £300 million to build the new railway. It will own the track between Heathrow and the mainline and it will also pay for the electrification of the whole line.
The Bill contains a number of problems for that line and they will apply equally to other potential private investors in rail infrastructure. The Bill makes provision for the grant of compulsory access rights over rail infrastructure which is publicly or privately owned. Clearly, private investors will wish to be sure that any return on their investment will not be diluted by the grant of compulsory access to competing services or that their own use of their asset will not be materially interfered with and that use by a third party will be on not less than a commercial negotiated rate for that use.
Secondly, the franchise director has the power indirectly to grant compulsory access rights. Any private investor will again not wish to see his asset used by third parties on anything other than commercially negotiated terms.
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Thirdly, the Bill makes provision for a licensing regime. The regulator and Secretary of State are given powers to grant exemptions from licensing requirements. The statutory duties of the regulator and the Secretary of State (including those normally associated with economic regulation) apply both in the granting of licences and in the granting of exemptions. There is no provision in the Bill allowing the Secretary of State to exempt from economic regulation a service run partially on public (licensed) infrastructure and partly on private (and thus hopefully exempted) infrastructure.
Any potential private investor will wish to be certain as to freedom from competition through the compulsory grant of access rights over private assets; certainty of access to the general rail network on reasonable commercial terms; and freedom from franchising and economic regulation where part of or the whole of the rail infrastructure used in the provision of a service is funded privately. Again, amendments may be necessary to cover those points if we are to see what we all want; that is, more investment in the railways system.
Before I conclude, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, a characteristically robust attack on the Government's proposals. I believe, as I would, that most of what he said was wrong and I believe that many of his points have been dealt with. But what we did not hear was any credible alternative strategy proposed by the Labour Party for the future of the railways.
I remind your Lordships that Labour has opposed every privatisation since 1979. Scaremongering is not a new tactic in its opposition to our privatisation programme. And in the case of the railways, it will be proved wrong just as it has been proved wrong before. For example, Labour said that a privatised British Telecom would not bother with call boxes, whose upkeep Labour considered too expensive for a private company to remain interested in. But 96 per cent. of call boxes now work at any one time—an increase from only 75 per cent. in 1987—and there are now more than 100,000 call boxes compared with 77,000 in pre-privatisation days. Is there a parallel here with the provision of rural rail services? Labour also said that prices would rise but they have fallen substantially in nearly every case while investment has risen by not inconsiderable amounts. I hope that the Bill will allow the same to happen in the railways system and therefore I give it my support.
5.57 p.m.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, nailed his colours firmly to the mast on the principle of privatisation. He was right to say that the Labour Party has opposed every privatisation measure which has come before the other place and your Lordships' House. However, the noble Lord was wrong to say that every privatisation proposal that has been implemented continues to meet with any degree of public approval. It was noticeable that the noble Lord omitted from his speech any mention of the privatisation of the water industry. If any noble Lord would care to ask the consumers, who are the

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victims of the massive increases in charges in the privatised water industry, they will soon say whether they want that industry to be put back into public ownership.
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, chose a bad example in quoting the bus industry. All the recent opinion research shows that the customers using buses are most dissatisfied with the way in which that industry has developed since privatisation. There is hardly a city in this country in which there are not massive problems in relation to the deregulation of the bus industry which was followed by its privatisation. I believe that the noble Lord has a case to argue. Although I respect him for the case that he put forward, I do not agree with it. He will have to come to terms with the fact that public opinion, with the experience of the privatisations which have already taken place, is changing. That is why there is little or no public support for the Bill which is today before your Lordships' House.
In anticipation of a further privatisation proposal being submitted in relation to the Post Office, I say that if your Lordships consider that the opposition to this Bill is massive, wait until the Government dabble in the field of privatising the postal services and then see the extent of the opposition to privatisation. The Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, mentioned the privatisation of British Airways. The Minister said that in 1981–82 it cost the United Kingdom taxpayers more than £80 million. I thought that the Minister would have added that that was because that was the year in which the publicly owned British Airways was slimmed down to the extent that some 7,000 or 8,000 jobs were shed and the Government met the redundancy costs. British Airways debts were written off before it was put into the private sector. There was no question of the debts being passed over in the process of privatisation. Therefore, when the noble Earl speaks about the position of British Airways in 1981–82, it would be advisable to complete the story. The complete story is that that was the year in which the Government chose to write off those massive debts and also to meet the costs of the redundancy package for a slimmed down British Airways before it was put into the private sector.
I do not know whether that will be the Government's proposal in relation to British Rail. However, I say with great respect to the noble Earl that the Bill that we are debating today is the best job creation measure that the Government have ever introduced. A number of bodies will be established and there will have to be one more because you cannot have the establishment of such a plethora of bodies without having a central body holding them all together. A co-ordinating body will need to be established to hold together the track authority and all the other bodies that are being established. As I say, this is an excellent job creation measure. The tragedy is that it will be jobs for the boys. I have absolutely no doubt that even at present there are some former Government Ministers, perhaps of a recent vintage, who have their eye on some of the appointments which will be made as soon as this Bill becomes law.
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The Minister spoke about franchising leading to privatisation and the break up of British Rail—and I shall return to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, when I end my remarks on the Labour Party's position on this matter. When the Minister speaks about those matters he does not seem to understand, or if he does he does not wish to face up to the responsibility of understanding, the damage that he is doing to an integrated transport system. It does not need to be privatised or franchised. It needs to be modernised. It is simply not the case that the private sector will produce the capital in order to modernise the rail network to the extent that is required.
Mention has been made of the French SNCF. Its record is absolutely outstanding compared with our record in this country. That is a publicly owned rail network. When the French SNCF decided to modernise its system by building a series of pickaback stations in order to bring the travelling passengers into those 15 centres from where the TGV is to operate, and when it invested millions of French francs in straightening out—it may seem simple, it may even seem trivial—bends on the track in order to allow the TGV to travel at speeds of 250 miles per hour, 48 per cent. of that investment was funded through the EC.
I can remember in my time in another place asking the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, why we did not ask for funds from the EC to modernise our railway network system. The noble Baroness was proud of the fact, as she always was, that we had not sought any EC assistance in order to modernise our rail network. The irony is that because the Bill specifically excludes British Rail from bidding for the franchise, the very company which is nationalised and doing well—the French SNCF—can bid for the franchise in this country. That will make possible the ludicrous position—and I do not know how the Government are getting in this mess—that the German railway, the Deutsche Bundesbahn, or SNCF will bid for a franchise in this country while British Rail cannot bid for that franchise. It seems to me that that is a mad situation to present to the people of this country, but the Government are determined to go ahead with it.
I want to deal with the question of the socially necessary lines. I forecast now—and no doubt the Minister will deny it in his winding up speech—that the cost of subsidising those socially necessary lines will eventually, and sooner rather than later after the franchising takes place, be passed to the local authorities. Who will decide what is a socially necessary line? What is the definition of a socially necessary line? I can imagine the arguments that will take place about whether the Sterling to Falkirk line is socially necessary or whether the Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy line is not socially necessary. That will produce a whole series of disputes and arguments about what is and what is not socially necessary.
I look back at the privatisation of British Telecom and the whole question of what was then described as uneconomic call boxes. Your Lordships will remember that the Government produced their privatisation proposals for British Telecom before the 1983 general election. Because of the onset of the election, that Bill

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was dropped. After the 1983 general election the Government introduced a second Telecommunications Bill.
In the original Bill it was proposed that the Government would meet the costs of the uneconomic call boxes, but in the second Bill that obligation to meet the cost of those uneconomic call boxes in relation to British Telecom was passed to the local authorities. That is the point that I am making. That is what will happen. The Government will not accept financial responsibility for subsidising the cost of those socially necessary lines. Sooner rather than later that responsibility will be passed to the local authorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Stodart, mentioned the question of Scotrail and he mentioned the Forth Rail Bridge. There has been a substantial cutback in the maintenance of that bridge. Scotrail has announced that it is to cease painting it. That is very dangerous indeed. It is not painted for decorative purposes. It is painted for maintenance purposes to prevent corrosion and rust. That leads me to the conclusion that the hidden agenda for Scotrail is to close down the route from Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy, Arbroath and onto Aberdeen and in that way avoid the need to use the Forth Rail Bridge. Trains will be rerouted via Perth, Dundee and up to Aberdeen in the north in that direction. However generous one may be, it is difficult not to be suspicious about the reason for ceasing to paint the Forth Rail Bridge. That is a very interesting topic.
While dealing with Scotrail, I should say that there is a well publicised view that the management of Scotrail will be the successful bidder for the franchise. I am not sure about that because I believe it will have competition from Stagecoach, the bus operators which operate throughout the United Kingdom and abroad. One of my worries—and I hope that the Minister will take it on board—is the Government's position as regards encouraging senior civil servants to accept non-executive directorships of companies on the basis that they want those senior civil servants to get closer to industry.
The position we have with Stagecoach is that a senior civil servant from the Scottish Office, an Under-Secretary, Muir Russell, has been allowed to accept a non-executive directorship with the company. We have already had experience of Stagecoach running franchised coaches on the Aberdeen to London trains. It was not a success. There were no washing facilities and old rolling stock was used. The rolling stock was not brought up to date, but was brought up to date as far as could possibly be the case using old rolling stock. I saw the Transport Minister, Mr. Roger Freeman, walking off the train after an overnight journey from Aberdeen on which there were no washing facilities. He walked off the train at Euston Station under the blare of all the television cameras looking as if he had just walked out of a Burton's window. I suspect that he used British Rail's washing facilities while travelling with Stagecoach. I believe we must look at the whole question of who bids for the franchise.
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There is also the question of management buy-outs. Management franchising is also a myth. All the experience is that, by and large, the management and employees have about 2 per cent. of the shareholding; the banks and the financial institutions hold the other 98 per cent. They are pulling the ropes, holding the purse strings and dictating the policy. The management buy-outs must be examined for what they are. They are certainly not management buy-outs.
I have seldom seen a Minister—and I say this as kindly as I can to the noble Earl—introduce a Bill with so little enthusiasm. In my remarks I was tempted to suggest something to him that he could have easily have got away with today because there is so much going on inside the Conservative Party and the Government: he could easily have got away with getting up at the Dispatch Box and withdrawing the Bill. I doubt whether anyone would have noticed.
However, the Minister's failure to do the latter brings me to my final point. Your Lordships will have heard the story of the chap who went to the ticket office at the railway station and asked for a return ticket. The ticket clerk said, "Where to, Sir?" The chap looked at him in absolute amazement and said, "Back here, of course". I regard this Second Reading debate as the first leg of a return journey. Of course, the return journey is back here; that is, after the election of a Labour government—and I finish on the noble Lord's point—who will introduce the proposals put forward by my honourable friend John Prescott to take the industry back into public ownership.
We shall recreate an integrated rail network in the country for the benefit of the people who use it and not for the benefit of those who franchise it. I hope that the Minister appreciates that what he is doing under the legislation is merely a temporary measure until after the date of the next general election.
6.13 p.m.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, I welcome the Bill and congratulate my noble friend on the Front Bench for the way in which he introduced it. I support everything he said. Moreover, I gained the impression that he introduced it with great enthusiasm. However, even if he did not have that enthusiasm, both my noble friend Lord Brabazon and I certainly have the enthusiasm to ensure that the Bill goes through. I must also apologise to my noble friend for the fact that, due to a previous commitment, I shall be unable to remain for the end of the debate.
I was brought up in a business that supplied horses to the railway companies, my grandfather being the main supplier to the LMS and the GWR. When I was a young boy, I can remember when the chap used to arrive from the LMS to buy the horses. He was a man called Quigham. He was an Irish veterinary surgeon who would arrive in Chester at about 10 o'clock in the morning and drink a case of Worthington's Pale Ale. He would then go and buy 100 to 150 horses and, afterwards, would drink another case of Worthington's Pale Ale. Finally, he would get on the train and return to London. Apart from the fact that, clearly, very few people are able to drink two cases of Worthington's Pale Ale after breakfast and before

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lunch, the main point of the story is that he was actually able to travel to Chester after having had his breakfast and have the time to drink two cases of Worthington's Pale Ale, buy 100 to 150 horses and then catch the train back to London before he had his lunch. It is not possible to do so today, whether or not one is able to drink 24 bottles of Worthington's Pale Ale.
We hear from everyone about the deterioration of our rail services; indeed, I have heard people complain in this House and everywhere that it is an unsatisfactory situation which cannot continue in the interests of the nation. Noble Lords opposite talk about the need for an integrated system, whatever that may mean. I take it to mean a highly controlled and centrally planned system by which everyone knows where every vehicle is at any one time. That seems to me to be completely impossible. However, they do not talk about what we really want which is the most efficient system that it is possible to operate.
The current position is that vast expenditure, taxpayers' money, goes into British Rail and railway services as against our road services. The latter carry some 90 per cent. of road traffic and the rail services take some of the other 10 per cent., although not all of it. Expenditure wise, it takes half as much money as we put into the roads. That is clearly an unacceptable system. It is absorbing far more money than is justified by the freight it carries. As has already been pointed out, the amount of traffic carried is reducing both in terms of freight and people.
Clearly, there has to be—and here I admire the Government —a fresh look at how our rail system is operating, how it is run, how it is financed and how we can make it much more efficient in the use of its resources for the benefit of its customers. At the end of the day, they are the ones who decide whether or not it works.
I welcome the suggestion that there should be a Railtrack and a franchising system. I know that there has been much talk about other systems, but I believe that that is the way ahead. It is exactly the same principle as we use when we travel on road transport. The roads are paid for and owned by the state and we use them. History has proved that government-run organisations are always the least efficient. That has been shown by all privatisations. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, said about rail having certain assets that are not normally taken over, but that does not alter the fact that the actual management and running of the organisations have been considerably more efficient within the private sector than they ever were within the public sector.
The total tonnage of rail freight is equivalent to the annual increase in the road freight. When one considers the implications of that and looks to the future over the next five or 10 years, one realises that an enormous increase will take place on the roads with hardly any increase—in fact, there will be a reduction if we carry on as we are—in rail. Clearly there has to be a fresh look at how we can change that balance.
The resources that the Government are using at present are ineffective. We must have a different approach regarding how we can make the railways
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more efficient. It has not happened, as noble Lords have suggested, in all other countries in Europe. The only way that they have achieved it is by pushing enormous sums of money into it. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, made that point. The amount of taxpayers' money that has to go into running the Italian, the French and the German railways is something that we could not possibly carry in this country. They are very concerned about the way ahead. The Germans especially are looking very closely at how they must change their system; they cannot carry on as they are. They have so many complaints from their industrialists and their taxpayers that they are not prepared to continue to carry the enormous burden of running a service which, as is happening here, is carrying less and less.
One of the aspects of the Bill that I very much welcome relates to the opportunities which I see it presenting to the North-West which, as many noble Lords will know, I wish to see expand. It must use the opportunities, especially as regards the Channel Tunnel and the growing market in the EC. We are a long way from many of those markets. People use expressions such as the golden triangle or the blue banana when they discuss the rich areas of Europe. The North West is not adequately linked to those areas. Therefore we need to develop a system that permits the producers of the North West—that is the major exporting region in the British Isles to transport their products to the main markets of Europe as cheaply as possible. I believe that we can now bypass what has been an inefficient method of moving freight from the North West into Europe; that is, the railways. The railways now transport fewer and fewer of our goods and therefore we are more and more dependent on road freight. The upkeep of the motorways imposes a heavy cost on the nation. I hope that we can now create a consortium to develop a dedicated line to transport our goods. We should use the Channel Tunnel to further transport our goods to the main centres of Europe. We would encourage much greater investment in the North West if we can offer an efficient freight handling system. We need to develop main freight centres in Manchester and Liverpool.
Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, has said as regards no one being interested in the railways, I read in the paper today that GEC has invested in Eurorail. I do not believe the noble Lord, Lord Weinstock, would have made that investment without giving it considerable thought. He has decided that that investment is a sensible use of his resources. As a result of that investment Eurorail has stated that it will invest in the West Coast main line. Many of us have been asking for that investment for some time as it is necessary if we are to develop the North West.
It has been said that this privatisation is different from all other privatisations. I accept some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, but I do not see that some of the major issues involved in this matter will undergo great changes. For example, I still believe that there will be adequate safety provision and provision for carrying passengers with special needs. I believe that there will still be integrated

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routing systems and discounting procedures. I believe that those procedures will operate just as effectively in a rail network that is owned by different franchisees as they do, for example, in the airline or the road transport industries. There are fully integrated booking systems for those two industries and their safety records are good. Special provision is made for those passengers who require it and there is no need to insert special clauses in legislation to bring about that situation. It is the market place that has created the demand for those provisions and that demand has been satisfied by the industries concerned.
I welcome the Bill. I think that it is a positive step forward and that it will open great opportunities as regards encouraging people to invest joint venture capital. That is the key to this matter.
I am always delighted to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Ewing, because his presentation is so splendid, but it was a pity that the content of his speech was not equal to that presentation. I would say to the noble Lord that history has proved that privately-owned organisations motivated by people who know exactly what the consumer wants, are always the most efficient users of our resources. That has been proven in nearly every sector of our economy. The rest of the world has realised that if it is to have a competitive advantage, it must follow that route too. The Government will not find it easy to bring this measure about and that process will take time. The legislation will need to be flexible as we shall not be able to solve all the problems in the short term. In my view this Bill will be of benefit to the nation.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Shaughnessy: My Lords, I take part in this debate primarily because I have lived in a railway atmosphere for a good part of my life. My grandfather, who entered your Lordships' House in 1916, headed the first transcontinental railway in North America, the Canadian Pacific, for 24 years. He handed down an interest in, and love of, railways which has persisted.
As many speakers have asserted, this is a complex Bill. It has been altered in several significant respects in its passage through Parliament thus far, but it still contains a whole range of provisions which, if not modified, will, I fear, have a negative effect upon rail transportation in Britain long after the new regime is in place.
Historically, it has been the trains that pushed back the frontiers of the continents in North America, Russia and Australia, to mention a few. It is the railways that have been the single most important factor in commercial and industrial development in countries of smaller area but with a high concentration of population, such as Britain, before the development of road transportation.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Marsh that any proposal to split up an integrated rail system that works, even if it has some imperfections and is a considerable cost to the taxpayer, must be approached
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with the utmost caution. I have grave doubts that the measures contemplated by this Bill will produce felicitous results.
It is important to consider that all national rail systems have two distinct operational centres—the passenger service and the freight system. The public's conception of railways is largely concentrated on the passenger operation because that is what they travel on. However, the freight system is of equal and perhaps greater importance as in most national railways it is the freight haulage that generates the greatest revenue whereas passenger services in almost every case operate at a substantial loss.
According to British Rail figures for 1991–92, although the combined freight operations of Trainload Freight and Railfreight Distribution show a loss of about £60 million, the three passenger networks—InterCity, Network SouthEast and Regional Railways—had a combined loss of over £760 million. I mention those figures because in all likelihood after denationalisation it will be the freight operations that generate the bulk of the profits, if there are any.
Although the Bill provides for government subsidies to the privately franchised parts of the system, which may be initially uneconomic, the late Lord Ridley—a former Secretary of State for Transport—said in a radio interview some time ago that in the event that the franchisee found that the level of subsidy did not cover his losses, there was a danger that the Treasury, in the interest of controlling the public sector borrowing requirement, might insist that the subsidies were already too high. What happens then?
As long as the proposed privately enfranchised lines have to meet, even if indirectly, the cost of maintenance and renewal of the tracks they run over and of the signal system, they will always be at a disadvantage against their road transportation competitors who operate over highways built and maintained by taxpayers' money. Under those conditions how can the private rail operator compete? Furthermore, any failure or disruption in track viability or signal function could have a major effect upon the cost and efficiency of the franchisee's operation over which he would have no control.
In its second report, the Transport Committee in another place pointed out:
"With the notable exception of the United States and to a partial extent in Canada, national rail networks throughout the world are owned by the state".
Even in the United States and Canada passenger services are operated by federally controlled bodies, namely Amtrak and Viarail. I suggest that there is a loud message there.
There are a number of anomalies in the Bill, which I shall not dwell upon tonight but which require your Lordships' attention. The last major restructuring of the British railway system, the Beeching Report of 1963 on The Reshaping of British Rail, had a number of undesirable consequences which I believe resulted in the decline of public confidence in British Rail. Therefore, I hope that your Lordships will be

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extremely cautious about embarking upon a similar voyage again and will examine the Bill with great care in its stages through the House.
In social, political and economic terms, an integrated rail system is the spinal cord of a civilised nation. If that cord is severed and fragmented, as I fear will be the effect of this Bill, the results could be disastrous.
6.31 p.m.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, I declare an interest, as ever when we deal with railways.
Today's Bill gives us an opportunity to discuss the future role of the railways in the framework of the nation's infrastructure. Do we want a commercial railway or a social railway? That is a difficult and important choice from the passenger's point of view and a more difficult one from the point of view of the taxpayer. In parallel, do we want the freight railway to be commercial or to be a relatively low-cost benefit to industry, as is the motorway and trunk road network? Those choices are not irreconcilable, but we must be careful to give each the right weighting.
While I welcome any steps which increase rail's finances and the efficiency of rail and therefore support the strategy of the Bill in general terms, I have a number of reservations about the methods and the detail proposed by the Government.
British Rail has been in public ownership for some 45 years. During that time 23 transport Ministers have come and gone, there have been eight transport or railway Acts and 80 parliamentary reports on or touching on the railways. Those have left us with a national network which is strong on what have been referred to by several speakers as the network benefits. They have left us with a network whose efficiency is widely recognised at home and abroad. It is a network which, as the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, pointed out, costs the taxpayer relatively little in international terms. It has half the subsidy of the French railways and a third of that enjoyed by the German railways. The noble Lord also touched on Italy. If BR enjoyed the level of subsidy enjoyed by the Italian railways —which God forbid—we would not, as Sir Bob Reid once noted, have to pay fares at all.
While BR lacks new, specially constructed railways such as the TGV in France and the ICE in Germany or AVE in Spain, it still manages to run more trains at over 100 miles an hour than any other European railway, while the half-hourly frequencies enjoyed by places such as Newcastle, Bournemouth, Birmingham and Leicester are undreamt of abroad.
British Rail is often criticised for its performance, as tends to be the case occasionally on great railways, on the basis of personal experience. However, it is worth pointing out that uniquely among British public transport operators British Rail publishes its performance statistics every month at the point of sale. I travel widely, almost entirely by train because, as many noble Lords will know, I have never held a driver's licence, and I find serious delays uncommon. My arrival times are predictable, which is much more than one can often say of the motorway network, particularly in recent weeks.
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Like other noble Lords I should like to see more freight carried on the railways. The present position has as much to do with the changing structure of industry and the concentration of distribution depots along the motorway network as with good railway management. It sometimes seems to me that we have a generation of company transport managers whose status and prestige are based on fleets of lorries using a motorway network which has expanded and continues to expand to meet their needs.
One would wish to see more bulk haul traffic on rail and more co-operation with the private sector, such as in one example at Wilton, on Teesside, where a number of years ago ICI gave the land and BR put in the container terminal infrastructure, to mutual benefit. However, one has to be concerned that other unsuccessful private sector involvements, such as CharterRail and Tiger Rail, do not fill one with confidence for the future, even if the charging regime is made more favourable—and here I welcome the Government's proposals but wonder how they are to be financed. I also welcome bulk haulage concepts such as those of Mendip Rail and PowerGen, but am much more pessimistic about rail's ability to attract and keep wagon-load or container-load traffic.
Over the past 10 years British Rail has invested at record levels. In the pipeline we have mega-projects such as Union Rail, its associated London terminal, CrossRail and ThamesLink 2000. In addition, the railways—in whatever form they take post privatisation—have an ongoing investment requirement of £800 million per annum for renewal and replacement for at least the next decade. Total investment on such a scale can only be financed by harnessing additional private capital.
If the establishment of rolling stock companies or the contracting out of track and signalling maintenance brings access to private capital that should be welcomed, and one can look for continued progress. However, one must be concerned that as long as Railtrack remains in the public sector it will be constrained by Treasury targets and PSBR requirements. One could reach the Swedish situation in which operators, the franchisees, improve quality and efficiency and cut costs but find that further progress is limited by the track authority's inability or reluctance to invest.
Rolling stock leasing also has potential for generating private capital. I see no reason why the concept should not work for rolling stock. It works well for foreign railways and for airlines and ferry companies. Closer to home, it works for road haulage and company car fleets. In all those instances the concept and the legal framework are long established and well understood. In rail terms the framework is still evolving, almost as the Bill goes through your Lordships' House. It is essential that that evolution takes place quickly, for two main reasons. On the one hand, the average age of the rolling stock fleet and the lifespan of a railway coach is such that the railways will need to replace at least 200 vehicles per annum for a considerable time. On the other hand, the rolling stock industry is in a slump which could be terminal. We cannot be certain that foreign suppliers will be

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able to fill that gap because their order books are already full and because of the technical difficulty of loading gauge.
I turn now to the future operation of our railways following the enactment of the Bill. Like other noble Lords one must be anxious about the daunting array of regulatory bodies involved: the Health and Safety Executive looking after safety; the regulator as licensing authority; the franchise director determining service levels and fares and frequently involving passenger transport executives as it is my understanding that they will be co-signatories to relevant franchises when they are awarded; and Railtrack controlling access to the track. There is a real danger that the bureaucracy—and who is to pay for it?—will seriously damage rail's ability to compete with the car, the lorry, the coach or the plane.
In particular, as has been mentioned, the influence of Railtrack will impinge on the quality of the product everywhere except the Isle of Wight where there will be a vertical franchise. If the present BR rule of thumb holds good, Railtrack will fix some 45 per cent. to 50 per cent. of an operator's costs. Furthermore, it could have a very much more important day-to-day operational influence in that up to 60 per cent. of delays on British Rail nowadays arise out of track or signalling problems. If I were going for franchise, I should be very concerned about a deal where perhaps 50 per cent. of my costs were outside my control and 60 per cent. of my quality—because in effect that is what it is was vulnerable. It is hardly an encouragement to a franchisee. I would very much hope that one could look for more integrated franchises as our experience of franchising develops. I would hope for franchises which were long enough to encourage investment. I hope that Her Majesty's Government have taken a look at what is happening, for example, in Argentina where franchise agreements specify not only the operation of a service but a long-term, carefully costed investment plan.
Franchising also raises other issues. Some franchises will undoubtedly prove attractive, as has been mentioned, such as those where recent investment has been put in place. I refer to the East Coast main line and Chiltern Turbo. Others will be less so. It is worrying that if they remain in the public sector one will have a chequer-board effect in terms of quality and convenience of service.
It is wrong that the Government have asked BR to consider breaking up long-haul regional railway and InterCity cross-country services—which make economic operational and marketing sense—so that those services fit more easily into franchised patterns. Similarly, it would be a shame to break up InterCity as a marketing entity. By any standards, it is a brilliant BR invention—parenthetically I mention that in a similar context, the French innocently proffered the word "flasher"—guaranteeing a specific level of frequency and quality, and now used by numerous railways ranging from those in Norway and Denmark to Australia. Such a success is all too rare and we must work to preserve it.
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Earlier in my speech I referred to network benefits. There are a number which we must take care to preserve even if the passenger railway is split into franchises with elements remaining in the public sector.
We need a nationwide information system. In our debate on 9th June on transport in London, the Minister conceded at col. 962 of the Official Report that,
"We will … need to ensure that comprehensive information is available to passengers".
I am sure he will accept that that applies not only in London but also in the country as a whole. We need a reliable national timetable based on franchisees only being allowed to commence services or change them at set times of the year. We need a comprehensive reservation system. We need a reliable means of allocating revenue between operators. The means could be taken off the shelf from British Rail which already has the methodology to attribute a Brighton to Hull fare, for example, between the relevant subdivisions of Network SouthEast, London Transport, InterCity and regional railways. I believe that if that system can be preserved and exploited, whether it remains in the public sector or, as I understand has happened in one or two of the PTAs, is taken over by a private company, many of the worries that people will have, not so much about the rail card element but about other discounted fares, could be alleviated.
I should like to consider briefly tourism. British residents made 9.5 million rail trips in 1991 for the purposes of tourism. A further 33 million day trips cannot be overlooked. Some 9 million visitors also use rail at some point in their visit. Of those, 25 per cent. buy their tickets outside Britain, including over 100,000 visitors who buy BritRail passes. Perhaps I may give another statistic. Sixteen per cent. of InterCity's £900 million turnover comes from British or foreign tourism trips. All those customers are very welcome for marginal revenue, generally travelling off peak. They are all buying the network benefits to which I have referred. However, it is essential to both the railway and the economy as a whole that tickets, BritRail passes, Rover tickets and other facilities are readily available overseas. The tourism industry believes that Government, rather than slipping into a "let's leave it to the industry" attitude—that was demonstrated in their response to the Commons Select Committee should reconsider their position and take steps to protect that rail revenue.
My final concern is that what I call the British Rail residuary body will be left as the operator of last resort. I believe that it is wrong that with so many changes—Railtrack, franchisees, regulators, leasing and private finance to name but a few—BR staff, who are the custodians of our present rail expertise and to whom considerable tribute has been paid during the Bill's passage through the two Houses, should not be allowed to bid for franchises, as has been so successfully done by Swedish Rail in Sweden. That is a topic to which we shall surely return.
The Government's proposals for commercialising the railway are unprecedented anywhere in the world.

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I leave the Government, and the House, with the salutary thought that we have only one chance to get things right.
6.44 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, a great deal of expert opinion has been offered on the subject of today's debate, as is common in this House. Former chairmen of British Rail have participated. Former Ministers have participated and offered advice to the Government. I have rarely heard in this House a piece of Government legislation introduced that attracted so few friends. There has been continuous criticism of the Bill from all parts of the House. The Government would do well to heed those views. Inevitably, we shall be dealing with particular aspects of the Bill over the weeks ahead.
However, basically the Bill is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for one important reason. We are reminded, day in and day out, that this country is facing a severe economic crisis. The public sector borrowing requirement has got out of hand. Our balance of payments has got out of hand. The question on any piece of legislation now introduced in Parliament should be, "What will it contribute to solving those problems?" I must say to the Minister, from the comments that have been made in this House during the debate, the Bill will make no contribution whatsoever to improving the economic situation in this country at this time of need. Therefore the Bill does not deserve support on that simple principle.
My only justification for speaking on the Bill is that for 11 years I was a member of the British Railways Board, and for a similar period was chairman of Scotrail. I remember that my Minister was the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil. He did not appoint me to the board but I had served five years on the board and the Minister was good enough to send for me—a thing that rarely happens to non-executive directors in nationalised industry.
The Minister said, "Lord Taylor, I did not appoint you to the board. It was the previous Minister. But I should like to try out some ideas on you. How do you feel about separating the track from the running of the railways? Let's give BR the responsibility for the track and let's have private franchisees running the railway". I said to the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, who was then Minister for Transport—and since my five years were up anyway—"I don't think it is a very good idea. I believe that railways are a totally integrated operation, and to separate them is unwise". The Minister replied, "I'm going to appoint you to the British Railways Board for a further five years". I believe that that is somewhat indicative of where the sympathies of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, rest in this matter.
A great deal has been said about this measure which will make railways more efficient if one hands them out to franchisees. On what assumption does one base that view? The railway record of efficiency is well established. What are the comparisons of efficiency? Let us consider continental railways. Several speakers
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have referred to them today. The total train kilometres per number of staff employed is 3.42 in Britain; 1.52 in Italy; 2.46 in France; and 2.57 in Germany.
In terms of productivity and efficiency in running the railways, British Rail is ahead of the continental operators. We are doing it a disservice, if we assume that British Rail is somehow inefficient because our train was late last week on our journey home or there was some other minor little upset.
Similarly, in terms of productivity of staff, I notice that in 1980 there were 178,000 staff. Today the figure is down to about 130,000, covering the same mileage. There we have vast productivity gains in BR. Who will run the railways? Who are the magic men who will suddenly produce greater efficiency in the network? The Government are taking an unwise gamble in what they propose in the Bill.
I regret to say that at present, when British Rail has so many problems—the difficulties with the Channel Tunnel on its doorstep—and with all those problems ahead, the Bill occupies a vast amount of management time which cannot be justified. It is a big business that we are talking about, running 16,000 trains every day, with 762 million passengers in a year in a business with 130,000 staff. That is big business which requires management skill, expertise and application. Into the midst of all those responsibilities, this nonsense is injected. I say to the Government that they are doing no service to British industry by disrupting an important business in this way.
Various speakers have already mentioned the vast amount of bureaucracy involved in the new arrangements, together with 25 or 30 separate operators. We shall have five new government departments, Railtrack with its board, the franchise director, the regulator, the health and safety side. Then we shall have a joint industry board which will deal with through-ticketing. It is a vast bureaucracy which will sit on top of a major industry. No one would run an industry in that way; ICI would not do so. There will be this vast imposition of bureaucracy crippling the organisation and occupying management time and money. It is estimated that that imposition will mean at least £500 million per year in additional costs and overheads.
Thus, I believe that we ought to look at the legislation as businessmen would look at it. I have no hang-ups about privatisation. When I was on the railways board, I supported the privatisation of British Transport's hotels, to get them out of the way and let people run the railways. Hotels are a different business. They were sold in the market, far too cheaply, I may say.
With privatisation, if we go to Liverpool Street and look at Broadgate, it is a remarkable monument to the success of joint enterprise in the development of property. All such activities are to be encouraged. I have no hang-ups, no doctrinaire views about privatisation. However, this legislation is different. Why? British Telecom and British Gas were profit-making organisations; and, of course, it was easy to sell them in the market, at the market price per share. This is not that kind of business. At the end of the day, it will require a further injection of

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government subsidy. We shall have to pay people to run the railways, which is a different matter from going to the Stock Exchange and buying BT shares in a profit-making organisation, it is an entirely different organisation.
It is not within the powers of the House to reject the Bill; but—by golly!—it will be extremely difficult to make it a reasonable Bill, even with a vast number of amendments.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I seek to detain your Lordships for only a few moments and I apologise that, due to a long-standing previous engagement, I shall be away later this evening.
I am pro-privatisation of British Rail. I therefore wish to support a government Bill which achieves that objective. Why am I in favour of privatisation? There are two classical reasons for privatising which have been proved in the case of industries such as British Telecom, electricity and others. One is to get private capital into it. No one has yet found a formula whereby it is possible to get private capital into a government-owned industry which is not part of the PSBR. People have tried for years to do so. They have not succeeded and I do not think they ever will, because that is how it is defined.
Secondly, it is a question of the management. I spent four years on the Anglian board of British Rail until June last year. I must confess that it was a dismal experience. As your Lordships know, until June last year each of the six regions of British Rail had its own board consisting of the executives responsible for the region and six, seven or eight non-executive directors who basically gave their services free. I think we were paid £1,000 a year. We did it because we wanted to try to contribute to British Rail.
I am afraid that I found the management—and I speak now as one who saw it at the Anglian board level, not at the main board level, from the inside—woefully weak and inadequate. First, there is a very inward-looking culture in British Rail: the NIH (Not Invented Here) factor is strong. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, referred to it. The members are pretty undynamic and there is little imagination and innovation. Even when one can persuade them to do something, it does not always happen.
To give an example, I should be the first to pay tribute to the great achievements of British Rail in the redeveloping of Broadgate, to which the noble Lord referred, and the absolutely splendid station which we now have at Liverpool Street. It is a pride of Britain. I give much credit for it, incidentally, to a former colleague of mine at the Economist who was at that time on the main board of British Rail, Simon Jenkins. He ensured that the new technology was combined with the best of the old architecture. The result is superb.
During the inevitably difficult period of transition while the station was being built British Rail had to handle—and it managed it very well—all the passengers. I wanted people to look forward to the excitement of the new station, as we enjoyed looking
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forward to the M.25 when it was being built. We followed progress with eager anticipation. I suggested that there should be a poster on each station with three simple messages. The first was that the reconstruction was taking place, that it would be a superb station in the end and that it was being financed by redevelopment and therefore would not cost individual passengers anything. The second was that it would be a difficult time, but requesting tolerance. The third was the date on which people could anticipate using the lovely new station.
It took several months to persuade British Rail to do that; then it agreed. Nothing happened. So one waited. One was then told that British Rail had a computer system for allocating posters and that it was necessary to wait until the computer system operated. Eventually, some posters appeared on some stations. But on many stations posters did not appear. Why not? The computer system had not been programmed to include those stations—a silly example, but one of those found at the medium level on the inside. It explains why the public becomes frantic with what happens on British Rail. One sees little examples.
There was very little discipline. British Rail would use in-house staff to paint stations, for example. It was wildly inefficient. Half a dozen people would sit happily in a bus playing cards all day and no one would stop them. The job could have been done infinitely more economically by employing outside contractors. Somehow, nobody could get a grip of the situation. The administration of the board was quite appalling. The minutes were months late. We were once given a slide show with the slides upside down. The show continued to the end with the slides upside down. Working lunches were arranged but the food failed to arrive. So it went on.
Even today there are many examples of lack of proper service. As for communicating with passengers, how many times have noble Lords arrived at their destination on a train which was woefully late to hear the announcement, "We apologise for any inconvenience caused". The word "any" is rather provocative. I mentioned that fact ages ago and said that it might be better to leave out the word "any" because it implied that on the whole one should not complain. But it still goes on. Next time one is on a late train there will still be the apology for any inconvenience caused.
British Rail has just produced a timetable for my own regional line between Ipswich to Lowestoft on which all mention of eight of the 12 stations served has been totally omitted. Naturally, there has been an outcry. When asked the reason, the answer was, "It saves money. The alternative is not to have a service." One cannot accept that kind of argument. It shows a very low standard of management.
I have been lucky enough to experience another industry; namely, the electricity industry. I was a member of the Eastern Electricity Board before it was privatised. I am still a member of it. There was a very different attitude towards privatisation in that industry. The electricity people longed for privatisation and for the opportunities that it would bring. But the rail people are fearful. They feel—perhaps with

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reason —that the management will not survive in the rough, tough outside world. But I am pleased —or perhaps sorry—to say that British Rail management can set its mind at ease. It is not threatened with privatisation. It need not fear any serious entrepreneurial invaders.
The reorganisation —which, incidentally, abolished the regions and with them the regional boards so that, at a stroke, the chairman of British Rail denied himself some 40 outsiders in a business which desperately needed outside influence and advice was in a sense a poisoned pill, designed by British Rail against privatisation. The chairman, Sir Bob Reid, persuaded my right honourable friend Mr. Rifkind to suck the pill. Mr. Rifkind moved and the bait was passed to my right honourable friend Mr. MacGregor, who swallowed the pill.
I believe that the central premise of the Bill—that responsibility for the track should be split from the responsibility for operating trains—is fundamentally unsound. That point has been made from both sides of the House, pursuing totally different approaches. There are several reasons for it. First, a railway is the track, signalling and infrastructure on which trains of various sorts are run. One must doubt whether there will be serious investors prepared to invest in the best modern rolling stock for a rail track over which they have no control. Again, that point was made a number of times, particularly tellingly by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell.
There will be plenty of people who will offer fly by night services to make a quick buck, run them and then bail out. That is not desirable. It is not a good thing. For that reason at least I should be in favour of British Rail being allowed to compete for the franchises. It would be undesirable to have people of the sort I have described.
A point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Wade was that there was some analogy to be drawn with roads: a road could be publicly owned and a perfectly good commercial service could be run on it. But there is no analogy. A motorway is a much simpler proposition than a railway track. Therefore, the argument is fundamentally flawed.
I believe that the right way to privatise is by region. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, who disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, about the bad old days of the companies. Those companies had a tremendous pride. They built in this country a railway system which was the envy of the world. Its was the source of a huge export business. We built railways all around the world. Most of the South American railways were built by British engineers, British capital and British know-how.
I too have a railway background. Over a 100 years ago my grandfather started work as an apprentice at Crewe and ended up general manager of the Great Northern Railway. Of course the railways had a difficult time and one understands why they were nationalised after the war. But I do not believe that that is a reason for their not being privatised today.
As one who believes in the privatisation of British Rail, I ask whether the Bill can be improved to make it better than nothing. I fear that so far nothing that
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my noble friend the Minister or anybody else has said has persuaded me of that. Nevertheless, let us hope that some imaginative amendments will be brought forward at Committee stage. Even at this late hour let me ask the Government to reconsider the whole of this proposal. Privatisation has been very successful with such enterprises as British Telecom and British Gas; and indeed with water, where investment is being made which could never have come from the PSBR because the money would not have been available. Let us hope that we do not spoil the record of privatisation with this ill-conceived measure.
7.6 p.m.
The Earl of Glasgow: My Lords, I do not believe that I have ever felt so deeply depressed by any recent government legislation as I have done by the Railways Bill. Against all reason and most professional advice, including it seems to me the between-the-lines advice of the Transport Select Committee Report, the Government are determined to push ahead with the Bill. In the most optimistic scenario it can only give us an improved train service on the already profitable or nearly profitable lines. In the worst and most likely scenario it will give us a more expensive, fragmented and ultimately greatly reduced railway service.
Great Britain is an almost perfect size for a comprehensive railway network. The network has become an essential service and an integral part of the nation's infrastructure. It is here to get businessmen from one city to another. It is here to get commuters to work in the morning in a reasonably contented frame of mind. It is here to enable a family in Glasgow to visit grandmother in Dorset. It is here to get a farmer's wife in the Western Highlands to the shops of Inverness. It is here to get a hiker from Birmingham to the foothills of the Lake District. It can be a lifeline to the man who is out of work and who needs to travel to a neighbouring town for a job interview.
The railways are here to serve the nation and help to make it function. The rail network is one of the elements that help to make up what some might call the quality of life. It is particularly vital to the less well-off. It seems to me appalling that it should be subjected to an ill thought-out ideological experiment which, so far as I can make out, will not even save the Exchequer any money. No other country, not even Sweden, has attempted anything so irresponsible.
At present we have a reasonably comprehensive unified railway network. It can take one from Penzance to Aberdeen in 13 hours with only one change. It is not a perfect railway network. It is desperately in need of capital investment, as many noble Lords have already mentioned. But in most cases, particularly on InterCity services—and even the Government admit it—every year it improves in efficiency. Although it is presently divided into several different administrative departments—some of them are called "profit centres", which is a dreadful word —responsible for different functions or areas of the country, nonetheless it is still one unified network. Despite its well publicised shortcomings, which have been pointed out by many noble Lords on the other side, it works.

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However, the Government want to break it up into dozens of separate bits. They even want to break up InterCity, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, said, has passengers travelling at high speed from one end of the country to the other. They want to split it up into six or more different companies. That is being done, apparently, in the name of "greater efficiency through competition" and "to encourage private investment". I cannot see how the introduction of dozens of so-called competing companies can produce greater efficiency over the whole existing network. And how can it encourage substantial investment when a franchisee has no guarantee of retaining the franchise after a few years? To me it seems like the greatest act of government vandalism in recent history.
As other noble Lords have said, I am not against privatisation when it generates genuine competition, or even when it introduces more efficient management to a near monopoly like British Telecom. Privatisation in those cases can prove to be of great benefit to the community. But the breaking up of British Railways into different companies simply creates problems. It does not solve any.
There are the problems of cross-ticketing; delays as companies fail to agree deals with one another; there is the extra paperwork and red tape, which many noble Lords have mentioned; there is the problem of one company's train breaking down along the line and holding up another company's train; there is the problem of one company suing another, and there is always the possibility of one or more companies going into receivership or being suspended and a whole service being temporarily put out of action. Of course, the Government acknowledge those potential dangers and the Railways Bill gets bigger as it rightly introduces more safeguards, restrictions and conditions for the franchise director and the regulator to deal with in their determination to block up the holes and keep the Bill afloat. I cannot see how it can be anything but a disaster, and it is all so unnecessary.
But there is a more fundamental reason why the railways should not be privatised; that is, because the underlying issue is only partly to do with railways. Many noble Lords, particularly on this side of the House, have already mentioned the real issue of the lack of a comprehensive transport policy. It is surely a desired objective of all political parties to get as much traffic off the road as possible and persuade the drivers to use—I was going to say public transport, but of course I mean the railways. Just think how much money could be saved on road repairs and the non-building of new motorways if, say, one-third of the present traffic was taken off the roads. Surely the Government do not think that that could be achieved by privatising the railways. We cannot expect the private railway operators to concern themselves with saving the Government money on motorways.
Leaving freight aside, there are three essentials if we wish to persuade present motorists to take the train. Trains must be more reliable and efficient—I think everybody agrees with that. For instance, they must arrive on time and be comfortable to travel in. They
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must be convenient. In other words, they must be suitably frequent and there must be somewhere to park one's car when one arrives at the station. Most essential, they must be cheaper. To outweigh the undeniably greater convenience of the car, the rail fare must be considerably cheaper than the 30p or so a mile that motorists usually fail to take into account when they drive anywhere.
I admit that it is possible that a private company might succeed in providing a more reliable and efficient service —even a more convenient service—on specific lines; almost certainly those that InterCity are already making profitable or nearly profitable at the moment. But I find it impossible to believe that dozens of companies working separately could produce a more efficient and convenient service throughout the whole present network.
Even if that were possible, there is no way that a privatised railway could produce a cheaper service. When the Government express the hope that the Railways Bill will result in a cheaper fare structure, who are they kidding? Inevitably, fares will be kept as high as the market will bear. That is what the law of market forces is all about. That is what I do in my small business in Scotland—I charge as much as I think I can get away with; not too much or I lose customers, but as much as I think the customer will be prepared to pay. Even with the promised government subsidies to help support unprofitable lines, the operator must charge the highest fare his market will accept, otherwise he will be letting down his own shareholders. In most cases it will be the businessmen and the long-suffering commuters who will dictate what the market will bear. As long as there are enough passengers to pay the higher rate there will be no incentive for the privatised companies to artificially reduce them. It will therefore seem more economic and practical for everybody else to continue to use their cars and vans, crowd the motorways, clog up the towns and emit their toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Travelling of any sort will become less and less possible for those on low incomes.
I cannot see how privatisation of the railways, as proposed by the Government, can produce a more efficient overall network, attract substantial new investment (which everyone agrees is vital) or establish a cheaper fare structure. Only a nationalised railway industry in government control has the power, if it has the will, to introduce significantly cheaper fares and provide the necessary investment which is essential if we really wish to attract a significant number of car owners back on to the railway.
It seems that the Government have decided to abrogate their responsibility to provide a cheap and properly financed railways system and to pass as much of the burden as possible on to the private sector, whose interests are necessarily different to those of the country.
In my many activities in Scotland—I do a lot of hobnobbing with ex-Thatcherites and industrialists —I have yet to meet anyone who thinks privatisation of the railways is a good idea. Others have made this point, particularly noble Lords from Scotland. Some, like me, think it is a mistake in principle and a threat

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to our quality of life. Some think it unworkable or unlikely to be an attractive proposition to potential franchisees unless they are given a freer hand than the Government are quite rightly prepared to give them. The nearest I get to support for the Bill is from those who have had bad experiences and who say that it cannot be any worse than we have at the moment. Well, it certainly could.
I know that there are many Conservatives in the Palace of Westminster, as well as in Scotland, who are just as apprehensive about the Bill as we are on this side of the House. And so I have this probably naive hope that some of them might succeed in putting on pressure to save the Government from themselves; and that it is still not too late for the Government to change their mind.
7.17 p.m.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, much has been said, using fairly adventurous language, about the parlous state of the railways, the problems endured by passengers and even the problems endured by regional directors, such as my noble friend Lord Marlesford, the disintegrating state of government transport policy and the poor prospects for the Bill. I should therefore like to draw your Lordships' attention to a slightly different perspective. Given that some of the noble Lords who preceded me were from Scotland, it is a Scottish perspective. In response to the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, I would say that there is a lot of enthusiasm within Scotrail, for instance, for some of the opportunities which the Bill will offer.
In the 30 years since Dr. Beeching's report, Scotland's railways have seen 50 stations open or re-open. By next year that figure will have risen to 63 or possibly more. That is despite a five-fold increase in car ownership in Scotland over the same period and a vastly increased road network. Scotrail is currently attracting 50 million passenger journeys a year, with over 1 million on the Glasgow to Edinburgh route —despite the fast motorway link between the two cities. Scotrail income is above budget; earnings are up 9 per cent. on last year and 30 per cent. up, with costs 21 per cent. down over the past six years—that, despite the recession.
My noble friend the Minister mentioned the rising level of public dissatisfaction with the railways at the moment. In fact, Scotrail is the only regional network which delivered passenger charter targets on every one of its routes with customer complaints in Scotland down by 18 per cent. Those are stirring results for any modern rail system. Much is due to Scotrail's excellent management record. Also playing a part, I imagine, is Scotland's unique geography. But in this day and age such factors, important as they are, do not by themselves guarantee new lines, new passengers and a strong performance in difficult conditions.
The critical enabling factor in Scotrail's expanding network and expanding passenger base is the extent to which strategic planning and investment have been pursued in partnership with wider regional interests. It is therefore of paramount importance that government policy both within and beyond this Bill enables
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the restructured rail networks to continue to become involved in long-term, broad-based partnership opportunities.
The evidence speaks for itself. One of the most successfully integrated transport strategies is in Strathclyde. Since 1975 Scotrail has worked with Strathclyde Regional Council through its passenger transport executive on the largest rail network outside London involving 161 stations and 282 route miles. Since 1975 two lines and 17 stations have been added. By the end of this year two further lines and 10 more stations are due to open, and a further line is now in the planning stage. During the 18-year partnership joint strategic planning and close liaison have produced not only an ever-improving service year on year but have enabled the PTE to reduce its subsidy from £50 million in 1975 to £32 million in 1992–93. An improving service based on a reducing subsidy is a ringing endorsement of that partnership and represents value for money for passengers, local interests and taxpayers alike. In his opening the Minister mentioned that there was a need for railways to respond to the needs of their customers. It is just that sort of partnership that has managed to do so.
From Scotrail's operational point of view the Strathclyde-PTE partnership involves just 14 per cent. of its route miles, supports 68 per cent. of its trains and generates 42 per cent. of its annual income. This calibre of partnership deserves both respect and encouragement in government policy. In all areas of Scotrail the benefits of partnership projects are evident. Some—as in Strathclyde —are straightforward two-way ventures with a single strategic body, such as Tayside, Fife, Highland or Central regional authorities. For example, in the case of Grampian Regional Authority new stations have been opened and others have been improved. The feasibility of a cross-Aberdeen suburban service has been established, and planning for new housing around suburban stations is under way to prevent congestion in Aberdeen.
At the other end of Scotland, the Stranraer line, which Beeching wanted to close, is going from strength to strength. In the case of Dumfries and Galloway, the new stations being jointly planned include Gretna, so noble Lords will soon be able to elope for no more than the cost of a day return ticket. It must also be stressed that the regional authorities are vital in the creation of concessionary rail fares for senior citizens, the blind, the disabled and students. To Scotrail, the gross revenue from these regionally-underwritten concession schemes is £5.8 million, so it is an effective method of enabling rail travel. It is also further proof of the wide benefits that can result from close partnerships between railways and regional authorities. Joint ventures with multiple partners are rarely as simple, but they remain significant. A prime example is the re-opening of the Bathgate line in 1986 where Scotrail was involved with Lothian region, the district council, Livingston New Town, central Government and the EC. However, the benefits have been huge and exceeded all expectation with half a

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million passengers being handled in the first year. Two further lines are planned in central Scotland on the same multi-partner basis.
It goes without saying that creating half a million rail journeys from scratch benefits rail users, non-users, businesses and the environment alike. Job and residential opportunities widen, road congestion and road accidents ease and the land-take and funding required for road improvements are reduced, as are energy consumption and air pollution.
The economic and environmental benefits of all partnerships are clear. However, it is important to emphasise the significant advantages enjoyed by simple partnerships between two strategic bodies. The Scotrail-Strathclyde PTE venture owes much of its success to Scotrail representing a rail network within a region and the PTE having a complete overview of that region, a single source of funding for that region and an ability to initiate and develop strategic priorities across that region. It is more difficult for those joint bodies that incorporate multiple interests and multiple funding sources to act with the same unity of purpose, momentum or flexibility. A telling illustration of this is the completed South Fife to Edinburgh Rail Study which has involved Scotrail, Fife and Lothian regional councils, Fife Enterprise and the Scottish Office. With Scotrail currently handling 60 per cent. of the peak commuter traffic across the Forth, the study proves the strategic case, on economic and environmental grounds, for three extra stations and new rolling stock. The co-operation between the numerous partners has been crucial, but the £7½ million needed to implement the scheme is still being sought.
That does not compare favourably with Strathclyde where, for instance, Scotrail and the PTE have a £51 million scheme to re-open 13 stations; nor does the delay in funding make sense given the growing pressure for a new Forth road bridge at a cost of some £300 million to £400 million. This situation supports the case for a strategic PTE around the Forth transport hub similar to that which exists around the Clyde. The argument for an additional PTE is strengthened yet further if one considers the multi-partner scheme proposal for new stations, new rolling stock and new time-tabling in the context of this Bill. Instead of Scotrail sitting down with four outside partners, as has happened, the gathering will consist of the two regional councils, one enterprise body and the Scottish Office with the franchise operator, Railtrack, the franchise director and possibly the regulator. In addition, the operator will have to involve one of the separate leasing companies as well as consider with any franchise partners to what extent it is worth investing in a scheme given the diminishing period of the franchise. Similarly, the Scottish zonal office for Railtrack will presumably have to liaise with the London headquarters.
I have not cited this example because I am opposed to the Bill. I support the Bill in principle, and I know that there are those within the railways who also support it. I cite it because it illustrates that there is already a need for a PTE around the Firth of Forth,
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and that the effects of this Bill can only intensify that need. It illustrates by default and through comparison with the Scotrail-Strathclyde PTE partnership the benefits that evolve where rail interests and a single transport authority can integrate planning and investment.
There is perhaps one further conclusion; namely, that co-ordinating planning and investment may also be easier where the rail operator has some control over the management and running costs of his own infrastructure. This involvement need not involve full vertical integration, despite what other noble Lords have said, but in Scotland, more than any other area outside the Isle of Wight, there is a sensible case for involving the operator to a greater degree in his own infrastructure. It would enable a more strategic, swift and flexible response to opportunities and a much simpler allocation of responsibilities with project partners and passengers.
To date the level of rail investment committed by Scottish authorities and the Strathclyde PTE has been impressive. I therefore welcome the assurances provided both in the Bill and by my noble friend about their continuing involvement and the safety of their investment as franchises come and go. If a rail network that integrates effectively and efficiently with wider interests can maximise its potential, the role of the strategic transport authority as a provider and partner takes on greater significance not only in the Bill but also from the point of view of additional proposals for local government reorganisation. That will have an impact on networks such as Scotrail which has worked so closely with regional bodies. The advent of a greater number of smaller single-tier authorities in their place can only complicate the opportunities for strategic rail partnerships unless, as the Government consultation document recognises, transport planning is assigned to larger bodies. That must be the case, especially around transport hubs such as the Clyde and Forth.
Given the widespread benefits that accrue from integrated transport policies for operators, users, non-users and so forth, the final point I make concerns the Scottish Office. I believe that both because of this Bill and local government reorganisation now is the time to take a fresh look at how railways in Scotland are funded. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport spoke about creating Scotland's railways, yet unlike Scottish roads, where funds are controlled and allocated by the Scottish Office, funds for the rail network will continue to be controlled from London.
If one accepts the need for a strategic approach to transport planning, it is hard to dispute that the rail budget should be devolved to the Scottish Office and either separately ring-fenced or brought together with the roads budget. There has been some resistance to date on the grounds that separating out the Scottish PSO allocation in order to hand it to the Scottish Office would expose the level of subsidy to Scottish rural routes and that that may lead to Sassenach accusations that the Scots are getting too much. In the past I have had some sympathy with that argument, but the Bill will introduce a comparable level of

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transparency so that the logic of that argument no longer applies. If we cannot enjoy the peace that comes from obscurity we may as well have greater control over our destiny. A detailed assessment of the funding of individual rail services has to be made by the franchising director in liaison with, among others, the Government. In England it makes sense for this liaison to be with the Department of Transport because of that department's existing responsibilities for parallel parts of the infrastructure.
In Scotland it is the Scottish Office which judges the parallel priorities controlling, for example, a roads budget of £448 million in 1991–92. It is the Scottish Office's industry department which is principally concerned with inter-urban movement. Its current focus may be primarily on roads, which is the main competing mode to rail, but this is the body that could most effectively take a single transport funding overview of both road and rail requirements in Scotland in the same way as the Department of Transport does in England. With revenue support grants for rail services being such an important component of transport policy, and rail services generally catering for flows of more than local significance, it makes sense to bring decisions on the PSO allocation to the same body that makes decisions on the trunk roads.
It is the Scottish Office, therefore, not the Department of Transport, which is in a better position to act as liaison with the franchise director on the rail allocation. In addition, the strategic influence that this would give the Scottish Office would be particularly welcome where the franchising director is having to deal, through lack of a PTA, with a large number of smaller authorities. This will be of especial importance after local government reorganisation.
On rail initiatives generally, it has often been the regional authorities in partnership with Scotrail that have developed policies aimed at reducing urban congestion and reducing long-distance car commuting by promoting and investing in rail services in and out of the major cities. After local government reorganisation the only sensible strategic viewpoint outside a PTA will be in the Scottish Office. It is there that control of the rail allocation must reside.
In all these aspects, the Scottish Office embodies sufficient proximity to respond sensitively to local and regional requirements while retaining sufficient breadth of responsibility to incorporate wider strategic objectives. From a more political perspective, delegating the Scottish PSO to the Scottish Office conforms to the subsidiarity principle; it could be used as part of the Government's professed aim of increasing the remit of the Scottish Grand Committee; and it may become significant if EC funds are available to infrastructure obligations which are clearly a regional responsibility.
Because of this Bill there are some very strong grounds for welcoming the PSO to control by the Scottish Office. There are some very strong grounds for introducing further PTEs, especially one around the Forth. And there are the strongest possible grounds for maintaining the opportunities for rail
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networks to become involved in strategic co-partnerships with wider bodies. Given their successes, they must continue to function whatever the future framework of the railways.
The proposed early franchising of Scotrail will make Strathclyde the first PTE in Britain to be involved in the new structure. Because it has had such an important role, and has achieved so much, it is vital that all parties get the new structure right. The new arrangements for rail and local government must not forfeit such productive co-operation.
My noble friend the Minister borrowed a quote from the Economist that stated that the strength of the MacGregor proposals lies in their flexibility. I agree. This flexibility, however, must extend to the partnership schemes achieved north of the Border. As Scotrail has shown, they are the most effective and prudent mechanisms for putting passengers and trains back on the tracks.
7.32 p.m.
Lord Greenway: My Lords, although sorely tempted, I do not intend at this late hour to go into the pros and cons of the privatisation of the passenger business. Instead, I shall concentrate my few remarks on the freight side of the railway business.
We all know—and many noble Lords, including the Minister, have referred to it already this afternoon —that freight has been leaving rail steadily for a long time in favour of road, leading to our highways becoming increasingly clogged by juggernauts, to the detriment and frustration of all of us who have to use them. I had the misfortune to have to drive up the A.1 the other day to Newcastle. I was simply appalled at the number of lorries which totally blocked the dual carriageway virtually all the way. Some way has got to be found, both for economic and, increasingly importantly, for environmental considerations, to get more freight back on to the rails.
The freight industry as a whole favours the privatisation of the freight side of the rail business; but in order for the Government (who, to be fair, recognise the need to carry more freight on rail) to achieve their aim, there has to be a great deal more clarity in relation to how we are to proceed. There are still far too many areas shrouded in grey mist or even (dare I say it?) in the wrong type of snow.
Quite apart from any potential investors, our sea ports, which play an important part in the movement of freight and which have a long historic connection with the railway, are profoundly worried about the uncertainty of the immediate future as proposed by the Bill. What, for instance, is to happen to the Freightliner service which carries containers from the ports to the inland depots. Uncertainty also exists with regard to the future of rail freight distribution.
The Government have announced that the private sector is to be asked how it might become more involved in the Freightliner business of British Rail. Perhaps I may make a plea that Britain's ports, and especially the larger container ports, are offered a major role in this consultation process. The network that emerges from these very necessary changes will affect freight transport for many years to come. I

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understand that there are already moves within the ports industry to discuss just what kind of network and private sector rail system should emerge from the consultation and there may even be a possibility at a later stage of a port-led joint venture company.I connot stress too highly the importance of consultation throughout the privatisation process, both with our ports and with other organisations such as the Rail Freight Group, the British International Freight Association and the Railway Industry Association.
Above all, we must recognise that there is great potential for rail freight volumes to increase, so long as rail routes between ports and inland terminals continue to be provided by Railtrack. The port of Felixstowe, for example, currently handles more than 1.2 million containers a year but only 140,000 of those go by rail. Provided access charges are modest, there is no unearthly reason why that number should not easily be doubled. But that will happen only if customers have the confidence that the railways can offer a quality service with the kind of flexibility that British Rail is just unable to provide at the moment. But it must be a service at a competitive price and we simply must ensure that a new culture is brought to rail freight to reduce charges. To be fair, the. Government have already made encouraging moves in another place in bringing forward measures to assist with track revenue charges and freight facilities. Those are most welcome; but will they be sufficient? However, any new charging system must be both fair and transparent and must encourage optimum use of less heavily used track.
I should like to address my remaining remarks to the question of open access. It is a principle which all in the freight industry welcome; but there is one aspect of open access which concerns some port authorities which already own private railheads as well as other private sector companies which operate their own depots. The Bill makes provision for mandatory open access, at the direction of the regulator, to maintenance depots providing repair, maintenance and overhaul services for wagons and locomotives. The breadth of this provision is such that private sector companies, some of which have already invested substantial sums of money in private rail maintenance facilities, are now being threatened with the prospect of those facilities being subject, at the direction of the regulator, to mandatory open access by others, including possibly competitors. It is the belief of many in the private rail freight sector that certain amendments are required to make a clearer distinction between those BR depots forming a constituent part of the BR network at the time of Royal Assent and private rail maintenance depots.
The effect of any amendments must be to exempt current and future private rail maintenance facilities and railheads, such as those in our ports, from mandatory open access by other parties. The virtue of open access to those BR maintenance facilities existing at the time of privatisation will be retained and the important principle of all rail maintenance facilities needing to be licensed will be preserved.
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To conclude, whatever mauling this complex Bill may receive in Committee—and to judge from some of the speeches we have heard this afternoon, it is in for a fairly rocky ride —let us at least get the freight side of it right.
7.38 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: My Lords, I am one of those who stands up and says, "I welcome the Bill". I welcome it with enthusiasm because it shows that the Government have recognised that there is a problem with the railways. However, I have to say that the purpose of the Bill—to try to put things right, as explained by my noble friend the Minister—probably slightly conceals the fact that a good part of the exercise is designed to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement. But I am doubtful whether that is a valid reason for all that is being attempted.
Certainly, with the way the railways are organised at the moment, when anything goes wrong the Government get the blame. One turns on television at breakfast time and there is a burly man—persuaded believe by virtues of the Benches opposite—saying in a very loud voice, "What are the Government going to do about it?" As usual with government, there is absolutely nothing that can usefully be done about it.
Then, of course, there is the great business with the Treasury second guessing, and so on, all the way down to an investment decision. That causes a great deal of administrative delay. It is rather like our local maternity hospital which built a magnificent new delivery suite. It was 10 years in gestation. It was built just at the time when all the storks were killed by the pill. The building was never used and a great deal of money was wasted.
Unfortunately, this Bill is far too complicated. It is excessively complicated in its legal and operational arrangements. I venture to suggest that it deserves the rebuke given, I believe, by the grandfather of my noble friend Lord Brabazon to an aircraft designer. When he was asked his opinion of the aeroplane he said it would not fly. Those were the days when, if one was really knowledgeable, one could tell by looking. When the designer asked "What shall I do about it?" the answer was "Simplify and add more lightness". That is what this Bill needs.
When one hears that there may be as many as 160,000 agreements required to fully franchise British Rail, let us imagine that we have frightful, cheap-jack lawyers costing about £1,000 each. That is £160 million, if I had counted the noughts right. Who is going to pay for that? Why, the passengers, if any. So this Bill has to be simplified.
Another aspect is that, when looking at the Bill, the budget of the franchise director with which he supports franchisees will be used by the franchisees whom he chooses to pay in part their Railtrack bills. There is a fixed limit put on the franchise director's budget. Where does that lead us? It is a very curious situation where one has spent all his budget and cannot increase it and the other is asking for more because he has been told to earn a proper rate of return on his assets. That seems to me likely to cause the most frightful interdepartmental struggle

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Some noble Lords may remember that I introduced last year the Bill with the dullest title which has troubled your Lordships for some time. That was the Gas (Exempt Supplies) Bill. The only reason I mention that is because it was to do with two regulators quarrelling with each other. Hopefully, that will be resolved tomorrow. But it has nothing like the complication which exists in this business.
Perhaps I may mention just a little of the flavour of the legal complications of the Bill. Clause 6 states that "no person shall own a network, a station or a light maintenance depot." Does that mean that he may own a heavy maintenance depot provided that he does not do light work? What does it mean? It is absolutely meaningless. If he is found owning one of those facilities he can go to prison or be fined the maximum amount, provided that my noble friend the Lord Advocate or other person agrees. That seems an excessive way of going about the matter so I shall not bore noble Lords any more with that.
With the Treasury second guessing investment decisions there has been a very great reluctance to invest. It has been rightly said by many noble Lords, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, and others with great experience, that we lag behind the amount spent on the railways in Europe. It is fair to say that they have probably got it slightly more right' than we have. We have under-invested.
We have also very much under-invested in electrification. The case to be made for that is very strong and is increasingly so. Yet throughout the time I have been interested in railways, investment has only been achieved with great difficulty. The recently electrified main line to Edinburgh was thought of in the 1930s. It reminds me of what was said about people in charge of investment decisions in the Treasury. They really felt that electrification was almost a kind of secret vice like enjoying high tea. So the case for electrification never got a fair hearing.
The mega-projects have grabbed all the investment money. It is not really open to my noble friend the Minister to say that record levels of investment are taking place because while that of itself is true, it is not true of the existing railways. It is the new railway which is getting the money and we have still not solved the problems of maintaining the old.
We have this Bill and it has stalled investment but investment has to continue. We have to make sure that there are adequate forward programmes for rolling stock. The £150 million is welcome, but nothing has happened yet in terms of a solid order or even any agreement—unless I am out of date—as to what rolling stock is to be ordered with it.
Noble Lords will have noticed that there is a wholly disproportionate number of Scots here today. Four of us from Fife have spoken in this debate. I shall mention Scotrail briefly. It should be vertically integrated. However, my feeling is that the infrastructure should remain in the ownership of the Government, but the track and signalling, and those parts which are required to run the railway, should be within the ambit of Scotrail for the very good reasons advocated by my noble friend Lord Lindsay, who set it out in excellent detail. That will also help with the
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PTEs, which is very valuable. I shall not repeat his argument because it was too good not to be true. He put it forward very well.
Finally, I once asked the Scottish Office as to why it was it did not "do" railways. The Minister at the Scottish Office at the time said that he did not think he could remember but it certainly seemed right then. I am quite sure that Scotrail and the Scottish Office should be the operative system and that we should not have Railtrack, as understood generally within this non-flying Bill, in Scotland. That is the answer. We must simplify and lighten the whole Bill for the good of everybody; and within Scotland we have particular scope for doing so.
7.47 p.m.
Lord Howell: My Lords, first, perhaps I may apologise to your Lordships for being absent for an hour while I was attending and participating in the memorial meeting for Lord Underhill. As I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, will agree, there were several references to this debate and its appropriateness at that meeting. It was a very splendid and striking occasion. I thought that a word about it would be of interest.
The splendid speeches which have been made, covering almost every conceivable argument against the Bill—not least the devastating speech of the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, a former chairman of British Rail, and the speeches of my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers and of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, from the Cross Benches—mean that there is very little left to say.
Therefore, I thought that I would engage in a little theological dissertation for a moment or two in view of the fact that for the whole of the debate we have had the presence of right reverend Prelates. However, as is my good fortune, the moment I rise to speak about theological matters, they depart. Nevertheless, I shall not be dissuaded on that account.
The church which I attend has a great connection with steam railways and steam. The vicar, the Reverend Denis Claringbull, holds a steam festival and service each year which is attended by thousands of people. There is a great traditional interest in these matters. After church last Sunday, I had a disputation with him about the nature of prejudice, particularly prejudice arising from hidebound political theories such as we have in this Bill. I was hoping that a right reverend Prelate would adjudicate between my vicar's view—that this sort of political prejudice should be described as "dogma"—and my lay view, which is that it should be described as "theological". The vicar told me that it could not be theological because theology concerns itself with original sin and redemption and that therefore dogma was the proper description.
I am suffering another piece of bad luck. I wanted to make this comment to the House having listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who is also not in his place. I regret that I shall have to reply to his speech in his absence. The noble Lord made an extraordinary speech from which the only conclusion to be drawn was that people who work in the public sector, providing public services such as

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railways must be suffering from some form of original sin, being totally devoid of any connection with the profit motive and therefore unable to provide the quality of service which the public are entitled to expect. It is an extraordinary argument. I was hoping to ask the noble Lord whether he extended that theory to doctors, nurses, teachers and other people in public service or whether it was a doctrine of original sin that concentrated specifically on people who work in the railway service. However, that will now have to wait until another time.
As your Lordships will note, I believe that the Bill is a nonsense from beginning to end. I do not think that it has a redeeming feature. However, my greatest criticism is made as a realist, not a theorist. The Bill will not work in practice. The type of railway organisation which it seeks to present to the country, breaking up the network into 20 separate units, will destroy any national coherence in the industry. As we have heard, all the new companies in the 20 units will have to be regulated in considerable detail. Indeed, the Government have now had to concede that point. Regulators of one sort or another will exercise such detailed control over those companies by Acts of Parliament and regulations that I doubt whether they. will ever attract any investment. I believe that that was one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh. I hope that the Minister will tell us how he is getting on in attracting people to invest. We all know that all the potential investors seem to be getting cold feet—and for very good reasons. But we need to be told.
I agree that the Prime Minister's own plan of returning to the old and ancient structures of the Great Western, the London Midland and Scottish; the London, North-Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway, seems much more sensible, although I accept the judgment of the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, that that structure was even more impracticable than this scheme.
The proposed system makes no proper technical provision for train staff. It will certainly increase fares and it fails to ensure any statutory provision for a national network of concessionary fares, about which we should all be concerned. Indeed, it is impossible to find anyone who wants this Bill. Whatever we think of the merits of renationalisation—and the Labour Party has gone a long way recently in saying that most of the former nationalised industries will not be renationalised—I am absolutely certain that if the Bill goes through, this industry will have to be renationalised by a future government because of the total chaos that will have occurred.
I do not know whether during my absence any noble Lord quoted the pertinent remarks of Sir Peter Parker, one of the more outstanding chairmen of British Rail. He wrote in the Guardian:
"Potential operators will not 'own' the service but have a short term franchise. The timetable will be specified by the franchise director, track charges and train paths will be owned by a leasing company while fares will be controlled. The driver, signal man and platelayer will work for separate companies".
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That was a damning indictment of the scheme by Sir Peter. Taken together with the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, it should convince the Government to withdraw the Bill and start all over again.
I am indebted to a very old railway friend of mine who served on the NUR executive, Mr. George Sharrat, who now lives in Southport. He wrote me a long letter the other day based on his personal experience as an operator. I should like to know what the Minister has to say about it. Mr. Sharrat refers to matters which are essential practice now on the railways in one company. He states that train crew organisation is of vital importance and is responsible for the implementation of 60 per cent. of railway safety regulations. The other 40 per cent. is shared between signal men and the permanent way staff. When drivers and guards report for duty, a train crew supervisor must be present to observe every man signing on. He must ensure that no employee who is about to take out a train is under the influence of drink or drugs, is suffering from any illness or is emotionally distressed in any way, having regard to the fact that such employees will be in charge of trains carrying hundreds of passengers. The train crew supervisor must ensure that every man is in possession of all relevant notices for that day's working. He must know about any changes in train movements that day. He must carry the BR rule book and hand lamps. It is vital that he signs the route card and protects those records in case of any disaster.
Mr. Sharrat asked me where such provisions are statutorily laid down in the Bill. He wants to know how we can ensure that all those absolutely essential practices will be carried out by the new companies that will operate the railway system. I took note of what the Minister said when he referred to safety. He said that all such provisions would be laid down in Clause 110 and that they would be operated by the Health and Safety Executive. Naturally, I have looked at Clause 110, but I find that it is woolly in the extreme. It makes no specific reference to any of those matters and does not tell us how such provisions will operate. Therefore, I have to ask the Minister whether he can find an answer to the question of whether all the orders covering all the matters that I have raised in detail will be placed before this House and the other place. Will they be debated? I ask that because we, just as much as anyone else, have an obligation to ensure the safety of the public.
I turn now to concessionary fares. The extent of the problem posed by concessionary fares seems hardly to have been imagined by noble Lords who have spoken so far. There are 700,000 Senior Railcards in operation. There are 700,000 Young Persons' Railcards; 250,000 Family Railcards; 740,000 London Travelcards; 600,000 NetWork Cards and 55,000 gold partners' cards, whatever they are. That adds up to 2.3 million travel cards in operation at the moment. Even from a party political point of view, I should have thought that a government trying to save their future, as this Government certainly are at the moment, would not wish to deny 2.3 million people and their families by putting all that at risk.

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We know that before the Newbury by-election the Secretary of State was forced, reluctantly, by Conservative Back Benchers in the other place, to announce that he would take some steps to protect the rail card system. What he announced goes no way towards protecting those 2.3 million people who now have the cards. The concessions he made, although welcome, are inadequate. Let us imagine all 20 different companies trying to make money out of the railway system, as the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, has just said. How can they be forced to operate all the interchangeable fare arrangements and all the national travel card systems? There must be legislation if we are to achieve that safeguard. I know that the argument is that they will want to continue them because it will be in the financial interest of their companies to do so. That may happen for the first month or year of the scheme, but we are dealing with a scheme which will continue, if the Government have their way, well into the future.
It is our duty, through the Bill, to protect such schemes for 10, 20, 30 or more years. That can only be done by putting the safeguard into statute. There must be some statutory protection for those concessionary fares.
No doubt other noble Lords have received a copy of the letter that I received today from the Railway Industry Association which asks questions about investment. I can do no better than to put it on the record. It represents the companies working in the railway industry. It claims that massive job losses are likely to follow if the Bill is enacted. It states:
"Public investment is reducing rapidly. Much British Rail investment in 1992/93 was spent on works linked to the Channel Tunnel project. Domestic investment, on the existing railway, was estimated at £987 million in 1992/93 and is projected by British Rail to reduce to £543 million in 1993/94 and £636 million in 1994/95".
It claims that there is a shortage of public money and that £13 billion needs to be spent within a decade to meet the needs of British Rail. That again is a forceful contribution to our thinking. It also tells us that there are great anxieties about a number of questions. The letter adds:
"Will the existing centrally-planned investment wither with nothing to replace it? Will the desired private investment actually happen? How long will it take before such private investment materialises and companies have a solid long term order book? Will there be an investment hiatus forcing companies to close some or all their manufacturing capacity?"
The anxieties about the railway system we are to have are not concentrated solely in the railway industry; they apply in all the supplying industries which fear the worst.
The transport challenge of this country is to take traffic off the roads and on to rail. That requires massive investment. The Bill does not seem to provide for that investment. I do not believe that the private sector, which it is hoped will substitute for the public sector, will be able to do so. In terms of national needs, I believe the Bill will be totally irrelevant.
8.4 p.m.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, although this challenging and interesting Bill is about the way the railways are organised and funded, and proposes very important
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changes which we shall have to consider carefully in Committee, it is essential to look at the impact upon the passenger. As most passengers on the current British Rail services travel on the less profitable regional railways and Network SouthEast services, we must not ignore the effects on those services. It is no exaggeration to say that they are the lifeblood of our cities—London and elsewhere—and of many rural communities, as we well know when we are without services due to disputes and bad weather, such as the great storm of 1987.
Many of the local services provided by regional railways are run in partnership with the passenger transport authorities and executives in the seven largest conurbations outside London; namely, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Midlands and Strathclyde. On those services, the PTA and PTE decide what trains will be run, what the frequency will be and how much the fares will be. They also have a major role to play in decisions on investment in the future of the networks in their areas. That partnership has resulted in investment of over £600 million in rail services over the past 15 years.
On the ground, the fruits of that work can be seen. For example, to name but a few of the many vital improvements to the rail services in the cities, there are the underground electric services in Merseyside; Manchester's new airport rail link; the new stations and interchanges in South Yorkshire; the Tyne and Wear Metro; the cross-city electrification in Birmingham; and the Bradford, Ilkley and Skipton electrification in West Yorkshire; and, last but not least, the Ayr electrification in Strathclyde, where passenger levels have increased by 60 per cent. I was delighted to hear my noble friend Lord Lindsay say that there might be another PTE in the Lothian region. That is something that should be considered.
I have long been a supporter of the concept of the PTAs and PTEs and an admirer of their achievements; and I welcome the fact that the Bill recognises their role and proposes to retain it under the new arrangements. Here I must declare a personal interest as a consultant.
However, there are still some concerns about how the partnership will work in practice under the Bill. A number of undertakings have been given in another place by Ministers; but the Bill has not been amended to meet them. Those issues include the role which PTAs and PTEs will play in the franchising process. The future of their ability to offer reduced rate concessionary fares to children and the elderly on all railway services in their areas regardless of whether they are franchised or not. The way in which disputes between the franchising director and the PTA/PTE, which we trust will not arise often, will be dealt with. The future protection of investments which have been funded by the PTAs and PTEs, including many of the schemes that I have already mentioned. And the future cost of local rail services and how any increases caused by the Bill would be funded.
I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give me some positive response on the subject of

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government amendments in Committee to deal with those issues. If he cannot, I would need to give very serious consideration to tabling amendments myself.
I also have an interest in the effects of the Bill on the men and women who work for British Railways, a point dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and who must be understandably very concerned about many aspects of their future careers. They will be keeping the services running in the period up to the time they are franchised. The process of creating the franchises and transferring staff to them will create many difficulties and I hope that the Government will consider carefully how they can ensure that services are provided effectively in the transitional period.
Following on from that, I have two worries about the ability of the franchise operator to survive—something which may well deter established entrepreneurs from submitting bids. The first relates to open access. At any time after a franchise is let, and the franchisee agrees a price or subsidy with the franchise director, some other operator—I was going to say "predator" but to be kind I shall say "operator"—could run trains at prime times and on popular routes which must affect the franchisee's income plan. What can he do to balance his costs?
Secondly, if the economy turns downwards after the letting of a franchise, it is not clear to me at the moment what financial levers the franchisee can pull to keep in business. Railtrack is unlikely to reduce its access charge, and the franchise director will not have the money to help him. Will he be allowed to reduce the service; or, sadly, if it becomes insolvent, will the railway cease to run? Obviously, we want the most competent managers to run our railways in the future. I hope that this will not deter them from coming in to operate them.
Finally, I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the Bill makes little mention of the fact that major investment, especially in infrastructure, will be necessary to keep the railways in operation for years to come. I hope that during our consideration of the Bill my noble friend the Minister will be able to assure us that investments will continue to take place at an adequate level, and that the complicated organisations which the Bill creates will not serve to stifle investment.
8.11 p.m.
Lord Broadbridge: My Lords, I speak in this Second Reading debate simply to make a number of random but heartfelt points. I am not a great railway specialist, as are others who have spoken; nor am I a pedestrian like the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans. Indeed, I walk, cycle, drive and catch trains. Occasionally I am airborne. But while agreeing with much that the specialists have said, I respectfully bear in mind on their behalf the old warning that the prophet is never received in his own country.
The railways' future must be seen in a very broad context embracing pollution and the environment, safety, flexibility and availability, cost to the traveller and the whole industry which supports it. That brings me to my first point.
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As we have heard from the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Teviot, the Railway Industry Association is arguably, and I believe convincingly, desperately worried about the demand for all the material and services that it supplies. It has 60 member companies employing nearly 30,000 staff in all parts of Britain. Very strategically, the railway supply industry is one of the few British industry groups which still has a majority market share of UK sales. It exists to supply Britain's railways with trains, track, signalling, power lines and everything from ticket machines to telecommunications, and to export British-made equipment extensively overseas. Unless supported in some way, it must surely be some time before the franchisees of a newly-privatised railway system build up the kind of level of capital required to be able to purchase railway stock and services at the present level of investment, let alone at the much higher level actually required and for which privatisation is recommended in the Bill in the first place.
Is there not, therefore, a grave danger of an investment hiatus? This would be disastrous for the member companies of the Railway Industry Association. It stated unequivocally in oral evidence given to the recent Transport Select Committee in another place that the present Bill's proposals, if carried through unamended, could annihilate the industry with an estimated 15,000 jobs lost due to lack of orders and the uncertainty created by the Bill. Indeed, 1,500 jobs have been lost already this year as a direct consequence of the absence of new orders.
Railway supply, both at home and in fiercely competitive overseas markets, is something we do extremely well. It would be a tragedy if the UK suppliers' position were to be undermined. A solid, long-term order book is the only route to survival and I do not see that happening in the mid-1990s. The Select Committee published its report on 27th April, only seven weeks ago. In its recommendations it calls:
"upon the Government to address as a matter of extreme urgency the problem of the hiatus in railway investment in order, first, to arrest the decline in the quality of the railway system and, secondly, to ensure that sufficient manufacturing capacity survives into the late 1990s to service Railtrack and the operating companies when they find themselves in a position to place orders".
Secondly, I am deeply worried also for the future of timetabling. By analogy with the privatised bus companies, in Sheffield, which I know well, it used to be possible before deregulation to buy a timetable for the whole city which lasted for a year. Now times are subject to change on an almost weekly basis. An infrequent but dependent user—say, a disabled person travelling to hospital for an outpatient appointment —can be left in the pouring rain, an icy gale or both because the bus is 45 minutes later than last time; or, even worse, earlier so that it has already gone.
Unlike many overseas countries, Britain has rejoiced in the ability to plan a rail journey given, first, by Bradshaw and now by the ABC backed up by an excellent main line station inquiry service. But if privatised operators keep changing the times, as they do with the Sheffield buses—and as we were assured they would not be allowed to—chaos and discomfort will result. Timetable inquiries merely give the***

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engaged signal as a result of attempted questioning by anxious travellers. And that is provided that they can find the correct number to ring. There must be a national published timetable available to passengers and covering all services, as we have heard. Good connections and facilities for the disabled, luggage and bicycles should also be guaranteed in any new regime.
Thirdly, and allied to this, is the absolute desirability that through-ticketing should continue, together with centralised seat reservations. We must retain our system-wide information services and train inquiry points if passengers are not to suffer confusion and annoyance.
Fourthly, apportioning compensation liability when, in the broadest terms, things go wrong will present tremendous problems and require huge administrative effort. The difficulty of transferring current legal obligations, of which there are thousands, to a new franchised and Railtrack system have been said to be almost insuperable, and there is a danger that claims will be met by buck-passing between the operators, Railtrack and others. It takes long enough to get satisfaction out of the present British Rail— and it is the only other party involved.
Fifthly, I am worried that safety on the railways will be a great deal less secure than at present. There will be many fingers in the pie; for example, private operators with little or no experience in railway safety procedures, Railtrack, the regulator, the franchise director, residual British Rail and the Health and Safety Executive just for a start.
In conclusion, I give my tentative support to the Bill if only because I cannot think of a better way of handling the future of our railways. Almost everyone agrees that the key requirement in improving our railway system is greater investment in infrastructure and rolling stock. The state cannot provide this, it being generally agreed that public sector borrowing must be reduced at all costs. No doubt the emotional and industrial Luddites will ask, "Why can't we just leave things as they are and just sail along as before?". That is not an option; there is no money. Therefore, a radical solution is required.
The Bill can be a force for good, creating a new era of innovation and investment. It can also be a force for fragmentation and haphazard investment, endangering passengers and, in particular, as already mentioned, the supply industry. As yet the evidence points down the second route; the markets have so far been unimpressed by railway privatisation. The recent track record— not wishing to pun— is not encouraging. There has been no agreement yet on a £400 million contribution towards the £1.8 billion Jubilee Line extension, which gained Royal Assent more than a year ago.
The Bill, by analogy with the game of golf, is stacked full of bunkers into which the passenger, who must be paramount, can be driven. I hope that by constructive and radical amendment passengers can be offered fairways rather than bunkers. In this hope, and in the hope that the Government will be forewarned by all that is said today, I wish the Bill a Second Reading.
8.20 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, the great Austrian composer, Anton Bruckner, wrote a number of symphonies. Many of them were very beautiful and most were extremely long. I should not describe the Bill as beautiful but with 140 clauses and 13 schedules, it is long and confusing.
Not surprisingly, I am in favour of competition whether it is in connection with the railways, water resources or anything else. But this Bill strikes me as being neither one thing nor the other. It is not out and out privatisation— I use that awful word— but a franchising measure. That word has cropped up in the English language and it is rather confusing to understand for someone like myself who is not connected with the railways.
I am something of a railway buff. As a child I used to travel in the school holidays to the Highlands of Scotland. When I travel to Scotland by rail now it is almost always on business by InterCity to Glasgow and Edinburgh. I travel rarely, but when I do I find that it is an extremely good service. It is much better than flying because at Heathrow and Gatwick one must walk for miles. If one travels by rail, one goes from the centre of London to the centre of Glasgow in about four-and-a-half hours.
Since 1954 I have commuted from Surrey to London every working day. One has seen all kinds of problems; for example, strikes, go-slows, and the absence of guards. I wonder whether the Bill will counteract any of those problems. Oh that it would! It seems to me that at a time of international recession the Bill will be extremely difficult to operate. Where is the money to come from for the franchising? A number of companies have been mentioned but they are in difficulties. Therefore, I find it difficult to understand where the money is to come from. I have discussed that with a number of top people whom I know in the business world. They know a lot more about such matters than I do and they all make the same point. There is never a right time to put an enormous project like this into action but 20 years ago it might have been possible. It is rather like the closing or diminution of London hospitals. Of course the hospitals in Surrey, Essex, Sussex and so on need funds and people prefer to be treated in those hospitals, but there is a shortage of money. That is not confined to this country.
The Bill has been improved considerably. On Third Reading in the other place concessionary fares were guaranteed, as has been made clear. However, I am rather suspicious about that. Let us suppose that a franchise line gets into difficulties. What will happen in that event about concessionary fares? As I understand it, concessionary fares are something of a favour granted by British Rail and there is no mandatory obligation on it to grant them. However, under the present set-up it is unlikely that such concessions would be terminated. Under a franchising system if there are financial problems, one wonders what will be the outcome. As far as I can see, there is nothing in the Bill which guarantees those matters, particularly under Clause 5 which deals with that subject.

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I turn now to the question of security. Many rural stations are unmanned. There is no power in the Bill to ensure that the franchisers will provide some kind of security at those stations. Of course British Rail can be criticised substantially in many ways, but if this draconian measure is to go through it is essential that stations should be manned for the sake of safety, particularly at large stations. There are a number of stations in the home counties which, after 10 o'clock at night, have no staff present. If such a measure is to go through, action must be taken to deal with those problems.
This is a rather piecemeal Bill. I accept that the intentions may be good. One knows that British Rail is a monopoly. I was in the Army in 1947 so I do not recall the Bill going through and I have not read the details. However, I was in your Lordships' House at the time of the Beeching Report. If that plan had gone through in its original terms all stations north of Glasgow and Edinburgh could have been closed.
What kind of powers are the franchisees to have? I know that the transport users councils are to be given powers under the Bill, but will those powers be as comprehensive as they are at present? As I understand it, at present if a railway line is to be closed a public inquiry must be held. Will that procedure continue to apply under the Bill?
There are many questions to be answered. Second Reading is a general debate and the Minister must answer a whole series of questions. If all the questions were to be answered, the House would sit as late as it did last night— into the early hours of the morning. However, the Bill must be examined thoroughly in Committee. It is a far-reaching Bill. It may be that it is more favourable than many of us believe it to be. It can be improved in Committee and your Lordships' House has a mandatory task to do just that.
8.29 p.m.
Lord Greene of Harrow Weald: My Lords, I listened with interest to all the speeches that have been made in connection with the Bill. As somebody else has said elsewhere, this happens to be one of the industries which is held in some affection by the general public. Why that should apply to the railway industry one does not know. It does not appear to be the case in respect of other industries. Some speakers have spoken of their connections with the railway industry and have revealed what they did and where they come from. I should just like to say that I worked for a railway company for 20 years. After that, I worked for the railwaymen's union for 30 years. Therefore, I have some kind of connection with the industry.
I have been reading the proposals in the White Paper,New Opportunities for the Railways. I read with interest an extract which says:
"British Rail has made significant improvements in recent years. Its efficiency compares well with other European railways. The productivity of the BR workforce is among the highest of any European railway. InterCity services and BR freight operate without direct subsidy".
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When one reads that, one wonders why we have the Bill. I have not been able to go through all of it, but I wonder whether in fact it will solve the problems so far as concerns the railway industry.
The Bill talks about franchising certain sections of the industry. In such enfranchisement, I wonder whether people think that they will be running the trains just as they like; that is, where they like and at any particular time. That is not a possibility. There happens to be a person in the railway industry about whom one does not hear much these days. One hears about the chairman, and others, but that person happens to be the operating manager. He is the man who is responsible in all cases for getting trains in the right position, and for ensuring that the timetables are worked out.
No one, whether or not they gain a franchise, will be able to do just what he wants. I do not know whether such people will have operating managers concerned with the running of individual railways. However, if one goes back to 1924 when the amalgamation of all the railways into the four main lines took place, 104 railways were amalgamated at that time. They did not all have operating purposes; indeed, some of them were just sections of railways. As regards those operating railways, I am wondering whether, when we get to the point of franchising, there will be as many franchises given out to match the 104 railways that originally existed. Further, how will they operate?
In effect, the Bill has been put forward with the idea of trying to make the railways pay. We have already heard what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, said on that aspect. The idea is also to bring in the influence of private industry, commerce and all the experience that is attached to it.
When British Railways was formed in 1948 the first chairman was Lord Hurcomb. He was chairman of the British Transport Commission in those days. But later, as noble Lords know, it was dissolved. He was followed by Sir Brian Robinson (later to become Lord Robinson). He, in turn, was followed by Lord Beecham who was followed by Sir Stanley Raymond. There then followed Sir Henry Johnson, the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, Sir Peter Parker, Sir Robert Reid and Sir Bob Reid. Of those nine people who were appointed as chairman of British Rail, only two were career railwaymen. I am not saying that they should only be career railwaymen working within the industry, but those people were brought into the industry because of their commercial and economic knowledge of the world outside to try to make British Rail pay on the same basis as someone is now trying to introduce under the provisions of the new Bill. But they all ended up the same way. With no disrespect to any of them, the fact remains that they all finished up with no money.
Consequently, there is no guarantee that when the Bill begins to work— that is, if it does get working; and many people have expressed some doubt about that — it will improve the financial position and relieve someone of their debts. I do not think that that is a possibility as regards the present Bill. However, it is interesting to note that in the time that those nine

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gentlemen were in charge of British Rail they did carry out a modernisation programme, with the transfer from steam to diesel and electrification. Therefore some improvements were made. However, as someone said, nowhere near the equivalent amount of money that was put into British Rail was put in by the other 11 countries of the Common Market.
I listened with interest to what the Minister said about the question of staff conditions. I do not wish to give the impression that there is likely to be difficulty in this respect, but there is a certain amount of anxiety among the staff, as has already been pointed out by other speakers, about being transferred from one industry to employers in another firm. I accept what the Minister says in the sense that there has already been some understanding with reference to pensions and superannuation. I do not know exactly what he said about the superannuation and the pension funds. I am assuming that that matter rests with the committees and the trustees. I hope that that is so, because when it comes to talking to committees, trustees and unions, at present the Government are not very forthcoming. Instead of easing the situation over negotiations, they seem to be more concerned with making life more difficult. I am not in that position now; indeed, I have been away from the situation for some time. When such matters are sorted • out with the staff, I hope that there will be a clear understanding and agreement that there will be no loss involved.
Other Bills have been passed in this place. I can remember the enabling Bill which stated, at the end of the Explanatory Memorandum, that the Bill would not affect the conditions of the staff concerned at that time. However, the present Bill may well do so. Consequently, I want to express the hope that, when negotiations take place with the unions on the superannuation funds, there will be real agreement. By that I mean both sides agreeing: not one side saying, "That is what you are going to have and you can't do anything about it". That will do no good. There will be enough difficulty with the operation of the Bill without upsetting the staff still further.
I assume that the Bill will be carried, but listening to the debate today I believe that the present position is three to one against it being carried. However, I do not know whether that will be the position later. I am not at all enthusiastic about the Bill. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to the problems I have mentioned.
8.40 p.m.
Lord Braybrooke: My Lords, the station is just coming into view and we are near the end of the line. I hope that we are not near the end of the line in more senses than one. I am a supporter of competition on the railways, and I am a supporter of financing them. I am also basically a supporter of this Bill. However, it is a potential minefield for the Government. The operation we are discussing is a highly complicated one and in my view this privatisation is not the same as other privatisations. I agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, in that regard. This privatisation is far more complicated. Much care
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and thought will be required on many of the aspects and details of managing and running the railways in this country in the future.
The Government, for better or for worse, have decided on franchising and a separation of track, signalling, fixtures and fittings rather than what is now known as a vertically integrated railway. I fear we must consider this one option. There are of course other options. Some weeks ago I read a fine letter in the Telegraph. The author of the letter suggested that East Anglia, both from a geographical and a rail point of view, would be an ideal place to conduct a trial run of the new system. He suggested that East Anglia could be separated and that a railway system covering the whole of East Anglia could be operated from Liverpool Street and from Fenchurch Street. He believed that this operation, run separately, could be quite satisfactory.
As any railway supporter will agree, there is a significant railway culture in this country. Farmers talk about farming being a way of life and railwaymen regard railways as a way of life. That is hardly surprising as the railways are the oldest form of mechanical transport in the world. Railwaymen are rightly proud of the railways. Railwaymen have many rather curious and technical rule books which support the railway culture. Some of those rule books may now be regarded as rather old fashioned; but on the whole most of the rules make good sense. Nevertheless, they obviously need bringing up to date.
In my view the railways need improving and need money. We also need to save our railway heritage and build more railways. Beeching axed many lines—in fact, one-third of the network. Although some of those lines probably were ripe for axing 30 years ago, many of them would now be an absolute godsend. The Oxford to Cambridge line is one example. Having arrived at Bletchley one could then travel on to anywhere in the country. In East Anglia many towns are now without a railway which would be invaluable for commuters and would reduce road traffic. Dunmow, Halstead and Long Melford immediately come to mind in that respect. However, we cannot cry over spilt milk; but we can give consideration to reopening railways which would be viable where that would be practically possible.
Railways need a high level of investment both in terms of capital and labour. The assets of the business are expensive and long lived. Rolling stock, for instance, requires replacing after about 25 to 35 years; and some stations were built 150 years ago. As the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, said, no other form of transport has to support sea walls, bridges, viaducts, tunnels and the like. However, despite a reduction in the network of about one-third post-Beeching, passenger miles travelled in 1992 were slightly up on those of 1962.
The key issues in this Bill which may be worth considering are costs and benefits; the future level of subsidies; and the prospects for new investment and expansion. A great deal hangs on the framework and control of Railtrack and that company's efficient and cost-effective operation. Many noble Lords have said that the track accounts for 50 per cent. of the running

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costs of a railway. That is a large percentage. I should not like to run a railway with someone else owning my track.
I believe that track maintenance under Railtrack will be kept to a similar standard throughout the country. This applies also to signalling. If the track was not kept to a similar standard, one franchisee could object that another franchisee had better track. These matters all need to be carefully watched. Without wishing to be offensive in any way to any Members of your Lordships' House who are lawyers, I would suggest that lawyers make a lot of money out of litigation and squabbles. Bureaucracy and lawyers' fees in this highly complicated set up of Railtrack, regulators and other bodies may well eat up a lot of the money which should more correctly be used in running the railway. That is apart from the aggravation that could arise.
Areas of friction and bureaucracy between operators and Railtrack must be avoided at all costs. There may be a view that Railtrack should permanently own the track and the signalling rather like the state owns the motorways. However, I gather that it is envisaged under the Bill that Railtrack should gradually be privatised. Railtrack's competence and charging rates will largely determine the success or failure of running many rail services. Having said that, I suggest the Government's ideas could work if put into operation with great care and with good sense. The chief merit in my view is that if the scheme is a case of "gently, gently, catch a monkey" as it unfolds, no doubt changes will be made as experience is gained. However, we must be absolutely certain that while the changes are taking place the railway network runs at least as well as it does at the moment, otherwise the effect on the Government and on the whole country could be pretty disastrous.
Many safeguards and existing privileges will have to be maintained. These have already been mentioned by many noble Lords. Noble Lords have mentioned Network cards and other such matters. We have received reasonable assurances from my noble friend the Minister that pensions will be safeguarded. I have received a letter from the chairman of the Southend-on-Sea branch of the British federation of pensioners. He expresses great concern at this measure. The letter is highly complicated and I have passed it to a good friend to study.
As regards running many different railways on different lines, that should be no problem. As the noble Lord, Lord Greene, said, in 1922 there were 104 companies or slightly more. Running powers in those days applied throughout the land. It was a daily and necessary occurrence for trains to run thousands of miles on other companies' land. Charging was calculated on a mileage basis. For example, the Great Northern Railway's line ran out before York but the company always pulled trains to York where the North-Eastern Railway took over. There was cross-ticketing. That was simple. We must remember that those were the days when people could do mental
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arithmetic, and before the days of computers. The railway clearing houses did it all and there was no problem.
Whether or not they are privatised and franchised, the railways must be supported by subsidy, open to public and private finance, improved and extended. We need more and improved railways to serve the people and the trade and industry of this country and to avoid the waste of land resulting from excessive road construction and pollution. The road network will also have to be extended; but I reiterate a point which I made on 18th March. To move a 5,000 tonne train of gravel uses one 4,500 horsepower diesel locomotive; to move that same load by road needs 144 38-tonne lorries with a total horsepower requirement of 51,840. Noble Lords know as well as I do which is the more environmentally friendly way of moving gravel.
The noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, mentioned railway towns such as York. Such towns may suffer and people who work there in the railway industry must be safeguarded, as must people who work in the many other factories throughout the country which build rolling stock.
In ending I declare my interest. I started driving steam locomotives at the age of seven in 1939 when I was evacuated. Fifty four years later I have not stopped doing so and do not intend to. I run a railway, and I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether there will be a block exemption for all private railways from licensing by the regulator. If private railways had to be licensed, it would drive us up the wall.
8.51 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I support the general principle of privatising the railways. When the railways were nationalised in 1948 the position was very different from the present situation. The railways were used and abused throughout the war, presumably with the minimum maintenance acceptable. The road system and the vehicles which ran on it were primitive by today's standards. Furthermore, car ownership was at a fraction of today's level and only the relatively affluent could afford to own a car. Internal air travel was insignificant. Thus, at that time the railways were to a greater extent monopoly suppliers of long distance travel and carriers of freight and parcels. However, even before the war, cars, coaches and lorries were providing fierce competition. There was also a considerable amount of road haulage between cities.
History is repeating itself. The railways caused the decline of the inland waterway transport system and now road traffic is doing the same to the railways. No doubt when the railways were developing there was opposition from those in favour of the canals. It is pointless to resist technological improvements from road transport.
The difficulty I have with this and previous privatisation measures is this: the Government insert competition where it is not needed and fail to introduce it where it is needed. When the Government privatised the electricity industry they failed to

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consider the problem from the standpoint of an energy industry. As a result we ended up with British Coal having only two significant buyers in the electricity industry. That is hardly a competitive market in the supply and purchase of coal. The Government were then faced with the problem of the coal industry, which we know all about. It is difficult to imagine a more homogeneous product than electricity. It is easy to transport and market. We could have had vertical integration in that part of the energy industry— several packets consisting of one or more power stations with their associated collieries. As now, the national grid would still be necessary. I suggest that that would be a far more competitive market.
Whenever one talks to someone in the railway industry they always explain, or complain about, the track cost problems. Delays on our railways are usually due to track, signals or other infrastructure problems. Some 46 per cent. of employees on InterCity's East coast line are involved in infrastructure work. However, the Government's plan is to separate the infrastructure from the operational side. The Secretary of State said in another place:
"As an organisation, BR combines the classic shortcomings of the traditional nationalised industry. It is an entrenched monopoly. That means too little responsiveness to customer's needs, whether passenger or freight; no real competition; and too little diversity and innovation. Inevitably, it also has the culture of a nationalised industry: a heavily bureaucratic structure; an insufficiently sharp awareness on the part of employees that their success depends upon satisfying the customer … Inevitably public ownership also brings with it the constraints of public finance, not least given the many competing demands on the public purse"— [Official Report, Commons; col. 2/2/93; col. 154.]
I agree wholeheartedly with what he said. I have experienced that both as a customer and also when operating as a supplier to BR operations.
If privatisation is so good, why is it not applied to the infrastructure? No doubt the Minister will reply that it is necessary to have several operators on the same line in order to have competition. But there is already plenty of competition from coaches, buses, private cars, lorries and aeroplanes. In fact, that was partly responsible for the decline of the railways in the first place.
Passenger transport is most sensitive to delay. Therefore, a vertically integrated passenger operator will do everything possible to eliminate any source of delay. The leading passenger operator on much of the track on which it runs is InterCity. That organisation is responsible for much of its own infrastructure and is one of the few railways to break even. That arrangement should continue.
I agree with much of the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, regarding the railway industry. He also spoke about Railtrack's position in the public sector. There is a possibility that Railtrack could contract out signalling, for example, with defined levels of reliability and safety and with severe penalties for any delays to the operator. However, we cannot escape the requirement for investment. Private industry and finance could provide investment, but would have to charge Railtrack, which would have to
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pass that cost on to the rail operator. Thus, fares, subsidy or both would have to rise to pay for that investment.
I should now like to address the situation regarding Network SouthEast. The turnover of Network SouthEast was £1,044 million in 1991–92, but it lost £182 million. That loss is made up by the government subsidy or grant. That situation has continued for a number of years. Network SouthEast is largely a commuter market. It is a very price elastic market. Travelling from, say, Brighton to London by car is not an attractive proposition. The price of rail travel has not been increased because it is felt that the level of service cannot justify it. However, that must have an effect on the housing market. If commuters pay less for their travel they will be able to pay more for their housing. That may be one reason why the price of housing in the South East is greater than in the rest of the country. In other words, we are not just subsidising Network SouthEast we are also inflating house prices in the South East.
Many speakers have talked of the need to move passengers from road to rail. However, many services are subject to peak period capacity restrictions. It would be difficult to reduce overcrowding in trains at those times.
The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, referred to the cost of tickets. InterCity charges are related to the marginal cost of using a private car. The trouble is that for a rail passenger the marginal cost is 100 per cent. of the ticket price whereas car drivers often think that the marginal cost is the cost of the petrol only. They ignore the depreciation and the cost of the tyres. The Government are addressing that problem by considering road pricing on motorways; and we look forward to the results of that.
On Network SouthEast a standard day return from Brighton to Victoria is £22 for a 50 mile journey and only £11 for off-peak periods. Thus the cost per mile is 22p in peak periods. But I believe that there would be some difficulty in driving from Brighton to Victoria at rush hour in 66 minutes and at that cost per mile.
Many noble Lords have referred to moving freight from roads onto rail and they blame the Government for not achieving that. But why, despite Government grants, does freight by rail appear uneconomic? The lorry can carry 25 tonnes but the train carries 2,000 or more tonnes. The lorry pays about £3,000 in road fund tax. If a train operator were to pay tax pro rata on carrying capacity he would have to pay £240,000.
Apparently road haulage is being used to move tube trains to Rosyth and back for refurbishment. Why is it more economic to move trains by road and not rail? Could it possibly be that road haulage equipment is now so highly developed that rail haulage is inherently uneconomic except for bulk heavy freight? Even that is questionable because there are reports of more coal for power stations being moved by road.
Many noble Lords have quite properly given attention to employee considerations. While the railways are in the public sector, not only will the Government attempt to keep fare increases down but they will also force wages down. The advantage of

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being in the private sector is that it is possible to have a policy of paying relatively high wages for high quality staff. The converse concerns peanuts and monkeys.
The last point that I wish to draw to your Lordships' attention is this. InterCity currently breaks even. Vertically integrated and in the private sector it could make a profit. I have already referred to Network SouthEast. Most noble Lords who have spoken have considered Network SouthEast or InterCity main lines. It should not be forgotten that Regional Railways fare income is about £313 million whereas its subsidy, on top of its fare income, is £584 million. That is a considerable subsidy. Clearly Regional Railways is obliged to run services under the public service obligation and for and on behalf of the PTEs. It may be that in that area a publicly funded Railtrack type of organisation may be appropriate. The operator franchised could recover his costs and profits from his passengers. On some profitable routes he may have to pay for access; on others he may have financially free access to the network on the same basis as a coach operator on the motorway network.
The point is that the economics of Regional Railways are completely different from InterCity and Network SouthEast. That is not to say, however, that Regional Railways should not be integral with the national timetable.
I look forward to the many hours of debate with the Minister during the subsequent stages of the Bill.
9.3 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Caithness for taking us on a very clear tour of the provisions of the Bill. One of my noble friends asked how many clauses there were. I believe that there are 134 clauses and 13 schedules, one of which is split. My noble friend missed out nothing. However, we have many hours in Committee when no doubt we shall go through the Bill line by line. I was much entertained by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. I did not agree with all of it. Nevertheless it was entertaining, witty and relevant.
However, I wish to ask the Government what they intend the Bill should achieve. First, do they believe that the provisions of the Bill and all the matters so carefully explained by the Minister will unleash the talents of the personnel who at present work in all aspects of British Rail, InterCity, passenger transport executives or passenger transport authorities? Secondly, during the course of the Bill I hope that we shall envisage how the provisions will reduce costs over the entire network, both locally and for regional railways. Perhaps I may refer to Scotrail which I use. It will be familiar to many noble Lords who have spoken, including the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe.
Over the past five or six years we have seen Type 158 rolling stock. Those are two or three carriages with trolley refreshment facilities. That is a completely novel departure. In the far flung areas of Scotland, such as the county of Caithness, one has Sprinters. I have to tell my noble friend that I have not yet visited
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that area; I got off the train at Forsinard. The Sprinters go to Wester Ross, Mallaig and to Oban. It is an enormous change since my youth and since the era of romantic carriages and steam locomotives of all kinds, which will be so familiar and which were described so beautifully by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh. Not only were they romantic but they were enormously costly, as they would be today.
I refer your Lordships to one aspect of the Bill. It is the happily named Clause 4. It deals with the powers and duties of the regulator. The Government, the Minister and his right honourable friend the Secretary of State may well believe that in instituting the regulator for railways in the United Kingdom they may unleash the talent of a tough and powerful regulator. The regulator of Ofgas has the happy coincidence of being a Scot and a chartered accountant. However, the thought of the regulator of Ofgas carrying his talents into some aspects of British Rail fills me with some amusement.
Perhaps my noble friend would also look at Clause 4(1) (a) (on page 3) and subsection (5) (on page 5) dealing with through ticketing. To me and to many noble Lords who may be laymen, it is difficult enough to read the timetable, let alone the fares which consist of savers, supersavers and, perhaps in a few years' time for me, the senior citizens' rail card, never mind all the other bonuses.
I enjoyed the speech of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who referred to Paddington. However, I do not necessarily agree with him. I went to Plymouth on Bank Holiday Friday when there were any number of extra trains and I was more than impressed at the ease and speed with which staff of InterCity at Paddington managed to get me as well as thousands of passengers on to our trains at the same time as massive reconstruction was going on there.
As regards fares and the complications of finding the cheapest fare, or which fare is the best value, we do not only have those problems in our own country. I understand that in France for larger families—familles nombreuses— the larger the family you have, the greater the reduction. In Switzerland I discovered something called the Sportausflug. I went to the ticket office and asked to go to a certain station but they said: "What are you doing in a smart suit? If you put on sporting kit, we can give you a sport ticket". So off I trotted and put on my shorts and jersey and obtained 30 per cent. off. I should like to see some Members of the Front Bench doing that quick change! However, it shows that there are complications elsewhere.
In the course of the next few weeks we shall watch my noble friend and his team in the discussions on fares and tickets. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, referred to the high speed train systems abroad. Both the TGV in France and the ICE in Germany — express systems— have much to teach us in the operational aspect. We see the TGVs hurtling through France in the sparsely populated, rather flat areas on purpose-built tracks. That is what they like to show us, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, and my noble friend will be able to advise me on the progress of the TGV system to Nice. So far as I am aware, it goes as fast as was intended to Marseilles but

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has to go the rest of the way to Nice along the conventional track at conventional speeds because the French too have problems with building purpose-built tracks through densely populated areas, just as we do in Kent.
The one issue in our discussions on the Bill will be value for money, and how the financial aspects of the many clauses which have been explained by my noble friend will give value for money to the passenger and the freight transporter. No doubt we shall come to that.
TGVs have been referred to and we have a great deal of luck in this country with the Great Northern line from King's Cross, which has been mentioned by some noble Lords. It goes as far as York and on to Darlington. The line was built in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s but trains can still go at 225 kilometres an hour or more along it. Thanks to the foresight of builders of that line, there is already great competition with the trains between London and Glasgow. The East Coast main line goes to Edinburgh and the train goes on extremely quickly to Glasgow. I see the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, is showing dissent. But with similar performance, luck, the financial and political commitment as well as the will on the part of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, and support for the track franchisee from the same area, we shall have competition between London and Edinburgh within the next five to six years, once the West Coast main line is upgraded.
Lastly, I should like your Lordships to look at one country which is not unfamiliar to many noble Lords, particularly my noble friends Lord Brabazon and the Minister. I refer to Switzerland. With its geography, it has many of the problems we have in Scotland of mountains and land tenure. It is extremely difficult for the Swiss railways, let alone the roads, to be built through areas of land, thanks to the problems of land tenure in the cantons and communities. Secondly, the Swiss have through-ticketing. Tickets not only cover the federal and private railways on standard gauge, but also with one ticket people can go on private mountain railways, on buses and on cable railways. That can easily be done, as noble Lords know.
What is most important in Switzerland is the political will of the government who have considerable drive and commitment. Their project will not be unfamiliar to the Minister, it is the Neue Alpine Transit (NEAT). It is a plan to drive two new tunnels under the Alps to take freight on a piggyback system north of the Alps, from the northern cantons down to Ticino and on to Italy. Five years ago, the cost started at 15 billion Swiss francs and the last time I heard it was 20 billion Swiss francs. Nevertheless, the project is being carried through with considerable commitment and will. What President Ogi can do I am quite sure that my noble friend and his right honourable friend can do.
In conclusion, I am very grateful to my noble friend for taking us so clearly through the provisions of the Bill. I hope that he and his honourable friend will identify and help with the costs of maintaining rural
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lines. I am sure that they hope to achieve savings with the Bill and that improvements will result from our discussions.
Lastly, I applaud the intention of the Government to save the taxpayers' money so far as possible and facilitate private investment where appropriate in order to improve the rail network and, above all, encourage the personnel and people who work in this great industry. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say tonight and in the weeks to come. I thank him for his help.
9.14 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I was struck by one remark made earlier in the day by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, when he said that we had woken up very late. At that stage I had the feeling and still have that we had woken up very early, particularly those noble Lords who were here until ten minutes past three this morning.
The Bill has had a thorough going-over today. It has not had a lot of support. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, spoke up bravely but I had the impression that his remarks had already been covered in an astonishing— indeed, quite dramatic— speech by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh. It seemed to me that with his speech the noble Lord had achieved game, set and match.
There has to a degree been a certain amount of support. One or two noble Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, seemed to be in favour of the measure in theory but against it in practice. There were a couple of speeches along those lines. The noble Earl's paean of praise for Scotrail and what is happening in Strathclyde PTE did not suggest that the Bill was altogether necessary in that part of the world.
We need to ask, as we have done all day, what the Bill is for. Clearly it is not to raise money for the Exchequer because it will not do so. The assets are not being sold off at present and indeed there are not all that many of them. Apart from a considerable amount of land that could be sold, there is not much else that would find a ready market. If one has only a railway and that is all, no one will buy it. There is not much asset stripping to be carried out.
Is the Bill intended to improve the management? Some people have said that the management is rotten. Some people have said that the management is reasonable. Some have said that the management is good. The truth is that in terms of management at the operating level, whatever railway one runs one will not get different people because those are the only people who know how to run a railway. Whether they are retained in British Rail or bought into a franchising operation, the people will be the same. It may be possible to motivate them better and to train them better but if one wants to run a proper railway they will be the same kind of people.
The franchisees will not bring too much new capital into the system because they will not own very much. They will lease their rolling stock and most of their equipment. Railtrack is the only possible inlet for new money from the private sector. But it will not be in the private sector for some time. It seems to me that the

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only source of new money in the short term will be the customer and the pay-box. As in many other privatised operations, although the undertakings may be running more efficiently and look bright and glossy, the tendency is for prices to rise, as we found with water, electricity and so on. In this case it will be even worse.
What is the object of the Bill? It has a massive title comprising 20 lines. But there is nothing about the passengers, the public or Parliament having a say about what happens in relation to any objects contained in the title because there are not any objects. However, the Bill empowers the Secretary of State to do many things. Clause 4 states:
"The Secretary of State and the Regulator shall each have a duty to exercise the functions assigned or transferred to him under or by virtue of this Part in the manner which he considers best calculated"—
to achieve certain ends. In other words, the purpose is to do whatever the Secretary of State decides that he wants to do.
I understand that the basic objects of British Rail were set out in the 1962 Transport Act. They impose a duty to provide railway services in Great Britain and such services and facilities as appear to the board to be expedient, having regard to efficiency, economy and safety of operation. I do not see anything similar in this Bill. I presume that that duty will be removed from British Rail although I do not see where that appears in the Bill. Perhaps it is merely going to be allowed to die the death.
The nearest we come to any objectives is in Clause 106, and that only refers to part of the Bill. Clause 106 says:
"It shall be the principal objective of the Secretary of State… to secure… the result that the function of providing railway services in Great Britain is performed by private sector operators",
which is hardly an objective. It is only a partial definition and at Committee stage we really must put some objectives into the Bill. I have no doubt that we will wish to come back to that point at a later stage.
Several noble Lords have asked whether the objective is to reduce bureaucracy. It cannot be, because bureaucracy is increased both within the organisation and externally. It will provide a field day for lawyers. The amount of money which will flow into the coffers of our lawyers will be enormous. Bureaucracy is increased at the expense of local management, local authorities and, indeed, central government.
Is the aim to create competition? Hardly, since the object of the Bill seems to be to create a whole series of small monopolies. Once the franchises have been awarded there will not be any competition in the area — so that stops people trying to run on the same piece of track at the same time.
When we come to finance, as many people have said, Railtrack is in a strange situation in relation to investment. It may be that reduced costs are the Government's answer to all those problems. But the operating costs in the franchising companies can only be reduced, as I see it, by either cutting wages or cutting manpower. If one reduces the wages of the drivers, one will not have a motivated work force. And
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I suspect that nobody supposes that manning can be reduced below the levels presently being run by British Rail, where passenger security is becoming a great worry.
If it is the Government's intention to increase funding, then all may be well. However, I doubt that that is the idea. If they can increase funding, why do they not do it for British Rail at the moment? So we return to the end of the equation which indicates that the only way around the problem is to increase fares. Customers need to be assured that they will not bear the brunt of the company's additional costs, which will be high, someone said, if only because of the thousands of pounds of bilateral agreements which the lawyers have put together.
We know that the Government intend to introduce an amendment imposing a duty on the franchise director regarding fares. But one point to which I am sure we will return at Committee stage is that it is necessary for the franchise director, in all circumstances when dealing with fares, to seek the views of the rail users consultative committee. It is not brought in sufficiently for that purpose.
Let me deal briefly with one or two other anxieties. Networking has been much talked about; the experience of bus deregulation shows the problems that occur when deregulation sets in. It did not result in co-ordinated timetables or ticketing, as we were promised. The multiplicity of operators on rail could cause even more problems. The Government have gone some way; they have accepted the principle of through ticketing. We will now seek to probe whether their promises on rail and travel cards are worth the paper on which they are written.
An amendment was promised in another place at col. 763 on 25th May, but when it comes it must leave no room for doubt or for varying interpretation by the operators, which is more likely. Pensions have been mentioned and we will undoubtedly deal with them at considerable length at Committee stage.
In regard to the franchises, one wonders whether the five to seven-year period which seems to be provided is sufficient time to achieve a pay-back on, say, a station development or rolling stock hire. What is going to happen to the Passenger's Charter? If a train is running late from whom do you claim? Do you claim from the franchisee, Railtrack, the regulator or the Government? Do you wait until they have all taken the thing through the courts to decide who is going to pay you for being more than an hour late?
Another point about franchising is that perhaps one worries about business failures. That comment was made to me by someone from the Settle to Carlisle railway. As we know, they fought a great fight to keep that line open. They have successfully kept it open and it is now blossoming as a result of their activities carried out in conjunction with British Rail. However, it might have been bought by a small bus company whose balance sheet was perhaps not all that good. Will they be allowed to have a look at the balance sheet before the franchise is given? Will they be allowed to test those things? That is certainly not clear in the Bill. If the franchise falls in within a short time because the company goes bust, will the line close?

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Can we be sure that when the franchises are signed in the first place the commitment to the preservation of services is really there? Apparently the franchise will be based upon only the minimum service. Presumably, offpeak services could disappear altogether. As many people have said— I am sure we will come back to it with considerable force— it is ludicrous that British Rail will not be allowed to tender, even in those situations where the franchise falls in. In my view that is the worst piece of dogma in the whole Bill. It is simply saying, "We do not care how efficient British Rail are. We know that any nationalised industry is bound to be worse than any privatised industry, and therefore BR will not even be allowed to put in a bid, even if it is the best bid in the world, or it is based upon greater knowledge than that possessed by anybody else".
There is a need to write into franchise agreements the preservation of rights of way in those cases where franchises fall in. It may be that for good reasons a service has to be discontinued and the line closed, but it is important that we put into the Bill a right of way along that rail track in case changing circumstances leave the opportunity for it to be reopened in future. We are now beginning to find that PTEs and others are opening up lines and stations on old tracks. In some cases they cannot do it because they have been built over. My view is that a number of those closed tracks should be turned into cycleways or walkways. It may be possible to build upon them, but at the end of the day there must be a definite commitment that those rights of way for railways will be kept open indefinitely.
I am not a bit surprised that the Bill has had a rough ride today. It is extremely complicated. I do not believe that the Bill achieves what it sets out to achieve — even if I am clear what it sets out to do. It is interesting that in the Bill one finds 20 pages that deal with the closure of railway lines and only one brief clause that deals with new lines. If this Bill has any vision of the future it is a vision of decline.
9.29 p.m.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, it has been a most interesting if slightly exhausting day. With so many speakers it is amazing how many people have their own particular angle on the Bill. I believe that the figures are still roughly three to one. That includes both sides of the House and perhaps one or two doubtfuls on the other side. Quite a large number had very strong reservations about the Bill.
At the beginning of the debate, following the speech of the noble Earl the Minister, we heard devastating speeches from my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, and the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, who had the distinction of being not only the Minister of Transport but also chairman of British Rail. He pointed out quite correctly that the amalgamation of 1923 was essential for the railways if they were to make anything of the system. In fact, the railways have not made a profit since 1923. We tend to forget that the railways' money came from the 200 million tonnes of coal and the 50 million tonnes of iron ore and iron products which
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they shifted. Those areas of the railways' work began to disappear. I remember going through to Edinburgh even quite recently. There were little mineral yards at every station. They were all at a sufficient distance apart to allow a horse and cart to carry bags of coal around. All that has gone because we get our energy either through pipes or through wires.
The railways have had a very difficult time but they have done a remarkable job. The feeling coming through in many of the speeches today is that British Rail is a very efficient organisation. The noble Lord, Lord Marsh, gave the figures for rail investment per head; the United Kingdom, seven dollars; Italy, 50 dollars; France, 37 dollars; and Germany, 24 dollars. It is quite remarkable that we can run such an efficient railway.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, can make a great speech out of anything. We have all seen that over the many years that we have known him. He made a very good speech on this Bill. I know exactly how the noble Lord feels. He talked about the niggling difficulties of travelling by rail and said that that is one of the impressions people have of the rail industry. He referred to Paddington station. The noble Lord has some knowledge and experience of the airline industry. Nearly every Monday morning I find myself hoping that someone will telephone Heathrow to say that the Glasgow shuttle is on its way, because they do not seem to know that it is coming. You land and they have to send for buses. You forget once you are on the tube and on your way, but it is extremely irritating and niggling at the time. By and large British Airways and British Railways give an extremely good service. The noble Lord made one point with which I completely agree— after last night, no more late nights. Perhaps it would be helpful if we put it to the Government that there are such things as Fridays.
My noble friend Lord Eatwell spoke about investment and the railway supply industry, subjects close to my heart. In Springburn, in my part of the world, 39,000 steam locomotives were built, of which around 19,000 were exported. That industry has all gone. There is nothing left. There are supermarkets and that kind of thing there now. We have lost a great skill. If we fail to do something about the industry which is left in other parts of the country, we shall lose that as well. We must have investment now if we are to save what is left of our manufacturing industry. Without it, we, who gave the railways to the world, will be in the ridiculous situation, if we want to expand later, of having to buy our engines from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria or such places.
The noble Lord, Lord Stodart, spoke about the days when the train fare from Edinburgh to London for a boy was £1 3s 7½d, or something of that order. It is all relative. I remember just before the war that the third-class fare from Glasgow to London was £3 7s. A tradesman's wage was about £2 10s. So we have to make a balance. In that respect I believe that British Rail is not doing too badly.
One of the factors which will give the railways a great future is the PTEs and PTAs. The Clyde system is the biggest outside London. It is extremely effective and I do not know how we would manage without it.

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If we wish to cut down on traffic in towns, that is the only way in which it can be done. I believe that we can get a little more heavy traffic on rail, but I do not believe that we should pretend that we can really make a big impact on the lorry. There is, whether we like it or not, less flexibility as regards rail, sad though that is. We can do a great deal, but there are difficulties. The real value of the railway is taking people tight into the towns.
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, spoke about the possibility of the 44-tonne lorry delivering to railheads. What worries me about that is that when he was a Minister at the Department of Transport he must have gone to Europe often enough with strict instructions to resist the introduction of the 44-tonne lorry on to ordinary British roads. If we had that lorry just to serve the railheads that would be done on the main roads. Those lorries, I understand, are not only big and clumsy; there might also be a big problem for our bridges, although by adding another axle the problem could be overcome.
My noble friend Lord Ewing of Kirkford, in his usual, inimitable way, made a powerful speech. He was clear that British Rail was in serious need of modernisation. He put forward the possibility that Stagecoach might be one of the organisations which would go for the franchise.
The noble Lord, Lord Marsh, and many others asked whether the Government have any names of those who are likely to be franchisees. It was also asked whether there would be more than one and whether there would be the possibility of selecting one or the other. We have not had an answer to that.
We respect the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for his great knowledge of the railways and for his courage in the modern world of being one of the few people I know who does not have a driving licence. He produced very many interesting statistics, drawing on his knowledge. He said quite correctly that in many ways British Rail is the operator of last resort, which is not an unimportant matter.
Then we had tales of woe. British Rail management was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, among others. If it is so inefficient why does the rest of the world honestly believe that it has very high standing? Although the noble Lord is generally in favour of the point of view of the Minister, he believes that this is the wrong Bill and that we need a different one.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, spoke about containers at Felixstowe. Possibly, we made some mistakes in our earlier thinking on their use. Again, there is a problem with distances. One cannot move containers efficiently by rail unless there are train loads of them and in our country it is not as easy as that. The noble Lord, Lord Auckland, favours competition but he does not believe that we shall get it in this Bill. He too has grave doubts about the Bill.
It is pleasing to see my noble friend Lord Greene of Harrow Weald in his place again. He spent 50 years on the railways and spoke about British Rail's great efficiency compared with other world railways. He
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spent 20 years as a railwayman and 30 years as a railway trade union official, so he has probably been on more railways than most.
The noble Lord, Lord Braybrooke, was doubtful about the Bill. He said that we must build more railways and referred to the Beeching cuts, as did the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. When the 1968 Act was introduced we in Strathclyde ordered that the solum of all the disused tracks should be left in case they were required. It so happens that quite a number of the tracks from the old Beeching lines that were cut have fitted in beautifully, and we now have a pretty good passenger transport system.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, put things clearly when he spoke about the lack of objectives in the Bill. He could not see how there could be any competition but, like the rest of us, he "looks forward"— if that is the correct phrase— to a good four or five days considering the Bill in Committee when we shall be able to discover exactly what the Government's views are and whether they really think that there is a future for British Rail.
9.41 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and particularly to those of your Lordships who have been able to stay to the end. Undoubtedly, this is a complicated measure and I hope that those of your Lordships who have not yet taken the opportunity of reading the policy guide which is in the Printed Paper Office will do so before Committee stage because there seem to be substantial misunderstandings about some of our proposals.
I have listened with care to what your Lordships have said and know that I shall not be able to answer every question tonight. I agree with much of what has been said and am grateful for the support that I have received for the Bill. However, I disagreed with quite a lot that was said from the other side of the House.
I have been interested by many of the comments that have been made, and especially by those of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, a former BR director, who said that we should not do anything to BR because it was too busy providing the Channel Tunnel rail link. I did not think that that was a very good argument for not doing anything.
A number of your Lordships have mentioned the alternatives. I am grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, said in that respect. He came up with some constructive alternatives which we shall undoubtedly need to discuss. Most of your Lordships who criticised the Bill did not come forward with any alternatives.
Looking at British Rail as a whole, there is no doubt that my noble friend Lord Cochrane of Cults is right that there is a problem with the railways. We have addressed that problem and we believe for two reasons that the right solution is to bring in the private sector. The first reason relates to the management expertise and ethos of the private sector.
I was disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, misrepresented some of my comments about privatisation. I was not saying that this is a

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conventional privatisation. The point to which I was drawing attention were the benefits which the private sector has brought to the transport industries that have been put into the private sector. I agree totally that this is not a conventional privatisation. If it was, this would be a different Bill and different proposals would have been placed before your Lordships. Indeed, I spent some time going through the reasons why I thought this was different and explaining our proposals.
With regard to the private sector, I noted with care what the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said and his valid points about the ports. I was particularly interested in what he said about possible port interest in the railways. I welcome that interest.
The other area where the private sector is of undoubted benefit is investment. Despite the fact that investment in the railways is at a 30-year high, my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, were right to point out that there is a limit to taxpayers' funds. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter was equally right to stress that one cannot have private investment in a nationalised industry. The issue of investment was raised by most noble Lords. Our proposals are that infrastructure investment will be the responsibility of Railtrack. Decisions will be commercially driven. Investment will he funded largely by charges levied on operators. That will include subsidised charges paid by the franchisees. So in future, as now, investment will be supported by public funds. In addition, the Government are committed to providing direct support for infrastructure projects where costs are not recoverable fully from operators, and where that can be justified by wider benefits. That is a significant new step for the railways which should not be underestimated.
Investment in rolling stock will be for the private sector. That is where we have the opportunity of benefiting the railways. I do not accept the scepticism of some noble Lords on that point. The private sector has already invested heavily in freight rolling stock. Why cannot it do the same on the passenger side? The costs of rolling stock investment for franchisees can, and will, be covered in subsidy payments by the franchising authority.
I listened with care to what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, with his great experience, said about international comparisons. He will know, as I do, that that is dangerous and tricky territory. He mentioned France in comparison to Britain. But of course one has to bear in mind that the interest on the debt that the French have to pay is over one-third of their annual subsidy. Their interest amounts to £1.3 billion annually, that being over one-third of the government subsidy of £3.3 billion. In contrast, our interest is £81 million. The German railways are expected to lose about £5.5 billion in 1992. What is interesting, and has not been mentioned, is that soon after we made our announcement about the restructuring of railways, the German Government made a similar announcement last summer, and their legislation is expected to follow shortly.
My noble friend Lord Lyell stressed the importance of securing value for money. That is not just about
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finding the cheapest operator to provide services. It is also about the quality of service and transferring risk. The purpose of franchising passenger services is to maximise the involvement of the private sector. Despite the fact that many services are, and will continue to be, loss-making, we believe that that is the best way to achieve the improvement in services that we all want to see. As I have said, what the industry badly needs is a shot in the arm of new private sector management, bringing fresh thinking and innovation to the running of services, and private sector capital to bring forward new investment. We shall not achieve that with the continued operation of services by the public sector.
To the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, I say that we believe that private sector operators will focus more clearly upon passengers and their requirements, recognising that, as in any business, one has to respond to one's customers if one wants to sell a product.
We want to see British Rail staff bidding for franchises on the basis of management-employee buy-outs. To the noble Lords, Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Tordoff, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, I say that allowing BR to bid, as a nationalised industry, would wholly undermine that aspect of our proposals. Clause 128 provides for BR to give financial assistance to its management and employees in the preparation of bids to run franchise services or take over other parts of the board's business which are to be sold outright.
Allowing BR to bid would be the surest way to undermine potential City interests, because BR would be bidding, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said, on the basis of using risk-free public money. BR is not accountable for its budgets in the same way as a private sector operator would be. If a franchise is awarded to a private sector operator whose bid was for a £1 million subsidy, then that is how much he will receive. He will not be able to come back for more. He will need to be properly capitalised to bear that risk.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will he concede, as he has in previous debates, that there is no way in which the Government can exclude a state railway of a European Community member state from entering the franchise stakes?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord has raised that matter with me on previous occasions. I give him the same answer; of course, we shall abide by the European Community rules, which goes without saying. I refer the noble Lord to the point which I made: that we are looking for private sector involvement. The franchising director will take that into account.
We have also made it clear that when considering prospective franchise bids the franchising director will take fully into account the cost of British Rail continuing to provide a service. BR will be running each of the groups of services to be franchised in a shadow franchise before each competition. That deals with a matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank. The purpose of having a shadow

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franchise is to check that the grouping can function properly and make good operational sense and to provide a financial track record. The franchising director will, therefore, have a sound basis for checking how much it will cost if BR continues to run the services and will take that into account when judging bids from the franchisees.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Greene of Harrow Weald, that although in 1922 there were 104 operators, we are not that ambitious today; we shall be going for about 25 franchises based on the existing profit centres. I assure my noble friend Lord Braybrooke that the preserved railways such as the Bluebell line and the Keighley and Worth Valley railway line will be exempt from the franchise.
Although I have given considerable reassurance about the future of railways and the subsidy needed to keep open the existing railway system before it goes into the franchise state, the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, firmly contradicted me and said that he believed there would be a reduced service. I reiterate to him and to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, that the franchises will take place on the existing BR timetable. Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, was wrong in a great deal of what he said.
The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and my noble friend Lord Auckland went further and said that it would not be a question of reduced services but one of closures. As I said in my opening remarks, which bears repeating, there is no hidden agenda for a programme of closures. The doubts which have been expressed about closure procedures or the potential effects of privatisation are unfounded and lead to unnecessary anxieties, in particular in communities which may depend on lines which rely on subsidy.
First, the Government have said on many occasions that subsidy will continue to be paid for loss-making services for as long as is necessary. Secondly, the closure procedures in Clauses 32 to 42 are as rigorous as now, but they have been adapted to reflect the new structure of the railways. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that privatisation will lead to more closures. Thirdly, the consumer committees, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, was so interested, will continue their important role. It is being strengthened and I am sure that she will welcome that. The committees will comment and report on the levels of service, the effects of closures and the efficacy of the closure procedures. They will also have the right to publish reports independently of the regulator. Although under the new procedures the regulator will take the decision, there will be the right of appeal to the Secretary of State.
The noble Lords, Lord Clinton-Davis, Lord Ewing of Kirkford, Lord Tordoff and Lord Taylor of Gryfe, mentioned the apparent added complexity and bureaucracy of our proposals. I believe that their worries are unfounded. One result of our proposals is that certainly there will be a series of contractual arrangements between the various players in the railway. But many of those arrangements already exist. They are internal within BR as a statutory
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monopoly hidden from public view. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Lindsay termed the present position as "peace in obscurity".
Perhaps I may take your Lordships through some of those points. The franchising director will carry out some of the functions which BR already carries out in terms of specifying railway passenger services and allocating government subsidies between them. Railtrack will also carry out functions currently carried out by BR; for example, the operation of the infrastructure, timetabling and so on. Most of the other bodies involved already exist. The HSE is already the safety authority. PTAs and PTEs are already involved in the provision of railway services. It is only the regulator who will carry out significant new functions, but I am sure that the House will agree that those are necessary to ensure fair play under the new regime.
As a result of our proposals, those relationships will become a lot more transparent and I hope that the House will welcome that. Greater clarity will encourage efficiency and operators will know where they stand. I see that as a positive advantage of our proposals.
My noble friend Lord Stodart of Leaston and the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, raised the question of competition. I wish to say a few words about that. There are three elements. First, there will be competition for franchises. Franchises will be put out to tender. The competition between bidders will determine who runs passenger rail services. I hope that that allays some of the anxieties expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow.
Secondly, there will be some competition between franchisees. Some routes will be served by more than one franchisee and passengers will have a choice of operator. Franchisees can also be expected to compete to provide innovative services to attract passengers.
Thirdly, there will be open access to the network from 1st April 1994. That is particularly important for freight services where operators will be free to compete on a commercial basis for freight business. We have made it clear that the right of access must be moderated to allow for the first franchises to be successfully established. However, there will be opportunities for open access passenger operators and we expect that to develop over time.
I turn now to the important question of freight. Rail freight accounts for about 7 per cent. of total traffic carried by road, rail, coastal shipping and pipeline. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, reminded the House of our incentives to encourage more freight to travel by rail but still some 10 times as much freight goes by road as goes by rail. The total amount of rail freight is equivalent to one year's growth of road freight in the late 1980s. To move one-third of the freight from road to rail, as the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, suggested, would require a two-and-a-half-fold increase in the amount of rail freight. That is quite impracticable. Many forms of freight such as delivery to supermarkets are simply not suited to rail transport. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, was realistic in addressing that problem. He said how difficult it is.

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As regards freight, I should say to my noble friend Lord Brabazon that I noted carefully what he said about the closure procedure but that procedure is exactly the same as under existing rules. There is nothing new in the Bill in that regard. I look forward to discussing that with him at a later stage.
My noble friend also asked about the privatisation of Railtrack. I can confirm that we intend to privatise Railtrack as soon as is reasonably practicable. Of course, we have the flexibility to do that in a number of ways. I listened with care to those of your Lordships who argued for vertical integration. In the meantime, Railtrack will be required to contract out its support activities where that represents value for money.
As regards the track access grant for marginal freight, I agree with my noble friend that the rules for the new grant must be clear and the procedures for rewarding grants must be rigorous. Therefore, we shall publish and seek views on draft guidance for applicants before the new grant system comes into force.
I turn now to the question of the London Travelcard. I said that I should mention it today in our debate on London Transport last Wednesday. As the noble Lords, Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Tordoff, and my noble friends Lord Mountevans and Lord Teviot said, the London Travelcard is popular because of its simplicity for passengers and its extremely good value for money. It has also been beneficial to operators and has increased public transport use. Against that background, we are very confident that the Travelcard will survive, although it may well need to change. Under the Bill, the franchising director will have the power to require franchisees to participate in multi-modal ticketing schemes. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will give him guidance on the exercise of that power. Franchisees will then be obliged to participate in such schemes in accordance with their franchise agreements.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, raised the question of representation for passengers. I have briefly commented on that issue. I believe that some of the matters she mentioned were a little out of date. I think that we have moved on. I also believe that she will be pleasantly surprised when we deal with the matter at a later stage in our discussions.
The noble Baroness, like the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, raised the important question of PTAs and PTEs. We have often paid tribute to the achievements of PTAs and PTEs in promoting the use of rail in their areas. We want them to continue to do so. I believe that our proposals for privatising the railway will allow them to, but with the added advantage that they too will be able to harness the skills of the private sector to provide a better, more attractive and more efficient service. We have made clear the fact that the PTAs and PTEs will continue to have broadly the same role following privatisation as they have now—specifying and paying for local railway services. The Railways Bill provides explicitly for the PTEs to specify quality and fares levels. Therefore, I must tell my noble friend Lord Lindsay
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that Strathclyde PTE will be fully involved in the specification of the franchise in respect of the services that they support.
My noble friend Lord Mountevans expressed concern about the future ticketing and revenue allocation system for the railways. I think that I can give him the assurance that he seeks. Operators will be required to participate in joint arrangements. At the outset they will be based on BR's existing systems which, as my noble friend so rightly pointed out, have the capability to provide integrated benefits across the network.
I turn finally to the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Auckland. He raised the question as to what happens if a franchise gets into trouble. I should remind my noble friend that I spent some time on that issue in my opening speech. Moreover, there is quite a lot about it in the Bill. Again, we shall doubtless come to deal with the matter at a later stage.
We will be discussing many of the issues that were raised today in more detail in subsequent stages of the Bill. Before then I shall try to follow up with noble Lords the questions that I have not been able to answer directly. As our consideration continues, I believe that your Lordships will recognise that many of the concerns expressed today are unfounded and that the Government's proposals provide a sensible basis for a secure future for the railways. In particular, they provide a proper balance between the need to ensure that the railways continue to provide the socially necessary services which we all agree are vital and the need to inject a fresh and more commercial approach into the operation of the railways.
Our proposals represent an imaginative way of bringing to the railways the benefits which privatisation has brought to other industries, but in a slightly different way. I see no reason that the railways should be deprived of those advantages. On that subject, as with so many others, it is this Government who have come forward with innovative but practical proposals. I believe that they represent the best hope for the future of the railways. I also believe that the whole House is on common ground in that we want to see the railways continue and we want to see them prosper. We want to have pride in them. I believe that the Bill will enable us to put such proposals into effect. I commend it to the House.
On Question, Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Representation of the People Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Northern Ireland (Emergency and Prevention of Terrorism Provisions) (Continuance) Order 1993
10.4 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Arran)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Arran) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th May be approved [31st Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the order before your Lordships this evening will continue in force the temporary provisions of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991. The debate also gives an opportunity for your Lordships to review those powers in force. The Act contains, among other things, modifications to the criminal justice system, additional powers for the police and the Army, certain specific offences directed against terrorism and valuable powers directed at terrorist finances. I must say, with regret, that its provisions remain necessary for the coming year.
In order to assist your Lordships in your consideration of the powers in force, we have once more my noble friend Lord Colville's Report on the Operation of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991. I most warmly thank my noble friend for his thorough and thought-provoking work, and understand with great regret that this is his last. My noble friend Lord Colville has decided to step down this year to allow a "fresh pair of eyes" to take his place. I know that all your Lordships will wish to join with me in paying tribute to the work that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has done on our behalf and on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland.
I shall return to the recommendations that my noble friend makes in his report after I have reminded your Lordships of the reasons why the powers contained in the Act remain necessary. Last year there were 75 murders by republican and so-called loyalist terrorists. There have been 32 murders already this year to 8th June. There were also numerous attempted murders and examples of intimidation and extortion. Between 20th and 23rd May the IRA carried out four bomb attacks—two in Belfast, one in Portadown and one in Magherafelt. They caused an estimated £22 million worth of damage, affecting schools, one for the mentally handicapped, and hundreds of private dwellings. The existence of terrorists prepared to perpetrate such crimes explains the reason why the Act is still needed. It has indeed contributed to the arrest and charging of one of those alleged to have been responsible for the attack on Magherafelt.
The security forces will pursue the perpetrators of these and other terrorist crimes relentlessly. They will continue their tireless and successful—if necessarily sometimes unpublicised—efforts to disrupt and prevent terrorist operations. The powers in this Act are essential to enable them to continue to do so. The Royal Ulster Constabulary, supported by the Army, including the Royal Irish Regiment, will continue to
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receive the full support of the Government in their efforts to defeat terrorism within the law. They deserve our respect and admiration.
The Act provides extraordinary powers for dealing with terrorism. It is right that they should be exercised with the greatest possible degree of sensitivity. Both the Government and the security forces fully recognise the importance of this, and seek to maintain the highest standards. This is not easy, and I was particularly pleased to note my noble friend Lord Colville's view that in general the sensitivity of the RUC and the Army was greater than ever in 1992.
I turn now to the most important of my noble friend Lord Colville's recommendations. His prime recommendation is that the Act should continue in its current form for a further year. The Government wholeheartedly endorse that view. My noble friend examines once more the matter of delays on remand of persons awaiting trial. Your Lordships will recall that during the debate on this Act last year the Government announced the introduction of a scheme to monitor and reduce delays. This work is continuing and is bearing fruit. When the results of the scheme are known, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will decide on how to take the matter forward. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, specifically recommended that Section 8 of the Act —which permits the Secretary of State to set statutory time limits for scheduled offences—be allowed to lapse and that instead time limits for all persons on remand be introduced. This recommendation will be considered together with those results.
My noble friend Lord Colville draws attention to the allegations which have been made that solicitors representing persons arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act are systematically intimidated. If such abuse occurs—and without evidence the allegations cannot be proved—it must cease. Like my noble friend, I call upon anyone who has evidence to substantiate such allegations to make it available so that there can be a full investigation. If they feel unable to do so they should desist.
My noble friend Lord Colville has recommended that the Government reconsider the case for and against the video recording of interviews with suspects detained under the emergency legislation. That is not a new recommendation and the matter has been discussed on many occasions between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable. It remains the view of the Chief Constable that video recording would not be a suitable measure for the conditions that exist in Northern Ireland. He believes that those who would otherwise co-operate with the RUC—and by so doing save lives—would be reluctant to do so for fear that their own lives would be put at risk. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State remains unpersuaded that it would be in the overall interests of justice to introduce video recording in those circumstances.
My noble friend Lord Colville deals extensively with the whole ambit of the Act and makes further recommendations. I am confident that many noble Lords will draw upon his words for support during this debate.
The Government have never shirked their responsibility for dealing with terrorism and never will. Part of that responsibility is met by ensuring that the law effectively protects the rights of all citizens —including the right to life. The measures in the order before your Lordships' House seek to protect that right.
I am confident that this evening your Lordships will reaffirm the commitment of all right-minded people to defeat those who seek to gain their ends through violence. In renewing this Act we shall be sending a message to the terrorists, whatever they might call themselves—loyalist or republican—that they will not win. What they can do is cause grief, to those who have been maimed, to those who have lost loved ones and to those whose homes and businesses have been destroyed. I have seen the suffering borne resolutely by many people in Northern Ireland, and we are determined that it should be brought to an end. The Act, which will continue to be applied resolutely but with appropriate sensitivity, is vitally important to that task.
We all profoundly hope that one day this Act will no longer be necessary. In the meantime, I commend the order to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th May be approved [31st Report from the Joint Committed—(The Earl of Arran.)
10.12 p.m.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, I support the order. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, that it should be approved for a further year. I also agree with his view, and that of Her Majesty's Government, that the power to reintroduce internment should remain. It is a reserve power of the utmost importance which I hope can be used without further legislation and acrimonious debate on the Floor of the House if it is needed.
I notice that another so-called commission has reported its findings on the situation in Northern Ireland, with whose authority I do not know. Therefore, I doubt whether it has much standing. I refer, of course, to the report by Professor Torkel Opsahl of Oslo—the Opsahl Commission. Among many recommendations the report recommends the political participation of Provisional Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland constitutional talks and that the Government should open informal channels of communication with Provisional Sinn Fein with a view to testing the party's commitment to the constitutional process. Professor Opsahl blames the emergency provisions Act for keeping Provisional Sinn Fein out of the political mainstream and alienating the Catholic working class. However, on page 3 of his report the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, opposes that point of view.
I do not suppose that the Government will be pleased with the Opsahl criticisms of anti-terrorist legislation and especially the call to end the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fein. I notice that already the Unionists, who oppose any recognition of Provisional Sinn Fein, have stated that the report is
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utterly repugnant to the Unionist community. In addition, the Alliance Party regards the report as dangerously naive.
However, I am pleased that the Opsahl report stated that Provisional Sinn Fein must renounce its justification of violence before any talks. I suppose that the Irish watchers, the Dubliners and nationalists will gleefully discuss the report, but already the reaction is that it is doomed. I shall be interested in the Government's views on the report. The group is obviously well meaning but the report is not a stepping-stone to peace. Indeed, it raises hackles unnecessarily.
Mentioned also in the Colville Report is the interference and critical comments by an American-based organisation, Helsinki Watch. On page 64 the noble Viscount states:
"I have dealt with allegations of harassment by the Security Forces, which nobody would attempt to defend as a matter of principle. The ensuing condemnation by Helsinki Watch of crimes committed by terrorist organisations will equally attract wide support. It is less easy to endorse their statement:
'that the RUC has largely abandoned normal policing in many troubled areas and that the paramilitary groups have filled the resulting vacuum with brutal alternative criminal justice systems. The Northern Irish authorities have de facto delegated authority to the paramilitary groups and must share the blame for their abuses".
That is absolute nonsense. It is totally untrue and Her Majesty's Government should come out publicly and say so.
I also noticed the deeply insulting remarks by United States lawyers on pages 23 and 24 of the report. The noble Viscount states:
"It does seem necessary, however, to take issue with a remark in the first report"—
That is a report by United States lawyers—
"it appears to be a throw-away line, but it is deeply insulting to the RUC. The US lawyers say: 'In a normal state, in which the police are held accountable, allegations of threats and other abuse by their members should be brought to the police—.
He continues:
"Normal diplomatic courtesy would deter me from making such an accusation against police forces in the USA; no doubt methods and effectiveness of accountability, are State responsibilities and probably come in diverse forms. I can, however, state the position in Northern Ireland. If the complaint is that individual policemen are not subject to the criminal law or disciplinary charges, it is not true".
He then lists nine reports and oversights of accountability on the RUC in Northern Ireland. He winds up by stating:
"Perhaps the distinguished US lawyers might reconsider their stance on RUC accountability".
Then, of course, the view of the British Irish Rights Watch also needed examining by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. Therefore, much of his report is taken up by answering unfounded allegations and generalisations from probably well-meaning but interfering and often foreign busybodies. But, rightly so, they have to be answered.
Although the right of silence as an issue is not covered in the noble Viscount's report, and in this order, he states on page 26:
"One can suppose that officers carrying out the interrogation of a terrorist suspect will frequently find him or her well trained to resist answering questions altogether".

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Of course—and this so-called right for terrorist killers should cease or else a degree of guilt be recorded at the outset of any trial. I should like the Minister's views on the question of the right to silence for terrorist crimes, especially in Northern Ireland.
What about the question of identity cards? I would hope that in the terms of reference to whoever is the successor to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, he will be given the chance thoroughly to examine the advantages of introducing an ID card system—a national system but one that indicates how its use can hinder the activities of terrorists and more easily help security forces to bring them to book. The Government have often quoted the high cost of introduction, but now they realise that one bomb in the City has cost several times more than the cost of introducing an ID card system. Therefore, why do the Government hesitate? It is inevitable and, apart from open frontiers and all the problems associated with that, the rising crime figures will themselves force the Government into action.
I should now like to raise the question of the Northern Ireland medal. Will not the Government give consideration to a bar on the original medal after an agreed number of tours? No doubt a large number of servicemen will qualify in retrospect, but they have deserved it. More recognition must be given to our troops for their service in the Province. It is a small price to pay for their patience, their fortitude, their skill and courage, and all who have served would certainly welcome it.
I was interested in the ideas of the former Prime Minister, Mr. Edward Heath, of an anti-terrorist supremo, but I do not think that it is on. Indeed, the Prime Minister has troubles enough without a public squabble over power between the Home Office and the Northern Ireland Office. But I agree with a higher profile, with an increased use of all the powers in the EPA Acts: stop and search; more searches, compatible, of course, with good manners and courtesy by the troops; more group arrests; detain and question regularly; thwart their planning; scare them across to their rest and recreation areas in the south, all within the law; bring out the Irish Rangers more often; and step up weekend patrols. I urge the Secretary of State to use his powers to the full, but all within the anti-terrorist laws he has been given.
In this respect, I raise the issue of Declan "Beano" Casey, alleged to be a double agent and the startling revelations in this week's Daily Mirror of him being the quartermaster for the Provisional IRA and working for the security forces. Now, what is the truth of the matter? If the Secretary of State says that we are upholding the law in Northern Ireland, does his law include this type and style of operation? Paying informers and having secreted agents within the terrorists' ranks is one thing, but this is an entirely different matter. I think that the air must be cleared and the Government must tell us the truth. Have we used and employed a mass killer? There is no need for an investigation, the RUC and the security forces must know.
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Perhaps the Minister may at this stage bring us up to date on the reorganisation that has taken place involving MI5, the Special Branch, our intelligence services, MI6 and the regional police forces. We know, of course, that that is a greater responsibility for the Home Office than the Northern Ireland Office, but we especially wish to know how this new anti-terrorist grouping is liaising with and helping the RUC, the security forces and our intelligence network in Northern Ireland.
Finally, extra means and methods must be continually sought to beat this terrorist menace in our midst. This renewal of the emergency and prevention of terrorism provisions, backed by the report of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, is another expression by Parliament that terrorism, from whatever source, will be defeated. But to defeat terrorism there is a price to pay. There is certainly inconvenience, irritation and annoyance with the police and Special Branch officers. There is certainly some curtailment of our total freedom and civil liberties. But to combat evil men we must maintain the full legal armoury that Parliament has decreed should be available. Therefore, this measure and the report of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, have my wholehearted endorsement.
10.24 p.m.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, as we come once again to debate this order, there are one or two new recommendations. Those are the only differences that we have to approach every year in this debate. I recognise that the order must be passed by the House before 12 o'clock tonight and no one would wish to prevent that happening. I think that when there was also an important debate on the Railways Bill scheduled, government business could have been better arranged so as not to leave this most important order to the final two hours of business in this House. Certainly in another place the Government would not get away so easily with that. I recognise that this is a very important order and no one wants to delay it unduly. But, the order is very important to everyone in Northern Ireland. The Government should treat the people of Northern Ireland with greater respect than they appear to be doing by permitting this order to be debated in the last two hours before midnight.
Once again I read, as I do every time that the occasion arises, the report of the debate that took place at the other end of the building. From the names of the people who participated in the debates one could readily see the tribal response to this type of legislation. The loyalist community in Northern Ireland fully supports this type of legislation. The nationalist representatives are opposed to the legislation or at least claim to be. For a nationalist representative in any way to support such legislation could put him in danger of becoming unionist and losing whatever nationalist support he has. Therefore lip service has to be paid in opposition to the measure.
Reading the report of the debate that took place at the other end of the building, I was incensed to see some of the very partial arguments coming not from the nationalist representatives—they are highly predictable—but from spokesmen and Members of

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the Opposition. The spokesman for the Opposition in another place liberally quoted from a report—I read it before I came to the Chamber this evening—that was published recently: Human Rights and Legal Defense in Northern Ireland: The Intimidation of Defense Lawyers; The Murder of Patrick Finucane.
I can say that that report is absolutely worthless. It was totally biased before ever finger was put on typewriter or pen put to paper in respect of the inquiry that was to be carried out. Early this year I received a telephone call from that organisation (the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights). Its representatives insisted on coming to London to see me. They flew in from Belfast. They wanted to know what I thought about the intimidation of defence lawyers in Northern Ireland. I told them that I certainly did not agree with the brutal and callous murder of Patrick Finucane. I have never agreed with the murder of anyone, whether he was a solicitor or an ordinary individual in Northern Ireland.
I told the two representatives of the American lawyers that I could tell them what their report would contain before they sat down at a typewriter or dictated their deliberations to a typist. I asked them why they were showing such interest in the murder, regrettable as it was, of one defence lawyer, Mr. Patrick Finucane, when they did not want to know or did not care about the murders of Judge William Doyle, magistrate Martin McBurney, Judge Rory Conraghan, Lord Justice Gibson, the daughter of the magistrate, Mr. Travers and the severe disablement of the magistrate, the murder of Billy Staunton, the wounding of Janet McGrath and the murder of Edgar Graham. They were all members of the legal profession in Northern Ireland, murdered by the IRA. Yet the committee of American lawyers expressed such concern about the murder of an individual—the death of Mr. Finucane—by loyalist paramilitary murderers.
I told those lawyers, "I can tell you exactly what you are going to put in your report. You are going to make a damning indictment of the RUC and the security forces. You are going to write a book of evidence to try to justify your claim that the RUC is a sectarian, political force and that the UD regiment"—as it was then—"is the same".
They took offence at that and said that they did not like me predicting what they were going to do. I can tell them now from this House that at the time I was telling them that, I had turned on a tape recorder in my office, and that recording can be heard by anyone who is interested. They asked me how I was so sure, and I was able to relate to them how, a few years ago, there was a Lord Mayor of New York called Ed Koch—he was a German Jew. He had made many sympathetic speeches in support of Irish Republicanism and had taken part in many Irish-American marches. Then someone persuaded him to come to Northern Ireland and see for himself.
He came to Northern Ireland and met members of the RUC; he met the Chief Constable and members of the Army and security forces. He went back to New York and told those who were prepared to listen that everything was not black and white; that he had been
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to Northern Ireland and seen a different side of the story; that almost 300 RUC men had been killed in the most brutal circumstances and that the same thing applied to members of the British Army. What happened? The Irish-American lobby led by Noraid and the Cardinal Archbishop O'Connor of New York, immediately denounced Mayor Koch for coming back and expressing such cold-blooded sentiments. What happened? He lost the majority in the following election because he had given his opinion of what he had seen with his own eyes in Northern Ireland.
I said that there was no way that those lawyers could go back to whoever they were reporting to and say anything remotely favourable about the RUC. That is exactly what happened and every word of the report confirmed what I had predicted to them. I therefore find it difficult to believe that the spokesman for Northern Ireland on the Opposition Benches in the House of Commons could speak so liberally and give such credibility to an organisation such as that masterminded by Noraid in the United States of America.
Again, the spokesman for the Opposition said that there was no confidence among the nationalist community in Northern Ireland for members of the RUC. He gave as his reason for that lack of confidence the fact that the RUC was 92 per cent. protestant. There is a very good reason for that; namely that the IRA has taken great delight in murdering RUC men, and particularly those who are Catholic. If any Catholic in Northern Ireland wants to be a member of the RUC he certainly cannot live in what is referred to as a "nationalist" district. He has to leave his friends and relatives who are perhaps living in that environment.
The IRA shoot, murder, maim and kill Catholic members of the RUC, so inhibiting any other Catholics from wanting to join. Then it is said that it is a sectarian force and the spokesman for the Opposition stands up and reiterates that sentiment in Parliament. The SDLP, the party which I formerly led, does exactly the same. The major Opposition party in Northern Ireland—the major nationalist party—refuses to give support to the RUC. It says, "We will support it when it is acting impartially". Who is to say what is partial and what is impartial?
One spokesman for the SDLP, who is now extremely prominent in its ranks, told me that he would not like to recommend any of his constituents to join the RUC because they are liable to be killed. What a lame excuse for preventing people from joining the RUC. In other words, "I will not recommend Catholics to join the RUC because they may be killed, but it is all right for Protestants to be killed". It is wrong to take such an attitude to law and order.
One of the recommendations made by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, that has been rejected by the RUC is that there should be videotaping at interrogation and holding centres. I fully support the Opposition in another place that videotaping should take place. I also agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Mason. I believe that the right of silence should be looked at. I know from experience in

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Northern Ireland that both loyalist and republican terrorists can say nothing when they are taken into detention centres. The controversy about whether or not to abolish the right of silence would be taken care of if there was videotaping of the questioning of a suspect. The judge who finally heard the case would have the videotape of the interrogation and would be able to see with his own eyes the suspect who had said nothing. I am not too sure what would be done with the tape, or whether it would be shown only to the one judge in a Diplock court. I could not see it being shown to a jury, but it certainly could be used to let the judge see what was happening in the interrogation centre. Incidentally, the American lawyers, who have just made criticisms, also recommend that videotaping should take place.
The Father of the House in another place said that we were very short on intelligence gathering in Northern Ireland. I believe that to be true. He went on to suggest that we should gather intelligence in pubs and places frequented by terrorists. It would be a very brave man who attempted to go into pubs or other centres in clearly recognisable republican areas. There are no-go areas. One recalls Captain Robert Nairac who went into a pub in Newry at the beginning of the troubles and was identified as someone seeking intelligence. He was taken out and brutally and foully murdered.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mason. I know that this matter causes grave concern. I have been in constant telephonic communication today with Northern Ireland. There is a good deal of concern being voiced in relation to Declan Casey. I agree that the Army and security forces have to get intelligence in whatever way they can. However, under no circumstances should any member of the security forces, be it the Army or police, condone the murder
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of anyone in Northern Ireland—even though it brings about a situation where more intelligence can be obtained. I understand that an individual has been arrested today. Perhaps if he is charged soon the case will become sub judice. Before that happens I believe that a government Minister should come to the Dispatch Box and tell us whether or not there is any truth in the allegation that the RUC allowed this man to carry on as a quartermaster in the IRA, issuing to people arms which would be used to kill members of the security forces. That is one of the most serious allegations to emerge from the present security situation in Northern Ireland.
I believe that the option for internment should be retained. One cannot refuse to vote for the order on the single ground that it contains the option. Internment is still on the statute book in the Republic of Ireland, and it may be that sooner rather than later it will have to be introduced on both sides of the border. I recognise that there is some urgency in passing the order this evening. I see the Government Whip on the Front Bench. In deference to him, I shall limit my remarks; but quite a lot can be said about this legislation. It is draconian legislation. We have had a whole series of special powers and emergency provisions. I came across something today called the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, dated 9th August 1920, in respect of which the British Cabinet discussed what it called "authorised reprisals". Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, who was then Chief of the Imperial General Staff, told the Prime Minister in September that if there had to be murder, then the Government should do the murdering.
Legislation of this type is not new. I hope that it will be used in a way that will not affect the ordinary, common, decent people in Northern Ireland but that it will be gauged in such a way that it will harm, and perhaps finally eradicate, terrorism from our midst.
10.40 p.m.
Viscount Brookeborough: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing this order and also my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross who has produced his report for the last time.
I agree with much of what has been said so far, but I take issue with the views of the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, on video recording. Your Lordships' House should be well aware that it is the view of the RUC chief constable, the professional head of the fight against terrorism in Northern Ireland, and of the experts whom he commands, that it would damage the fight against terrorism. That point should at least be given some thought.
This year I am thankful that we also have the chief constable's report, for a change, in time for this debate as some of it is relevant to the order. He alludes to what I think is the most important single fact—that regardless of the success of emergency legislation and the hard work of our security forces,
"the concepts of democratic policing and the due process of the law rest on the proposition that there will be full and active participation by the community in support of both".
I would suggest that a large part of our business society has opted out of its social responsibilities in respect of the future of our province. This would probably be better for discussion during the debate on the extension order of the Northern Ireland Act in a few weeks' time. However, the lack of leadership and example from this quarter should not be underestimated in our problems at present.
It is good to see that my noble friend's report, in the introduction in paragraph 1.3 and later on, compliments the security forces on their training and the care that they take in their operations. I can tell the House that there has been a vast improvement over the past few years. The soldiers in most areas are much more "civilian friendly", if one can call it that. There is less pointing of weapons at those going about their daily business and fewer blackened faces in quiet urban areas. The Army should be complimented on its improvements.
Those of us who went on a defence visit last year saw the vast changes on the border, especially in Fermanagh. Recently I visited the Newry check-point. I was delighted to see that the changes are very extensive and have very much improved local public opinion—and that includes the nationalist public opinion, one of whom passed the comment that he would not still be in Newry if it were not for the check-point. I am delighted to see that among other building projects, the military wing of Musgrave Park hospital is well on the way to being rebuilt after the tragic bombing of more than a year ago. I know that my noble friend, in wearing his other hat as health Minister, has contributed greatly to that. I thank him for it.
I should like to comment briefly on a few sections of the report in a little more detail. In paragraph 1.6 and Chapter 2 my noble friend draws attention to custody times on remand. I realise that one should always wish for shorter lapses in time—and with the number of judges, it may be difficult to improve it. But in Northern Ireland we are fighting a hearts and minds
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battle, and perceptions and opinions are all important. We must seriously try to cut down the length of time taken to deal with these cases. They go on and on in the newspapers and on the television. People watch it daily and it continues to stir up animosity unnecessarily.
In paragraph 2.5.2 my noble friend mentions the problem of members of the security forces held on remand for long periods. That is unacceptably bad housekeeping and we are taking far too long doing our dirty washing in public. In public it must be, but we know the effect of allegations against our security forces on the media and especially in the United States.
There is also a contrast drawn by the report of those who are on duty and those who are off duty. Can the Minister give us an assurance that there will be an improvement even if it means appointing more judges? Closely connected to that are the rights of any individual under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Any person, while giving a statement to the police and who is cautioned, has the immediate right of access to a solicitor. On the civilian side there is no problem. But on occasions problems can arise for our soldiers in Northern Ireland. There is a flying lawyer in Lisburn who is available for serious cases or where terrorism is involved. However, there are less serious cases where a soldier may be cautioned as a result of an allegation of, for instance, minor assault while searching a car.
The flying lawyer may not be available for a number of reasons, but there is no system presently in place to supply a local substitute. Who will pay for a local solicitor and who will it be? Without legal advice in the first hour a soldier is in danger of putting himself at a severe disadvantage and subsequently being convicted of a criminal charge due to his personal inexperience. Can the Minister give an undertaking that British soldiers in particular will not continue to suffer through the lack of facilities provided already by PACE, a right of every citizen in the United Kingdom?
Paragraph 3 deals with so-called intimidation of defence lawyers. I do not wish to go deeply into the matter but we are dealing with professionals in law. Who better to know that allegations can only be substantiated and investigated if evidence is provided? So why is it missing? It is my understanding that the RUC has received no evidence. Until it is provided I cannot support the hue and cry over that subject.
I turn to paragraph 4.9 dealing with compensation for operations by the Armed Forces in the Province. I find that £5.5 million is a fairly horrific figure. I am not happy with the possible auditing of these claims. For a start, they are handled by an amazing number of agencies—six. I shall read them out but if noble Lords understand them they understand more than I do. They are: MoD ACO Northern Ireland; DoE as agents of NIO; Police Authority for Northern Ireland; the Compensation Agency, NIO; PL/LS Claims 3 London, whoever they are; the Guardian Royal Exchange plc (under contract to PL/LS Claims 3 London).

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Can my noble friend tell your Lordships' House what cross-referencing, if any, is done to ensure that the claims for one occasion are not put forward to, and rewarded by, more than one agency or maybe more than two? I also understand that 75 per cent. of the claims' value is due to helicopter activity. Allegations of chickens committing mass suicide, or similar claims, are often not notified for up to a year. I am sorry. I live in a farming community and although there are some problems, I do not believe that they are on this scale. Looking at the figure of £4.1 million, it would indicate a mass slaughter of our farm animals. That is not so. My own house, due to its location, seems to be used as a reference point for helicopters flying to Fermanagh. Between 10 and 40 go over it every day. My sheep and cattle pay little or no attention and in fact perhaps they enjoy the company.
There are a lot of people learning a lot of tricks and if we are not prepared to do something they are going to get away with it. Will the Minister undertake to pass on to his honourable friend Michael Mates the requirement for a little more evidence? Surely today, with the tachograph in lorries and satellite navigation, it must be possible to verify or invent a system which will provide evidence of flight timings, locations and heights.
I would also like to draw attention to some of the Government's in-house spending; in particular, charges paid to civilian contractors in the Province. I know that, due to the security situation, these must inevitably be higher than they might otherwise be. For example, recently I heard of a case where a military van (a civilianised one) was involved in a minor accident where a bumper and an indicator light were damaged. The bill levied was for over £600. Out of interest, I rang my local VW dealer and asked for a quote, to include fitting. It was under £100 for the bumper and £20 for the indicator. Even if the bumper bolts were frozen on with rust, the likely labour charge would have been under £50. That one accident could have cost a third of what it did. Somebody could have sent the van to Stranraer and done the work cheaper on the mainland. Being a minor accident and only one out of over 700 last year, the total—dare one say it—of excess payments for this sort of work must be astronomic. In days of increased accountability, moves must be made to reduce these expenses which are occurring across the board.
If your Lordships can bear with me for a couple more minutes, in the light of Sir Edward Heath's speech on this order in another place, I should like to look at the future of legislation and agencies to help in the fight against terrorism. As I understand it, we are due for a new Act in 1996, and I believe that the Government should be looking at the options now in preparation for that. They may say that they are, but it would be rather nice to think that a group of people whom we know are looking at the options.
Last year in this debate I mentioned that I thought that the agencies involved should have increasing accountability to the democratically elected Parliament, and not only through the Chief Constable
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who is accountable only to the law. I am not trying to undermine police primacy, in which I resolutely believe, but I do believe that it may be right when society on this side of the Irish Sea—as well as that in the Province—is threatened by the scourge of terrorism, as we are at the moment, for a new, fresh look to be taken at it. It is the Government's responsibility—as elected Members and as an elected Government—to lead and direct. Perhaps Sir Edward Heath's proposal is not far wrong, although we might not need a Cabinet Minister responsible purely for the fight against terrorism.
On that note and due to time being short—I am not quite sure what would happen if midnight passed without us finishing—I should like to reinforce the fact that I support the order.
10.52 p.m.
Lord Cooke of Islandreagh: My Lords, I wish to offer my whole-hearted support to the order which will renew the emergency and prevention of terrorism provisions for another year. I have read the report by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, on the working of these provisions during the past year and cannot but admire the careful and skilful way he has reviewed a variety of difficult and sometimes contentious matters. I find myself at ease with all that he says. His recommendations cannot be ignored and I trust that each one will be carefully considered. I am pleased to note that he is able to acknowledge the care being taken to avert the danger of clumsiness or over-reaction in the use of these powers. He notes that care and training are bearing fruit. I trust that this care will continue because it is important that all sections of the community should respect the forces of law and order.
I join others in regretting that the noble Viscount has made his last report because his successor will find it difficult similarly to grasp the many difficult issues at stake.
In reviewing these provisions there are a number of questions which must be asked. How effective are they in helping to eliminate terrorism? Is any progress being made in the battle against terrorism and, if not, what steps should be taken to improve the situation?
I am sorry to have to advise your Lordships that the general view in Northern Ireland is that the security situation is as bad as it has ever been and has the potential for getting worse. This is due to the fear and uncertainty which pervade all sections of the community. Everyone is suffering in some way—some, of course, very much worse than others—and everyone except the terrorists and their immediate supporters want the whole horrible business ended immediately. After almost 25 years of active terrorism, citizens in Northern Ireland have a right to ask the Government how they intend to improve the security situation.
Sectarian murders are all to frequent. We are suffering repeated bombings of our towns and cities, seemingly at the will of the IRA. All government Ministers seem able to do is to appear on television,

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standing in the rubble of the latest atrocity telling us that the IRA will never win. People are becoming tired of that. They see no sign of improvement.
Your Lordships may be surprised to learn that the situation has become markedly worse since the talks about talks started almost three years ago. There appeared to be a withdrawal from offensive action against the IRA and speeches by Secretaries of State suggested that there was little will to maintain the Union in accordance with the wishes of the majority. Those things have been destabilising. There is no doubt that they have been factors leading to the horrible upsurge in activity by the so-called loyalist terrorists. Those mindless people have reacted in a ghastly manner which is univerally condemned.
It is no use Ministers denying that the will to fight the terrorist has been lost or that there is no reason for people to have such perceptions. The fact is that such perceptions are general, and I can understand why.
We now have a situation where fear and uncertainty at dangerous levels exist throughout the community. The nationalist community lives in fear of murderous attacks by so-called loyalists. The Unionist community fears for its future and everyone is at the mercy of the IRA which appears to bomb and shoot as it will. That is all a recipe for further deterioration in the situation unless the danger is recognised and action taken.
It is time that the Northern Ireland Office set to work seriously to decide what further should be done. It is not easy, but we are tired of being told that nothing more can be done, because the forces of law and order must work within the law. We all know and accept that. But now we have the chief constable urging that steps be taken to amend laws which the terrorists are able to evade with impunity. We have a situation where members of the security forces meet those whom they know to have committed murder, but they cannot arrest them because they know they cannot convict them. They may meet in a newspaper shop or at a checkpoint where soldiers or police are often subject to taunts, such as the streetwise equivalent of, "He, he, he, you can't get me". The chief constable has now made public his recommendations for amendments to the law which he considers would be helpful. Those and other matters must be attended to urgently.
The security problem in Northern Ireland is more difficult to deal with than in any other European country, because we have a long border across which terrorists can move with impunity and live in comparative safety outside the jurisdiction. The Garda Siochana commands respect and has worked hard to unearth explosives and arms, but there is a limit to what it can do for social and political reasons. South of the border the leaders and godfathers and their whereabouts are known. There is little indication that the Government are pressing Dublin to find better ways of restraining those people south of the border.
It is not possible to speak of those matters without paying tribute to the security forces and the way they carry out their duties. We recognise that they prevent many bombs being taken to their target and prevent
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many murders. Unfortunately, too many are still being committed. In particular I must mention the almost miraculous way in which police and Army manage to get people out of their homes or out of offices and buildings before the bombs go off. We all know that sooner or later luck will not be on their side and there will be massive loss of life. On this side of the water recently we have sadly had experience of the consequences of large bombs and are aware that brave action by police and others has avoided wholesale casualties.
Every thinking person in Northern Ireland appreciates that action on the security front is not the end in itself. Movement is also required on the political front. Unfortunately, there seems to be a belief in some quarters that agreement in political talks would stop the IRA. We are not all stupid in Northern Ireland; we know that terrorism now has a momentum of its own. It is closely coupled to racketeering on a massive scale. Leaders of the IRA will be enjoying the power they wield and enjoying the financial rewards from rackets of all kinds. They will not stop until they are forced to.
Almost everyone in Northern Ireland wishes the Secretary of State well in his efforts to make progress on the political front, but I hope that this time his objectives will be limited to what is achievable. Some progress was made in the previous talks, but they had no chance of success because the impossible was being attempted. An aspiring mountaineer does not start with Everest; he tests himself on a local hill. Our politicians would be well advised to start similarly.
I hope that the Minister, when winding up, will be able to assure us that every effort will be made to make real progress on the security front. If the terrorists can be restrained and contained, political progress will be much more likely. We all seek the time when it will be no longer necessary to bring this order before the House.
In conclusion, I can do no better than to repeat the words of Mr. Beattie, chairman of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, at last week's annual conference. He said:
"Together, the police service, the judicial system, the community and the Government more obviously armed with the political will to win, we can and will succeed in ending this misery".
11.2 p.m.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be grateful not only for the way in which the noble Earl introduced the debate but for what has been an extremely interesting and valuable series of speeches from noble Lords from all parts of the House. During the course of my remarks I shall try not to duplicate what has been said, but I should like to pick up two particular points.
First, I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, that this is not the way to conduct Northern Ireland business. That is so not only in the proximate sense of those who manage business in the House not always putting us on at the fag-end of other discussions late in the day, coming up like Cinderella against the deadline of midnight, but also in the more general sense of the report issued yesterday by the

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Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights; that we do not conduct Northern Ireland business as well as we should. I hope that the Government will pay attention to that not only in the temporary sense of now but in the longer term. So long as we do not have devolved government in Northern Ireland but are governing Northern Ireland from Westminster we must look to ourselves in Parliament. We must make sure that we give the attention and the time that the problems of the Province demand.
Secondly, I wish to refer to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mason, in his interesting speech. He may have been a little hard on the Opsahl Commission. Its conclusions are a mixed bag and I agree with some but disagree with others. However, the value of the commission is that it represents a kind of civic initiative. That is to be welcomed in Northern Ireland where too often the conventional political parties seem to be locked in a time-warp of their own. We should welcome anything which can spur new thinking and get people involved in solving their own problems in Northern Ireland.
On the substance of the order, it must be common ground among us in the House that we are fighting a deadly battle in Northern Ireland. It is a battle between civilisation and mindlessness; it is a battle between rational debate and increasingly vicious violence. Now we have the growing boldness of the loyalist paramilitaries who are also fighting that battle on two fronts. Those people who are fighting that battle day by day on our behalf are generally young men. They are on the city streets and along the country lanes of Northern Ireland operating under very great strain. They are subject to tensions at which we can only guess, sitting in this Chamber. The fact that they do so, whether they are policemen or soldiers, whether they are the RUC or the Army, with propriety even when provoked and with restraint in times and conditions of great uncertainty and, on the whole, with respect for the law, is something of which we and they should be very proud.
We must allow the security forces to be as effective as possible. That is why we on these Benches are unequivocal in our support for the renewal of the special powers contained in the order and why we accept the new powers including—and perhaps particularly welcome—the provision to deal with terrorists' finance.
And yet we must acknowledge that these are special powers to be used exceptionally and sparingly. When they are used they must be employed with the greatest care. For we are fighting other less tangible battles at the same time: a battle for the confidence of the ordinary members of the public in Northern Ireland that that deployment of force is for their benefit and that their rights as individuals will be respected; and we are fighting also to make our case heard as a nation before the Bar of world opinion that Great Britain, even at gun point, remains a bastion of the civilisation that it is purporting to defend. Any deviation from the highest standards thus cannot be tolerated. That is why it is right for Parliament to ask the Government
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to keep under continuous and scrupulous review the provisions of both the prevention of terrorism legislation and the emergency provisions legislation.
In Parliament we have been materially assisted in that task of keeping the Government up to scratch by the annual reports of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. On behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, I should like to say how much we have valued his excellent reports and how sorely he will be missed. The appointment of Mr. David Hewitt as independent assessor of the military complaints procedure and the wise deliberations of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper as the independent commissioner for the so-called holding centres will help to bridge the gap but I ask the noble Earl to tell us how he sees their work being integrated with that of the successor to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. Perhaps he will tell us when the appointment will be made of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's promised deputy and, indeed, when we might expect to hear in Parliament who is to be the successor to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville.
I move briefly to the improvements and these are some of the issues raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. First, as regards video taping, the noble Earl will know that I have been consistent in pressing from these Benches for the video taping of interrogation interviews. It seems to me that the case is now overwhelming. Mischievous accusations against the police would become incredible if interviews were video taped. Justice would be seen to be done. As the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, explained, the issue of silence would be much more easily handled. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has, yet again, asked for that. The Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights has asked for it. I personally believe that it is probably acceptable to the Army. Are the Government not allowing themselves to be over-influenced by the RUC as the sole arbiter of this matter? As the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, said, that is the view of the chief constable and he has made that more than plain. But I wonder whether the time has now come for the Secretary of State to take a broader view. If he cannot agree to videotaping, then why not audiotaping which I understand Sir Louis Blom-Cooper prefers. The Government no longer have any excuse for sitting on their hands in regard to the matter.
That takes me on to the question of Castlereagh. I await the first report of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper with keen anticipation. However, it must be said, both on anecdotal evidence and according to the Commission of Justice, that there are serious reasons for concern about Castlereagh. Indeed, that was one of the reasons that led to the appointment of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper. One of the issues to which the report of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, refers, and to which attention has been drawn during the debate, concerns allegations, most of which I do not take very seriously either. However, I do take moderately seriously allegations of British Irish Rights Watch of vicarious harassment of solicitors through their clients.
If I understand them correctly, those allegations focus principally on Castlereagh. If the British Irish Rights Watch passes on those anonymous complaints,

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as suggested by the noble Lord, it will be important for the noble Earl to be able to tell us, first, whether they will be investigated by the RUC and a report back made. I think that the belief is that that will happen; I hope so. Secondly, if the names of the complainants are revealed, we must have some assurance that, in sacrificing their anonymity, they should not in any way be victimised. I believe that the shadow of Mr. Pat Finucane hangs over those allegations and that, therefore, we must take them seriously. Incidentally, I am curious as to whether this would be an appropriate matter for the independent commissioner to investigate? I shall be interested to hear the noble Earl's response in that respect.
I wish to deal briefly with Army complaints. I was very glad to hear that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, thinks that the system has improved. Indeed, I think that the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, with his great experience, thinks that on-the-ground actual relationships are improving. We also hear that from other quarters. But I wonder whether the noble Earl would care to comment in particular on the apparent doubling of complaints of assault from 170 in 1991 to 344 in 1992. Is that a matter for concern?
Then there is the issue of custody time raised by other speakers. The noble Earl said that the Government are waiting for results; that is, waiting, in a sense, for statistics. However, it is important to know what they intend to do because the statistics will not be very encouraging. The fact that the average number of days between arraignment and the first day of trial seems to be roughly double in Northern Ireland to that in England and Wales, even if it is calculated slightly differently, puts the whole system in the position of being questioned by those who want to attack it. It really is not something of which we can be at all proud.
Finally, I should like to make one of two general points. I think that our success in dealing with paramilitaries and terrorists in Northern Ireland depends, crucially, on intelligence gathering, on intelligence co-ordination, on analysis and on interpretation. It was striking that the former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, expressed his concern that our intelligence is not as effectively integrated as it should be. The noble Earl may recall that I raised that concern with the Government last year. We have the police, the Army, MI5 and other special units involved in Northern Ireland. To put it no higher, there seem to be some very rough edges between the agencies.
Last year we had the case of Brian Nelson. Now we have the one referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Fitt and Lord Mason of Barnsley, of Declan Casey. He was acknowledged by the chief constable to be an agent of the RUC. Yet, by his own claim, he was involved in fatal attacks on security services. Perhaps I may add my voice to those of other noble Lords who have urged the noble Earl in his response to address the issue very directly. It is a matter of the greatest possible concern.
However, more generally, it seems that each agency is running its own informers. I believe that we are in a hit of a competitive mess: where there should be
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integration there is too much competition. I realise that it is difficult for the noble Earl to comment in much detail but I would welcome his acknowledgement that some overall political and strategic leadership needs to be given in this area in the future. The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, referred to that point.
Finally, I hope I may contribute a perspective from these Benches to the order as a whole. This is necessary legislation but I do not believe it should be used as the thin end of the wedge for a more general diminution of civil liberties in Northern Ireland.
Two issues have been referred to in this debate—internment, for which there are powers in the order, and the issue of silence of the accused. All the evidence from the past shows that internment is counter-Productive. We on these Benches would not be able to support it unless, conceivably, it were to be in the context of a settlement in Northern Ireland and an all-Ireland use of internment. As for silence, it is one thing to infer guilt from silence—that is not an unreasonable assumption on occasions—but it is quite something else to talk about the criminalisation of silence. In my view that would be alien to the whole British tradition of justice. Both of those matters would constitute serious infringements of civil rights and we on these Benches would consider them steps too far.
There is much to be miserable about as regards policy in Northern Ireland but one of the satisfactory things is how, on the big issues, we have been able to maintain good cross-party consensus. If the Government want to continue to look for Liberal Democrat support, I hope they will be careful in taking what I would call steps too far along the road of limiting civil liberties. The balance that we have to strike is a delicate one between the harsh needs of a difficult situation and the enduring claims of civil liberties. So far, so good. I hope we can continue to be with the Government.
11.17 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, the House has been discussing this order for an hour and a quarter. Notwithstanding the timetable of pressures which has been referred to, I believe that this has been one of the best discussions we have had on this legislation during the past eight years. We have had the benefit of contributions from the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Cooke, two Members who live in Northern Ireland, whose families are in the Protestant tradition in Northern Ireland and who have a record of distinguished service to that tradition. They have raised matters that fall within their direct experience.
My noble friend Lord Fitt is a former leader of the SDLP and the Northern Ireland Assembly. He has seen the legislation in a somewhat different perspective but again he speaks with great authority. My noble friend Lord Mason has spoken with the authority of a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who can draw upon the source material available to a Secretary of State. I am particularly grateful that he has taken part in this discussion this evening.

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The noble Lord, Lord Holme, and I are almost in partnership on this matter and I have to say once again that I probably agree with almost everything that he has said this evening. My noble friend Lord Blease is sitting behind me. He has not spoken this evening but he has always ensured that I am fully aware of what is happening in Northern Ireland. I join with all noble Lords in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Arran, for his review of the operation of the Act during 1992 and for setting out the grounds for its continuance for another 12 months. I appreciate that the noble Earl has brought us one or two glad tidings.
Many references have rightly been made during the course of the debate to the annual review which has been conducted by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. Indeed he has conducted all the reviews since 1987. Sadly this will be his last review. I am sure that the people of Northern Ireland, parliamentarians and also the Government, are immensely indebted to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, for his services to Northern Ireland. We on the Opposition Benches wish that the Government had accepted more of his recommendations, but so be it.
It seems to me that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has shown himself at all times to be an acute, well-informed observer. He has always been concerned to strike that difficult balance between the requirements of security and the requirements of the rule of law. At the same time, as a former diplomat, he has also been concerned to maintain the United Kingdom's standing within the international community. In this century, the international community cannot be ignored. For all those reasons I wish to be associated with the tributes which have been placed on the record by the Minister and other Members of your Lordships' House.
Sadly, it is the conclusion of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, that the Act should be renewed. I would not wish to challenge that finding. At the same time the noble Viscount has made important recommendations, which are summarised in paragraph 1.6. Those have been referred to by almost every speaker this evening. My colleagues in another place have made it clear that we support those recommendations, apart from the suggestion that Section 8 of the PTA should be allowed to lapse.
We on this side of the House are particularly grateful that the noble Viscount has once again called for the introduction of video recording of interviews under Section 14 of the PTA. I regret very much that on that important recommendation the Secretary of State was not encouraging. Indeed, his words were repeated in this Chamber this evening. We believe that he is quite wrong in his response to that recommendation. I very much hope that the opposition of the chief constable of the RUC will be rigorously tested, but I am not confident that that will happen. The noble Lord, Lord Holme, and my noble friend Lord Fitt spoke strongly on that point. As I said earlier, I agree with almost everything that has been said on that issue.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, also stressed the importance of cutting down the long delays which are
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building up before people in custody are brought to trial or have access to solicitors within 48 hours. We are reminded by the statistics that in 1992, 1,795 people were detained under the Act and only 35 were charged under the legislation and 424 with other offences. The noble Earl, Lord Arran, confirmed in his opening speech that the Government are making real efforts to tackle those serious mischiefs, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holme, that we are looking for results.
When the 1991 Act was before the House the opposition parties voiced their anxiety about two of the new provisions which were so widely worded. Those are referred to in paragraph 12 of the report. Fearing that the new powers could be abused, I am comforted that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has found that they are operating without trouble, at least so far.
For my part, I am grateful that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, broadened his report by dealing in Section 3 with the three reports published in 1992 and 1993 which have been critical of the alleged violations of human rights in Northern Ireland. As we have heard, those reports are Human Rights and Legal Defense in Northern Ireland issued by an American organisation and Defending the Defenders submitted to a sub-commission of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights by the British Irish Rights Watch. The noble Viscount is right to draw attention to the fact that that report is sponsored by two leading Silks. Then there is Belfast Observations written by American lawyers and addressed to the US Congress. My noble friends have referred to those reports.
There is now a growing body of international human rights covenants and international opinion which cannot be ignored. Given the international commitment, quite apart from our own commitment to human rights, it is proper that my colleagues in another place placed the focus on those reports. I urge upon the Minister the need for the Northern Ireland Office to reply in full to the criticisms contained in those documents. I believe that it would be a huge error of judgment for the Northern Ireland Office to remain silent.
The recommendations of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, are not the only ones on the desk of the Secretary of State. I see from the chief constable's press conference on 25th May last that he is pressing for at least eight new provisions. We are told by the chief constable that those are currently being examined at what he describes as,
"the most senior level within the Northern Ireland Office which incorporates the RUC and other experts".
Those are his words. The chief constable regards his proposal as "essential". Some of his measures are subtle, while others need to be made more specific. Tactically they may be very useful to the RUC—and that point has been made by a number of my colleagues today—but one has also to say that they would be very hard to justify since they seem to offend against the deepest principles that can be shown to inhere in the rule of law.

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When do the Government anticipate receiving final advice from the Northern Ireland Office Committee, to which the chief constable has referred? If that in-house committee accepts the chief constable's proposals then the Government must be encouraged to consult on their merit with their own advisory committee, the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, the Bar Council in Northern Ireland and the Law Society in Northern Ireland, and they should also seek the opinion of the person appointed to review the emergency legislation.
I mean not the slightest disrespect to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville—as I am sure he will appreciate—but I cannot help feeling a shade uneasy about one piece of information, referred to in paragraph 1.3 of the report, suggesting that the emergency Acts are now a permanent feature of the Northern Ireland landscape. The sentence which causes me trouble states:
"One experienced counsellor reminded me that by now people have grown up with the Act and become used to it".
Surely our duty, certainly on these Benches, must be to challenge the finality of emergency legislation. One fears that the renewal of emergency legislation year after year for 20 years, and its gradual expansion, is a creeping programme leading to its assimilation, lock, stock and barrel, into the permanent law of Northern Ireland.
The point has not been made tonight, but it often has been made, that the history of Northern Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries was dominated by the use made of emergency laws, although they were then referred to as special laws. The original EPA of the current series was brought in in 1973. It was an emergency Act, as the name implies, intended to be for one year only but containing a renewal provision. It contained 31 sections and five schedules. By now four new versions of the legislation have been enacted. The current Act was passed in 1991. It is almost three times the length of the 1973 Act.
Perhaps I may take up a point made by my noble friend Lord Brookeborough. If we look three years ahead when the Act will expire, in the absence of a political settlement, there will then be a sixth EPA which may be even tougher than the current one. My Lords, time flyeth and 1996 will soon be upon us. Since 1973—it is a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cooke of Islandreagh—despite the steady growth in the number of emergency provisions, 3,053 people have been killed in Northern Ireland as a result of terrorist action. I note that there has not been any appreciable decline since 1977. Last year alone, as the Minister explained in his opening speech, there were 75 deaths. According to one analysis of the statistics which I have seen, more people are getting away with acts of terrorism than before. Peace is, as ever, out of reach.
One is therefore bound to pause and wonder what has been achieved by the emergency legislation. I believe that the Government must ponder over the series of thoughtful questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cooke of Islandreagh. Twenty years is long enough for an emergency. One is tempted to ask whether in any way they have been wasted years.
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Where did things go wrong, if they did? Those are some of the difficult and awkward questions which are now being asked. I believe that that was probably the question which prompted the former Prime Minister to intervene in the debate on the order in another place on 8th June. I also believe that it is a question which emerges in the speech of the Member for Belfast East and possibly also that of the Member for Newry and Armagh. It was possibly present in the mind of the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, this evening. So the time has surely come for a full review of the operation of the emergency legislation since 1973 and its effectiveness.
A full review going back to 1973 or possibly 1969 could be undertaken within two years. If it were launched within the next few months, the report could be available well before the Act expires in 1996, so we would be grateful if the Minister could give us an indication of what are the Government's present intentions in this respect.
Earlier this evening, like other Members of your Lordships' House, I received a copy of the Press statement issued by the Northern Ireland Standing Commission on Human Rights urging reform of the system of legislating for Northern Ireland. That point has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Holme. I believe that the thrust of the main proposals is acceptable, but obviously the small print requires detailed consideration. This is possibly a matter that we shall have to come back to later on.
Many worrying references have been made this evening to the so-called double agent. The Minister will have heard of the peculiarly sinister allegations. I believe we are entitled to an assurance that the testimony of Mr Casey in the Daily Mirror will be investigated by an independent person so that we can get at the truth. But I say no more as I understand, like my noble friend Lord Fitt, that Mr Casey was arrested this evening.
This is where I now wish to return for a few minutes to the chief constable's press conference. He acknowledged at that conference:
"I don't think that the RUC, however well assisted by the Army, can produce a long-term solution in Northern Ireland. The solution in Northern Ireland will have to be a political solution … that holds the in depth support of the majority of people on either side of the divide".
We must therefore rightly return to the political arena. In that context, I happen to believe that some of the proposals of the Opsahl Commission, whose report was published last week, have a relevance, though I acknowledge that they may appear to be academic in the eyes of some people. I think it is right to ask the Minister whether the Government intend to pursue the recommendations, or some of them. It would be helpful if the Government would give us an indication of how they see the report at this stage.
The politicians in Northern Ireland have been the subject of immense criticism in the past few years. I believe that it is right that we should recognise that many have also shown exceptional courage. That is true of Members of this House who have lived or are living in Northern Ireland. In that context, I recall the words of the chief constable at his press conference,

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acknowledging that currently there is a residual threat to the lives of all politicians in Northern Ireland. That is a sobering thought.
Finally, on behalf of my colleagues on these Benches, I want to express our sympathy to those in Northern Ireland and indeed in Great Britain who have suffered at the hands of the paramilitaries, and to express our deep gratitude to all those who have struggled over the years to maintain the rule of law.
11.35 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, this evening your Lordships have had the opportunity to give your profound consideration to the powers that are available under the Emergency Provisions Act to fight terrorism. A number of particularly valuable and interesting points have been made during the debate. I shall pick up on them straightaway.
I was particularly grateful for the extract that the noble Lord, Lord Mason, read from the report of the noble Lord, Lord Colville. I am sure that his words will be heard by those who need to hear them. He also mentioned the matter of talking to Sinn Fein. Our line, as the noble Lord, Lord Mason, knows very well, is clear. While Sinn Fein endorses violence, we cannot engage with it as if it were a normal democratic party. If it wants to be treated like one, it will have to behave like one. It cannot have it both ways. But I can assure the noble Lord that the relations between the RUC and the security authorities on the mainland are of the highest quality and the relations in Great Britain are for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. It would be inappropriate for me to go further on that matter tonight.
The noble Lord, Lord Mason, and many other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, referred to Declan Casey. The Chief Constable of the RUC issued a statement early today. The use of informants is absolutely essential to the fight against terrorism. Casey was an informant and the allegations in a national newspaper, including his alleged involvement in matters hitherto unknown to the police, are being fully investigated. The RUC is determined that the full truth should be established and the result of the investigation will be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
As regards the Opsahl Report, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Mason, my right honourable and learned friend received a copy of the long and detailed Opsahl Report when it was published last week. It is being considered in the usual way. We always listen with considerable interest to the views of others. I cannot say any more than that at present.
The noble Lord, Lord Mason, also advocated the introduction of ID cards. The security forces do not consider identification to be a problem. The introduction of cards would impose a bureaucratic burden on everyone. Given the existence of free movement over the border with the Republic and across the Irish Sea, they would in all probability not be effective.
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I listened with great interest to the views of the noble Lord, Lord Mason, on the right to silence. That issue was also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and other noble Lords. My right honourable and learned friend keeps the law against terrorism under continual review. The chief constable's proposals are receiving the closest attention in that context. There is a careful and sensitive balance to be struck between measures to secure the conviction of the guilty and measures which may enhance the possibility of some innocent people also being convicted.
I have noted what the noble Lord, Lord Mason, said about the desirability of a bar to the medal for service in Northern Ireland. He will understand and agree that this is a matter for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence. Indeed, I shall draw those remarks to his attention.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, I refute immediately any government complacency on leaving this debate to so late in the evening on this day of the week. I can assure him and the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, that it was not intended in any way to be disrespectful. It went through the normal channels and we fully realise the circumstances in which it has been debated.
I welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and in particular his reminder of the way in which members of the legal profession suffer at the hands of the IRA. We owe them a great deal for the way in which they uphold the rule of law.
My noble friend Lord Brookeborough raised the matter of the length of time that soldiers spend on remand. During my opening speech I said that the Government are committed to reducing the length of time that those accused of scheduled offences spend on remand awaiting trial. Members of the security forces are subject to the same criminal justice system as members of the public, and hence suffer the same delays. The improvements brought about by the recent scheme will benefit them equally.
My noble friend raised a further point, mentioned also by my noble friend Lord Colville, which is the subject of compensation for Army damage. The Government have noted the concern of my noble friend Lord Colville regarding the considerable increase in compensation payments made as a result of security force activities, and will be giving consideration as to whether procedures need to be amended. It is our position that compensation payments are limited to bona fide cases and that procedures must be cost effective. My noble friend asked further more detailed questions, to which I hope he will permit me to reply in writing.
The noble Lord, Lord Cooke of Islandreagh, made a grim assessment of the security situation in Northern Ireland. I can assure him that the Government and security forces are never complacent and are bearing down on terrorism. As I mentioned originally, much work necessarily goes unpublicised. I can give the noble Lord the assurance he seeks, that security is the first priority of the Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, referred to the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Colville—that video recordings of interviews

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under the PTA be considered —and urged that they should be introduced forthwith. That was also a point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. I have already referred to the chief constable's view on the subject. In the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, where terrorists are under strict instructions from their organisations not to co-operate with the authorities in any way, it has been his firm view that such a move would inhibit further the chance of obtaining information to secure convictions and protect life. The keeping of a record of interviews, with the fears of disclosure that it would engender, is seen by him as likely to tilt the balance too much in favour of the terrorist organisations. In the circumstances, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is not persuaded that the introduction of video recordings would be in the overall interests of justice.
The noble Lord, Lord Hohne of Cheltenham, asked about the appointment of a deputy to Sir Louis Blom-Cooper. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is considering whom he might appoint. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked whether or not the Government intended to set up an inquiry before the next EPA. My honourable and learned friend intends to appoint a successor to my noble friend Lord Colville, to whom we are all most grateful. It is our intention to invite him to produce a review of the legislation in advance of any new Act. That would be in addition to normal reviews of the operation of the present Act.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked also about the Government's response to the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Colville. I addressed the important ones in my opening speech and further ones in my winding-up speech, when I examined several more. I can say that, as always, we are examining them closely and shall be taking appropriate action in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred to the chief constable's press conference. I dealt with that in
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my response to the noble Lord, Lord Mason. The contents and balance of the law against terrorism are kept under review. Changes to the law are made when necessary and desirable, but only after careful consideration. We need to be certain that the law is effective but also proportionate and capable of being applied fairly.
I am conscious that I have not replied to all the questions. I hope that your Lordships have by now learnt that I shall do so in the very near future. I should like to say in commending the order to your Lordships this evening that the powers contained in the Act are there because the Government consider them necessary to bring to an end the work of sophisticated and deadly terrorist organisations. They have been enacted for the protection of life and limb in Northern Ireland. We believe them to be a proportionate and necessary response in a democratic society to the lawless use of violence by those from both sides who seek to impose their minority will on the people of Northern Ireland.
I ask your Lordships to support the Motion to continue the powers. In so doing we shall be sending the terrorists the message that Her Majesty's Government will not waiver from their commitment to defeat them once and for all. I commend the order to your Lordships.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Bill
Returned from the Commons with one of the amendments disagreed to with a reason for such disagreement; with certain other amendments agreed to with amendments; and with the remaining amendments agreed to; it was ordered that the Commons reason and amendments be printed.
House adjourned at fourteen minutes before midnight.

  FORESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT REPORT: GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
  FORESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT REPORT: GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
  AGRICULTURE COUNCIL, 14TH JUNE
  AGRICULTURE COUNCIL, 14TH JUNE
  MOTORWAYS: ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS
  MOTORWAYS: ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS
  ROAD PROGRAMME: EFFECTS
  ROAD PROGRAMME: EFFECTS
  VALUES OF ROAD TRAVEL TIME SAVINGS: STUDIES
  VALUES OF ROAD TRAVEL TIME SAVINGS: STUDIES
  ROAD DEVELOPMENT PLANS: REGIONAL GUIDANCE
  ROAD DEVELOPMENT PLANS: REGIONAL GUIDANCE
  MoT CERTIFICATES: MEASURES TO COMBAT FRAUD
  MoT CERTIFICATES: MEASURES TO COMBAT FRAUD
  MoT CERTIFICATES: THEFTS
  MoT CERTIFICATES: THEFTS
  PORT RECEPTION FACILITIES: OIL AND GARBAGE
  PORT RECEPTION FACILITIES: OIL AND GARBAGE
  HUMANITIES RESEARCH
  HUMANITIES RESEARCH
  TUZLA AIRFIELD AND RELIEF SUPPLIES
  TUZLA AIRFIELD AND RELIEF SUPPLIES