Sitting of 25 June 1993

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

    Channel Tunnel
    9.34 am
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I have the honour to present a number of petitions to the House concerning the construction of the channel tunnel rail link which runs through Islington to the proposed new terminal at St. Pancras station. It obviously has a considerable effect upon my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith). Together, we are presenting eight petitions. The first reads:
    The humble petition of the residents of Grosvenor avenue, London, N5, sheweth:
    That, if the route of the Channel Tunnel High Speed Rail Link follows that of the existing North London Line it will cause severe damage to the environment, particularly housing, businesses and roads as it will bring excessive vibrations, noise pollution and further loss of open space.
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable house abandon any further plans to site the Rail Link through Islington because of the damage that will be caused to property, the environment and the general well-being of the residents. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
    The second petition is from a neighbouring area, known as Newington Green, London, NI. It reads:
    The humble petition of the residents of Newington Green, London, NI, sheweth:
    That we wish to register strong protest at the Government proposal to route the Channel Tunnel high speed rail link along the route of the North London line. We believe this will result in unnecessary and unacceptable noise to the residents and that the increased vibration will cause damage to our homes.
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable house urge the Government to abandon all plans to route the Channel Tunnel high speed rail link along the route of the North London line.
    And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    The third petition is from a neighbouring area which is very seriously affected by the proposals, in that the road, Mildmay grove, is on either side of the north London line. The railway is in the centre of the grove. The petition reads:
    'The humble petition of the residents of Mildmay Grove, London, NI, sheweth
    that we wish to object to the proposals to route Channel Tunnel and Freight traffic along the North London Line. We believe this will increase the already unacceptable level of noise and vibration causing damage to our homes and the local environment.
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable house urge British Railways to abandon all plans to route Channel Tunnel passenger and freight traffic along the North London line.
    And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    The first two petitions are supported by 122 people and 114 people. The third, the Mildmay grove petition, is
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    supported by 125 people. Another very large petition is supported by 2,700 people. This petition, from constituents in Islington, is signed by people who live throughout the borough and in the neighbouring boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. It reads:
    The humble petition of the constituents of Islington sheweth:
    that we wish to register strong protest at the Government's proposal to route a Channel Tunnel high-speed Rail Link through east London via Stratford to King's Cross/St. Pancras and the siting of Channel Tunnel facilities at Stratford. We believe such facilities at Stratford and the routing of a high speed Rail link across Islington will result in unnecessary and unacceptable damage to our environment and local economy.
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable house instruct Union Railways to abandon all plans to route a Channel Tunnel high speed Rail link across the Borough of Islington.
    And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    I am pleased to present these petitions. They have the full support of many more people throughout the community, as well as my support and that of many local councillors. We hope that the Secretary of State for Transport will take seriously the environmental concerns of people who live in a densely built-up urban area, in just the same way as we should like the concerns regarding the environment of people who live in Kent and other areas that are affected by the channel tunnel to be taken on board.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Ordination of Women
  9.38 am
  Mr. Patrick Cormack: You will be glad, Madam Speaker, to hear that I have only one petition rather than eight to present. It is signed by 2,219 Church of England clergymen who are opposed to the ordination of women to the priesthood. More than 1,500 of these petitioners are incumbents. The others include chaplains, archdeacons, deans of cathedrals and others. I have been asked to stress that there are many thousands of lay men and women who share their unease.
  These are not people who in any sense question the equality, still less the ability, of women. For them, it is simply a question of deeply held belief and a firm religious conviction that the move is contrary to the teachings and traditions of the Church of England, which claims to be catholic and apostolic. The petition reads:
  That the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure, passed by the General Synod of the Church of England in November 1992 and now before the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament, withholds from future Bishops of Dioceses, not being supporters of the ordination of women as Priests, the power to order their Dioceses according to their Beliefs and Consciences and the Doctrine and Order of the established Church of England hitherto.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will refuse its assent to the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure in the form in which the General Synod passed it in November 1992.
  And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
  The petition is signed by Roger Beckwith, warden of Latimer House, Oxford, and, as I have already said. by 2,218 other clergymen.
  To lie upon the Table

  Channel Tunnel Rail Link
  9.40 am
  Mr. Chris Smith: I beg to present three petitions from my constituents that express much the same sentiments as those presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn): that we do not wish to become the environmental victims of the Government, choosing a cut-price option for the high-speed channel tunnel link.
  The first of the petitions is from parents, teachers and associates of Canonbury school. It reads:
  that the Channel Tunnel Rail Link running overground through Islington and the lengthy building work involved in constructing it would cause unacceptable damage to our environment and adversely affect the lives of the people of the area and in particular the children of Canonbury School.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House urge the Secretary of State for Transport to instruct the Union Railways to abandon the plans to run the Channel Tunnel Rail Link through Islington via the North London line and Highbury Corner. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
  That is signed by 131 people associated with Canonbury school.
  Another petition is from the Islington Protection Group. It says:
  We object to the Channel Tunnel Railway Link surfacing in Islington rather than in tunnel as it was originally proposed and is indeed proposed for the rest of London and the County of Kent. A surface railway will result in noise and vibration damaging properties and threaten the health of residents from pollution and noise.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House reject Union Railways' proposal to construct a surface Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Such a Link will entail relentless rail traffic twenty four hours a day. Before this, several years of construction work will blight the area, impair the mental health of residents and destroy the green corridor now present in this environmentally sensitive part of North London.
  The final petition is from Islington Against the Channel Tunnel Link. It reads:
  We object to the construction of a high-speed link along the route of the North London line because it will cause unacceptable levels of noise, vibration, pollution and damage to the environment and our homes.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House request Union Railways to abandon plans to route a Channel Tunnel high speed rail link overground through Islington on the grounds that the construction of such a railway will mean a possible 150 extra trains every 24 hours day and night destroying the lives of residents and destruction of a green railway corridor which is an important environmental asset for London.
  I entirely endorse the sentiments of these three important petitions.
  To lie upon the Table..

  Children
  Motion made, and Question proposed,That this House do now adjourn.—[MrLightbown.]
  9.43am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis): After the overture that we heard this morning from the Church of England and the railways, I should perhaps begin with a quick rendition of "Thomas the Tank Engine", which is the nearest link that I can think of between them and the subject of this debate. After the Thunder and Lightning Polka that you, Madam Speaker, have endured in the past week, perhaps the House can move today to slightly softer music as we consider the children of our nation.
  I should like to begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo). As I go round finding my way into the subject of community care and children in particular, I find that he has left behind a reputation for dedication, caring and understanding that will stand me in good stead. We owe him a debt for his work at the Department of Health.
  I had two items in my diary last week that, in some ways, sum up this debate. I visited Canterbury, and I took part in a discussion on "Woman's Hour". In their different ways, those two items summed up the good and ugly parameters of this debate on children.
  In Canterbury, I visited the Mary Sheridan centre to celebrate 21 years of pioneering partnership between the professions of health and social services and the families of children with multiple disabilities. I heard from parents how alone they had felt when they first realised that their baby was not acting or reacting as other babies—the sadness that comes from the realisation that their child has a debilitating physical, mental, aural or visual condition, and the weariness that they experienced from hours of continuous caring for sometimes messy, unpredictable or unresponsive behaviour.
  I saw and heard for myself the progress that those children of 18 months to five years had made, and were making, thanks to the multidisciplinary approach of doctors, nurses, therapists, teachers, social workers and, above all, parents working together with their respective but interdependent skills. That approach is at the heart of our policies. The needs of the individual child were being assessed, barriers between agencies were being broken down, parents were involved at every stage and, whenever possible, children were able to join mainstream schools for at least part of the year ahead.
  Children enabled to achieve: that is my ambition, and that, I believe, is the aim of the House and of all those who plan and implement policy in our health service and local government departments.
  The "Woman's Hour" discussion was not so happy. We were talking about international adoption rackets. The background was children who are the victims of sordid and squalid organisations and individuals, of pressures on natural parents to give up their child on the false pretences of a semi-legal but immoral trade in young lives. Too often, mothers were being misled into thinking that their children were just being loaned until they could cope better or better afford to have them back. Often, the receiving adoptive parents are not aware of the health background or cultural needs of a child and are unprepared for difficulties, which then become problems.

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  But it is the traders and middle men in these cases who are evil. If the House often shouts about man's inhumanity to man, how much more right it is to cry out against man's inhumanity to a child. That is why the Government have worked so hard to achieve the text of, and signatures to, the Hague convention on inter-country adoption. I hope that, before long, we shall see the nations of the world ratifying and enforcing it.
  Justice requires that a child who leaves his parents leaves with their full understanding of the permanent steps that they are taking, and justice requires that such children go with certainty to a good home and adoptive parents who are fit and proper people to take on the responsibility. Children should not be considered for foreign lands unless their own country cannot adequately find a home or a carer. If they are old enough, the child's own wishes must be taken into account.
  Those, after all, are two of the key rights of the child in the United Nations convention of 1991. Decisions must be geared, first, to the interests of the child, and the child, whenever possible, must have a right to be heard.
  It is on that convention that we base our policies on when and where a child may be locked up, how he or she should be treated in such circumstances, and when a child can or should be separated from his or her parents, which perhaps is the most difficult of all decisions. I shall return to this a little later, but first let me dwell on the health of our children.
  There are few better spheres than child health for revealing the progress that the national health service has made in improving the health of the nation. Today, children are living longer, growing taller and catching fewer infectious diseases than ever before. If one is looking for evidence of improved child health, the first and most basic indicator is the figure for infant mortality. For the fifth year running, infant mortality has fallen to a new low for England and Wales.
  A century ago, 132 children per 1,000 died before their first birthday. Fifty years ago, the recorded figure was 51, but, during the past 14 years, we have halved the figure, from 13·1 per 1,000 to 6·6 per 1,000. We are well into single figures, which is a tremendous achievement, and to the credit of modern medical science and the teams of doctors, nurses and midwives who make up our health service. Pregnancy, birth and the early months of life are now safer than ever before.
  Most recently, we have been able to announce the dramatic success of the Back to Sleep Campaign.
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Although everyone is delighted by the rapid reduction in the infant mortality rate figures which, in many cases, meant avoidable deaths, will the Minister reflect on the fact that, in urban constituencies such as mine, the infant mortality rate and the mortality rate before the age of one are considerably higher than in the wealthier suburban or rural parts of the country? Does he think that there is a problem associated with feeding, the health of the parents and the quality of housing, which is reflected in the infant mortality rates?
  Mr. Bowis: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are differences between the different parts of the country, and differences in inner-city areas such as those that he and I represent. Some of the differences are the result of people coming to this country from overseas.
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  I am sure that he is right, and we are also right to reflect such concern in the way we allocate resources—whether through the standard spending assessment to deal with a locality's needs or through specific grants that my Department can make. Nevertheless, I think that he will agree that, overall, it is good news that the infant mortality rate is declining.
  Mr. David Hinchliffe: One of the things that worry the Opposition is the fact that the decline in the infant mortality rate has been slower in this country than in comparable European countries. Would the Minister care to comment on the fact that Britain now has one of the highest infant mortality rates of any European country?
  Mr. Bowis: The figures that I am giving show that our success in bringing down the infant mortality rate. As I said, the rate has fallen from 13·1 per 1,000 14 years ago to 6·6 per 1,000. We are not yet satisfied; complacency does not enter our language, but we have nevertheless made remarkable progress, for which we can thank medical science and the people in the health service who care for children.
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: Analysis will prove that the rate of reduction in this country has been greater than that, in other European countries, and needed to be. The reduction has been greater among the lower socio-economic groups and needs to continue to improve because there is still a discrepancy. We should perhaps concentrate most on the fact that two thirds of the deaths are still among the 10 per cent. of low-birth-weight babies. That reinforces the point made by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn)—that we need to go in for various types of pre-conception care.
  Mr. Bowis: I entirely accept my hon. Friend's point, which serves to reinforce my argument. We are determined to ensure that the progress continues. As I was about to say, one sphere in which progress has been made is that of dealing with the tragedy of cot deaths.
  The tragedy of a cot death—the sudden, unexpected, unexplained, death of an infant—has long been a matter of deep concern to us all. Until recently in England and Wales, more than 1,000 infants a year succumbed to cot deaths. In 1991, there was a growing scientific consensus that the sleeping position of an infant was a major risk factor.
  An expert group, reporting to the chief medical officer, examined the evidence and advised that infants should not be laid to sleep on their fronts, except in particular circumstances on medical advice, and that the great majority of infants should sleep and be nursed on their backs. A publicity campaign was mounted to put across this advice to families with new babies and, in 1992, there was a reduction of 50 per cent. in the number of sudden infant deaths.
  Childhood immunisation and its part in reducing, and sometimes eliminating, a number of terrible diseases, which most of us can remember, is another of the most heartening successes in our preventive health programme. There are now four main programmes. The first deals with diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis—whooping cough—for which the combined vaccine DTP is available. I am pleased to say that cases of whooping cough have decreased by 90 per cent. since the late 1970s.

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  The second programme covers measles, mumps and rubella. The notification of cases of measles has also decreased by more than 90 per cent. since the epidemic years of the mid-1970s. The third deals with polio. For more than a decade, there has been no wild polio virus in the United Kingdom. Fourthly, since October last year, we have had a new vaccine for haemophilus influenzae B, or HIB as it is known, which is the main cause of bacterial meningitis in young children.
  The success of our programmes can be attributed in part to the introduction of targets for immunisations in the general practitioners' contract. Childhood diseases have dropped to their lowest ever levels. Indigenous diphteria and neonatal tetanus no longer occur, and measles and whooping cough are now rarities in GPs' surgeries. No child in England and Wales has died from acute measles-related illness in the past four years. We are also close to completing the evidence which will enable the World Health Organisation to declare the United Kingdom free of indigenous polio. They are achievements of which we, our scientists and our practitioners can be proud.
  There will, of course, always be children who require hospital treatment. We have sought to ensure that this treatment is of the highest quality and meets the needs of children and their families. In July 1991, we issued a good practice guide entitled "The Welfare of Children and Young People in Hospital", which had been the subject of widespread consultation with the professions and special interest groups. It has been widely welcomed as setting the standards for which health authorities should aim in placing contracts for hospital services for children.
  The principles of the guide are that children should be cared for in accommodation separate from that provided for adult patients; that facilities should be provided for parents to remain with their children overnight; and that children have a right to information about their treatment appropriate to their age and understanding.
  Health authorities and voluntary organisations have collaborated in implementing these good practices. For example, I recently heard of a patient preparation scheme run at Frimley Park hospital, with the collaboration of the local branch of Action for Sick Children. Children who are to be admitted to hospital are invited to make a preparatory visit with their families on a Saturday morning. They visit the ward to see the beds, lockers and playroom. They are introduced to the medical and nursing staff and are given the opportunity to watch videos and read books on events surrounding the administration of an anaesthetic or an operation.
  The staff at the hospital confirm that this reduces the anxiety that the children and parents feel when the admission takes place, and thereby improves the outcome of the treatment. I sincerely hope that other hospitals will follow that fine example. To put all this into perspective, I am pleased to say that, despite a small decline in the number of children's beds since 1981, the number of child in-patient cases has increased by 60 per cent. This reflects the decreases in the length of time a child needs to remain in hospital, and the increased demand for care created by advances in medical science.
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  Although health is crucial, it is only one dimension. For children to have the overall quality of life we would wish for them, they sometimes need the protection of the law to underpin their rights. In a way, it is sad that the law needs to enter young lives, but over the centuries—it is still true today—evil and injustice, from abuse to exploitation, have been perpetrated against children and, no less true, it has, just as sadly, been perpetrated by them. From legislation, therefore, flow policies and practices that seek to protect, to guide and sometimes to reform, but which always put the interest of the child first.
  Since October 1991, we have had, in the shape of the Children Act 1989, the most comprehensive legal framework for the care and upbringing of children in the world. The Act has been hailed as the most significant reform of children's legislation this century, but the mere existence of legislation cannot ensure that children's welfare is promoted and safeguarded. We have therefore fulfilled our promise given during the progress of the Bill that we would monitor closely its day-to-day practice to ensure that Parliament's intentions were being carried out. The first report on the Children Act came to the House in February. It contained a wide-ranging description of how the Act had operated in the first year, and described the progress made by local authorities in implementing the legislation. Practice may not yet have resulted in perfection, but, I am pleased to say, the report shows that practice in the other sense is increasingly reflecting the principles of the Act.
  The increased availability of services for children in need is helping families who are experiencing difficulties to stay together. At 31 March 1991, 59,834 children were in the care of local authorities in England. A year later, the number being looked after by local authorities was estimated to have fallen to 55,000, a reduction of about 5,000.
  Following the implementation of the Children Act, 2,215 children were subject to emergency protection orders, giving authority for the child to be removed from home. That compares with 4,677 children removed to a place of safety the previous year under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. Those are clear indications of how new practices and social workers working in co-operation with parents, as the Act intended, can make the system work better.
  I am pleased to say that the number of children with a multi-agency child protection plan, and hence on child protection registers, decreased between April 1991 and April 1992 by about 15 per cent. and now stands at 39,000. The tragic cases of children killed or seriously injured by their parents or carers amount to between 50 and 100 a year. Such cases rightly attract our attention and our concern, but they must not be allowed to blot out the enormous amount of good work undertaken successfully day in and day out, and often night in and night out, by professionals who protect and improve the lives of so many vulnerable children.
  One problem that we are tackling is that of unallocated cases, which was identified by the second report of the Select Committee on Health. The social services inspectorate has been pursuing that regionally.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: The Minister will be aware that I was a member of the Select Committee on Health when the inquiry was undertaken. One of the issues that concerned members of the Select Committee of all parties was the

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  major problems faced by certain London boroughs that had difficulties in the allocation of statutory child care cases. They faced discrimination under the standard spending assessment arrangements of the Department of the Environment. That point was made in the report. What action have the Government taken to deal with the problem?
  Mr. Bowis: The report was studied carefully; that is why the social services inspectorate went in not just to criticise, but to advise. We are seeing progress. As the hon. Gentleman will recall, the inquiry found that there was no problem in 40 per cent. of authorities and that, in the vast majority, fewer than 20 cases were unallocated.
  However, I recognise that an unallocated case is a vulnerable case. That is why we are monitoring and advising the very few authorities that appear still to be having problems. I still have concerns, as the hon. Gentleman has, about some cases. However, the number of authorities where there are problems has been falling. Most of the other authorities about which he and the Select Committee were concerned have shown encouraging improvements.
  We, of course, recognise the importance of providing adequate financial resources to social services departments for the work that they have to undertake under the Act. In 1993–94, the standard spending on children's services will be 32 per cent. higher than it was 1990–91, which is a real-terms increase of 16 per cent. In addition, we have a specific grant of £5·7 million a year for the guardian ad litem service. We have also set up the family support initiative on which we shall spend up to £1·5 million over three years. Its purpose is to encourge the expansion and development of good practice and policy in the provision of family support services by voluntary organisations.
  The voluntary sector work is being supported in a number of ways: the production of training materials, advocacy, advice and counselling, information services and the promotion of inter-agency co-operation. One example is that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is being funded for a prevention of child abuse project in Corwall. It is working with volunteers on a particular estate to promote within the community an awareness of the problem and of the help available.
  I hope that that exercise, which could be called childwatch, will spread to other estates where there are perceived to be problems. Everyone, not just the authorities, has a role in the area. The message to people is, "Don't look the other way. Don't pass by on the other side. If you know that there is a problem in your neighbourhood, bring it to the attention of people who can help to sort it out."
  I also acknowledge the importance of day care services. We recognise that it is good for pre-school age children to be with other children for some of their waking hours. That enhances the child's development and improves the transition to full-time education. Nine out of 10 children take part in some group activity before they rech compulsory school age. More than 500,000 three and four-year-olds go to play groups. A similar number of children of those ages go to nursery schools or classes, or to the reception class of a primary school.
  We have a rich variety of day care services, with important contributions from the private and from the voluntary sectors. That gives parents choice. Since 1988,
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  the number of private and voluntary day nursery cases has doubled. There are now 90,000 places in day nurseries. The number of child minders has grown by 40 per cent., and there are now more than 100,000 child minders with places for 240,000 under-fives.
  My Department is building on its experience during the 1980s of running centrally funded initiatives with voluntary organisations to test policy ideas on services for the under-fives. We are spending £1·5 million over three years and in 12 areas for an out-of-school initiative to pump-prime an expansion of day care services for school-age children. In addition, we have a small grants scheme to help existing local schemes to expand and develop. A lot of good work is developing from bringing together the various sectors that look after children under school age and as they get into the school day.
  Mr. Malcolm Wicks: The Minister surely does not want to suggest any complacency about the provision for the under-fives. Does he not recognise, as many parents in Croydon recognise, that, when both parents have to work outside the home to pay the mortgage or the rent, it is sometimes impossible to find decent child care for the under-fives? His Department knows of the studies. Does the Minister not recognise that, compared with many progressive European countries, our provision for the under-fives, whether pre-school or child care, is lamentable? It does not match the patterns of how people work and live in Britain in the 1990s.
  Mr. Bowis: The hon. Gentleman is saying that, increasingly, both partners are choosing to work; that is their choice. If they both choose to work, it is reasonable to expect that they will be able to make a contribution to the support services for their children.
  I said that those services are available. The figures show that the voluntary and independent sectors are coming forward with opportunities for such families and I am sure that those opportunities will continue to develop. There will, of course, always be some children in greater need whom the state, and the local authorities in particular, need to support. Overall, the picture is good news and bears comparison with any other progressive country in Europe or elsewhere.
  Miss Joan Lestor: I am interested in what the Minister says and I do not dispute his claim that there is now a developing variety of voluntary care. Unfortunately, it is very expensive. There is the problem of the women—it is usually a woman, although not always—who is left alone to bring up children for a variety of reasons.
  Women on income support find the fees of private day care prohibitive. People can pay £60, £70 or £80 a week for good child care between 8 am and 6 pm, which is what a working mother requires. Those women are forced to stay on income support although they would rather work and would rather that their children had the experience of the pre-school activities that the Minister has rightly highlighted. That is one of the central problems in day care today.
  Mr. Bowis: The hon. Lady does not need to tell me about the problems of people living in the inner cities. I represent many of those people. I also see the opportunities that are coming for them. As the hon. Lady says, if someone is on income support, it is likely that the

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  facility will be provided. However, the hon. Lady highlights the problem of the jump from being at home on income support to going out to work. One sometimes needs to be able to afford the costs of day care in the interim period. That area is worth looking at. The basics are there, however, and as the hon. Lady generously acknowledges, there is greater choice for parents in general. A safety net exists to help those who really cannot afford provision, and we need to ensure that the ladder from one set of circumstances to the other is adequate.
  I am not claiming that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. I hope that no one will get that impression just because I have rightly highlighted our successes. None of us can have read the well-documented and publicised stories of revulsion—and, sadly, no one can guarantee that similar events will never happen again. But it is worth reminding the House of the positive steps taken by the Government in the past two years to minimise the possibility of abuse and to enhance the quality and delivery of residential child care.
  In his report, "Children in the Public Care", Sir William Utting identified a number of respects in which improvements were necessary. The Government accepted the broad thrust of those recommendations and, with local authorities and other agencies, we have been working hard to implement them.
  In December last year, we published the report of the Warner inquiry into the recruitment and selection of staff working in child care. My predecessor, who is now Minister for the Environment and Countryside, took immediate action to ensure that local authorities acted to make necessary improvements in staff selection procedures. From the progress reports we have received, it is clear that most local authorities share our view of the importance of improving procedures.
  More recently, we have announced the establishment of a residential child care support force, to be led by Adriane Jones, former director of social services in Birmingham. I announced yesterday the group's terms of reference, on which we are currently consulting the local authorities and others. One of its prime purposes will be to achieve improvements in the quality and delivery of residential child care, as well as ensuring that the necessary personnel procedures are in place.
  In considering the problems of residential child care, we must remember that children's homes today care mainly for older, adolescent children, some of whom are disaffected, troubled and troublesome. We must not forget the difficulties that that can cause for the vast majority of committed caring staff. In April, my Department issued new guidance on permissible forms of control in children's residential care.
  Any responsible and caring parent would accept that children need the right balance between care and control. That is precisely what the guidance aims to achieve, and we will be monitoring its effectiveness. I emphasise that the guidance is not a charter for excessive and unjustified use of physical restraint. If there is evidence of such restraint, it needs to be stamped out quickly.
  The provision of proper care and control as well as education, rehabilitation and training were features of the statement made by my right hon. and learned Friend the
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  then Home Secretary on 2 March, when he announced the Government's proposals for dealing with a small but significant minority of juvenile offenders.
  The Government will be announcing further details of those proposal in due course. The House will already have noted one important feature of my right hon. and learned Friend's announcement: the secure training centres for that group of offenders will be subject to inspection by the social services inspectorate.
  If we are to deal effectively with that small group of little villains and young thugs and improve the quality of social services generally, we must ensure that social workers receive proper training to equip them for the often difficult tasks that they have to undertake. Both the Utting and the Warner reports made important recommendations about the training of social workers. The report of the review of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work was published on Monday.
  I yield to no one in my admiration for the vast majority of effective, sensible and dedicated people working in social work up and down the country, but time and again, the message reaches me that we need common sense and not outdated dogma. We need practical, down-to-earth training and not lessons in political correctness. When common sense goes out of the window, something much more dangerous flies in. That must not happen, and I believe that, under the chairmanship of Jeffrey Greenwood, we can be confident that social work will meet the challenge in the best and most effective way possible.
  I have highlighted the great progress that we have made. The United Kingdom's record on child care, welfare and health stands comparison with that of any country in the world. I have sought to salute the partnership that has made that possible. However, so long as there is a child in pain or distress, so long as cruelty and crime are done to or by our children, so long as a good record could be a better one, for so long will the Government continue to strive to achieve more for, by, with and from the children of our country and the children of the world.
  10.14 am
  Mr. David Hinchliffe: I welcome the Minister to his new post. I had intended to do so at Health questions a couple of weeks ago but, unfortunately, he did not answer the question that I expected him to. I wish him well in his work at the Department.
  The Labour party welcomes this opportunity to hold a debate on the health and welfare of children. The most telling example of the short-termism—a phrase that we have heard a lot recently—not only of the Government but of Parliament as a whole is the very small amount of time that we devote to discussing the real future of this country, which is dependent on the health and welfare of our children and young people.
  Excluding the debates on the Children Act 1989, the number of occasions on which we have debated the welfare of children since I came to this place in 1987 can be counted on the fingers of one hand. That is a disappointing record.
  One reason advanced for the lack of debate is that there is a broad political consensus across the parties about child care policy in general. To argue that is to take an extremely narrow view of what is meant by child care. Although there may rightly be some cross-party agreement on the narrow question of legal provision for child protection,

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  there is certainly no consensus on the key political decisions that are urgently needed to bring about a real and fundamental improvement in the health and welfare of our children.
  It is simply not good enough to ignore the damage done to millions of children through mass unemployment, homelessness, poor housing and the wider moral bankruptcy of a Government who have presided over Britain's achieving the highest divorce rate in Europe. I am sorry that the Minister made no mention of that deeply worrying factor, which affects many millions of children in our country.
  The Labour party believes that one cannot separate the discussion of child protection and children's well-being from an analysis of the wider political issues that have a direct impact on the health and welfare of individual children. During the passage of the Children Act 1989, I pointed out that central to Government policy on child protection was an individual pathology model that largely ignored the wider social and economic context.
  The Minister may have emergency protection orders, care and supervision orders and so on coming out of his ears, but until the Government address the social, economic, moral and political issues leading to family breakdown and child abuse, we will not start out on the road to the development of a coherent and meaningful child care policy.
  I make those remarks before commenting in detail on the operation of the Children Act, because, far too often in the past five years, debate on child welfare has been bogged down in discussion of the processes of law, and there has been a failure to address the reasons why that legal intervention was necessary in the first place.
  When the Minister's predecessor published the first annual review of the Children Act in February, the social work press reported that he was in congratulatory mood. He claimed that the Act had resulted in a marked decline in statutory intervention in child care, which he believed was reason for some satisfaction. Although the main parties both had a strong desire for the Act to work, the implication that the overall well-being of children can be measured by reduced statutory intervention is open to question.
  The Opposition certainly hope that the legislation has meant fewer unnecessary placements of children in compulsory care. However, we are seriously concerned that the vital preventive work envisaged in section 17 of the Act has not got off the ground. From talking to a range of agencies concerned with child care, it is apparent that, while local authorities are undertaking their duties under section 47 of the Children Act to investigate concerns about child welfare, the longer-term but crucial preventive steps under section 17 are much less in evidence.
  I have no doubt that the crisis orientation of the implementation of the Children Act relates directly to problems of resources at local level rather than to philosophy. The Association of Directors of Social Services, an independent body, told us not long ago that nearly 90 per cent. of social services departments had either standstill budgets or planned cuts in the current financial year.
  The Labour party's comprehensive survey earlier this year of local authority social services budgets found clear evidence of the provision for children at local level being raided to fund the implementation of the community care changes that have taken place since 1 April.
  Mr. Corbyn: My hon. Friend will recalll that, in answer to an earlier intervention, the Minister said that standard spending assessments reflected the needs of inner-urban areas and particularly the deprived state of children's care in many inner-urban areas. Does not my hon. Friend agree that inner-urban areas such as those that we represent have fared extremely badly in relation to SSAs? All our social services departments are being cut, budgets are being raided to fund other things, and the children of the poorest inner-city communities are losing most under this Government.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. His authority, like mine, has been hammered in relation to SSAs in recent years. Over the past two years in my area, there has been a £3 million discrepancy between SSAs and actual spending needs for meeting statutory obligations. If my authority had decided to go along with the Government's advised level of expenditure, it could not have met its legal obligations under child care legislation.
  Although the Minister has not had a great deal of time to master his brief, it annoys me that he repeats the same old nonsense that his predecessor talked about SSAs rising. He should consider the reality of actual spending, because there is a huge difference between SSAs and actual spending.
  My point about the inner-London boroughs was not answered. The Select Committee on Health recognised a huge discrepancy between the asessment arrangements for inner-London boroughs and those for other areas. The hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), who is present today, is a member of that Select Committee, and he heard the evidence. Many of the inner-London boroughs were discriminated against quite blatantly by the Department of the Environment.
  Mr. Bowis: In that case, no doubt the hon. Gentleman studied the differences between the efficient inner-London boroughs and the inefficient ones. It is not simply a question of throwing cash into the local government pot; it is question of the efficient use of resources. That is why some London boroughs, which I do not need name and which receive less money from central Government, manage to provide better-quality services than others which receive twice as much.
  Does the hon. Gentleman accept that some local authorities make a sensible use of charging to top up what they can spend on services while some fail to do that? Does he also accept that the money that he refers to as being taken to fund community care changes has been ring-fenced with £565 million—£140 million more than was strictly speaking necessary under the social security arrangements? There should not be the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman has described. He should look into his own backyard.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: I am very familiar with my own backyard. I happen to have the good fortune of a very well-run social services department in my constituency. I have no doubt whatsoever that it is efficient, and that it is using the local ratepayers' money effectively and well.
  As a Yorkshireman, and having read the stories in the media about London boroughs, I sat on the Select Committee inquiry with great interest. I found that, far from it being simple inefficiency, the explanation was much more complex. Problems of unallocated child care cases related to the blatant discrimination, clearly for political

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  reasons, against certain London boroughs. Everyone who sat on that inquiry must have reached that conclusion. That was the conclusion of that Select Committee, which had a Conservative majority.
  The Minister should address those issues. We must stop talking about SSAs and talk about actual spending and the resources available to local authorities for child care and community care purposes. As the Minister travels around the country, I hope that he will listen to people from a variety of political backgrounds.
  I have spoken to Conservatives who are deeply worried about the under-investment in local authority social services. The Minister should speak to people in his own party, when he will realise that I am making not a partisan point, but an objective one, which is supported by plenty of independent evidence.
  From discussions that I have had with people across the country, I am aware that there is great concern about the new duty on social services under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 to house children in need who have reached the age of 16. That duty is simply not being implemented across the country in accordance with the original intention of the legislation.
  The Minister will be aware that section 20 has particular relevance to meeting the needs of those leaving care. However, it is apparent from evidence in a range of reports that that particularly vulnerable group is obviously far too often falling through the safety net envisaged by the Act.
  Many hon. Members will have had experience of dealing with homeless young people who were often previously in care. They will share my concern that, far too often, those young people are turned away by social services and housing departments, which rightly argue that they have insufficient resources to implement the Children Act and to fulfil their responsibilities.
  That group suffers the additional disadvantage of being ineligible for income support. As the Minister is aware, the result is that many youngsters are needlessly at risk and out on the streets.
  Several organisations are looking to a judicial interpretation of the Act's provisions. However, the Government must address, as a matter of urgency, the apparent inconsistency in the application of section 20, and must deal with the reasons why many local authorities clearly feel unable to fulfil their duties.
  There has also been confusion over the Act's provisions in respect of the control of children in care. Alongside inquiries into the misuse of control in care settings, the intention of the Children Act was to protect youngsters from such abuse. However, although guidance subsequently issued by the Department of Health told residential staff what they could not do in terms of control, it gave them very little advice on possible action that might be taken.
  The advice offered more recently by the Department of Health, to which the Minister referred, attempts to respond to concerns arising since the implementation of the Act. However, the real problem lies with residential care provision itself and not simply with control. We have
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  landed under-resourced, often under-trained and under-paid staff with the frankly impossible task of trying to deal with levels of behavioural difficulty which, in the past, would never have been seen in that environment.
  The philosophy of the Children Act was right. However, with regard to children in trouble, the confused messages on control issues emanating from the Department of Health have added to the difficulties arising at local level with the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. I have lost track of the number of social services managers who have asked me whether, in implementing the Children Act and the Criminal Justice Act, the Department of Health and the Home Office are aware of each other's existence.
  There is a real concern that the lack of a coherent approach at national level to provision for children in trouble is leading to the introduction of a less than properly thought-out proposal for new-style approved schools—I can find no other phrase to describe what the Government have proposed. I urge the Minister to consider what happened when the Government were panicked into ill-thought-out political gestures as an answer to youth crime.
  The Minister is aware that I have a little experience in this area, as I worked for many years directly with young offenders. In addition, one of Lord Whitelaw's experimental short, sharp shock centres, which were such a disaster, was situated in my constituency.
  I do not underestimate the scale of the task entailed in drawing together a meaningful policy on children in trouble and on child protection. I have spent much of the past 11 months that I have been on the Opposition Front Bench in dialogue with a series of organisations that are concerned about children and young people. They often offered very differing views on what we should do and on the way ahead.
  The Labour party will publish a detailed policy discussion document later in the summer. Central to our thinking on the issue will be the need to establish a coherent national political strategy for children—which, frankly, does not exist at the moment under this Government. Not only do we not have a national strategy at the moment, but it is absolutely clear that there are blatant ideological differences within the Government between those drafting laws for education, criminal justice and asylum arrangements for refugees and those concerned with the Children Act. We recognise that if there are different goals and messages at national level, it will not augur well for the implementation of such measures locally.
  Mr. Bowis: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Children Act is very much a guideline and a policy for children? It is a framework or a structure on which we can build. It is not set in historical concrete: it is something that we can continue to advance and amend to meet the relevant case.
  Does he accept also that one of the ways in which we can provide better care of children is the care of offenders? Does he accept that there is a small but significant group of persistent young offenders for whom everything has been tried, and that the only answer to protect society as a whole is to take them out of circulation for a period? What one does with them, we can discuss.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: The Opposition have made absolutely clear our belief in the need to protect the public. However, having worked for much of my life dealing with youngsters who have offended, I find it very worrying that the Minister bandies about the term "little villains and young thugs". If he cares to look at the backgrounds of many of those youngsters, he will see that there are reasons why we end up with what he terms villains and young thugs.
  The sad fact is that the Government seem to be prepared to opt for a philosophy of locking up youngsters rather than remembering that every piece of evidence gained from research on locking up youngsters is that, when they come out, they are far worse than when they went in.
  My central point is that we need a coherent national strategy that considers why youngsters become, as the Minister puts it, little villains and young thugs. There are very clear reasons. The Government are not seriously addressing that matter, and it is on that point that our parties differ markedly.
  Over the past few years, we have seen markedly different approaches in different Government legislation. It is astonishing, for example, how little thought has been given to the fairly obvious impact of local management of schools and grant-maintained status on child protection arrangements at local level.
  It is deeply worrying how little thought has been given to the possible consequences of the advent of the purchaser-provider splits in health and in some aspects of children's provision on child protection. To me, it is a matter of great concern that the Government have done absolutely nothing to monitor the impact of those changes on child protection.
  I give notice to the Minister, so that he can prepare his brief, that, in a couple of weeks, we will publish a report on a survey that demonstrates great concern across the nation about just those points.
  Mr. Bowis: Into my hands has come a copy of the hon. Gentleman's letter. I notice that he had to have replies in by Friday 18 June. I wonder whether the reponses have shown that there is a problem, or whether they confirm that the system is working rather well.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: I do not wish to hold a press conference this morning, but the Minister will be welcome to attend our press conference. I assure him that every reply 'to the letter gives our party reason for great anxiety about the manner in which the changes have been brought forward, and in particular about the fact that the Government have done very little at local level to monitor the impact of those changes on child protection. I will certainly ensure that the hon. Gentleman receives a copy of the detailed analysis of our survey when it is published in a couple of weeks.
  The Minister will be aware that central to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child was article 12, on the child's right to be heard. Implementation of the 1989 Act, shortly before ratification of the convention by the United Kingdom, set in motion machinery for ensuring that the child's voice is heard in a way that it has not been heard in the past.
  It has been particularly interesting to see how certain sections of the media have sought to sensationalise the issue, with bizarre stories of children allegedly divorcing their parents for a variety of spurious reasons. How sad it is that there has been much less media interest in
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  highlighting the permanent damage that has been done to a significant number of individuals within the care system and elsewhere because, in the past, our laws have denied children and young people the right to be heard—the right to speak out against the way in which they were being treated.
  It is fairly common knowledge that a significant number of legal actions by individuals who were damaged and abused as children, often within the care system, are currently in the pipeline. It is particularly worrying that many of those people, whose lives have been totally ruined by what has happened to them, fail in their entirely legitimate actions because the Limitation Act 1980 does not take account of their circumstances. I have received several representations on the issue and I hope shortly to introduce a Bill that will amend the limitation legislation to take account of such circumstances, which, when it was drafted, it certainly did not anticipate.
  I hope that the Minister—this is a non-political, non-party point—will look seriously at the Government's taking that amendment on board. If it remains in place, vast numbers of young people who have been abused within the system will be disadvantaged as a direct result.
  The Minister talked in detail about inter-country adoptions. I look to him to make a breakthrough in respect of the concerns of many thousands of people who were child migrants from this country. I am sure that he will be aware of this very sensitive issue. I knew nothing about this issue; it was a great surprise to me, having worked in social work, but last year, I met a woman who visited this country with the Australian rugby league team, and she told me in detail about her father's experience as a child migrant dispatched from Britain.
  I am aware that the Government are being asked to assist many people who have been grossly damaged by the experience. I am not making a party point, because it happened under successive Governments of different parties. However, I hope that the Minister will respond and ensure that resources are made available to counsel some of the people who have suffered from experiences as child migrants.
  I hope that the Minister will also address the concerns of people who consider that the Children Act, does little to secure a voice for the child or the young person when he or she is assessed as in need of services, and the local authority concerned cannot provide those services because of reductions in its budget.
  I cannot overstate the concern that is expressed to me every week—I have heard the point several times this morning—that local authorities controlled by various political parties are deeply worried about the desperately difficult financial times they presently face in attempting to implement the variety of legislation introduced by the Government.
  I remind the Minister that we need to address the inability of some authorities to meet their statutory obligations. Many authorities—for example, the London authorities to which I have referred—consider that their allocation from the Government does not reflect their needs. Objective analysis of the kind that was undertaken by the Health Select Committee clearly proves that point.
  It is because of the lack of a voice for the child, despite the Children Act, and the Government's unwillingness to face up to the reasons for the denial of services in some areas that there is understandably such widespread support for the creation of an independent children's

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  rights commissioner to promote the rights and interests of children and young people. I am sorry that the Minister did not refer to that matter in his lengthy speech.
  I recall very vividly, when the United Nations convention was ratified by the United Kingdom Government in 1991, the comments of John Rae Price, the director of the National Children's Bureau at the time:
  "unless the underlying causes of poverty, alienation and inequality are tackled, ratification of the Convention will be but a token gesture".
  No one doubts the contribution of the Children Act in enabling significant improvements in the operation of the law relating to children, but its use often arises directly because of the consequences of that poverty, alienation and inequality that were referred to by Mr. Rae Price.
  The Government have not only failed to tackle those problems, but have adopted policies that are clearly worsening them. In the 13 years since the Black report on inequalities in health was published, with key pointers to the improvement of the health of our children, we have had a Government who have chosen not only to disregard that report's widely supported conclusions but positively and deliberately to depart in completely the opposite direction.
  For the past 14 years, we have had a Government who have regarded the inequalities identified by Black as not only inevitable but an essential motivating factor towards individual success. Their political philosophy has not only necessitated ignoring Black, but required burying the lessons of history. Even the most dogmatic of free marketeers—one or two are present—cannot deny the crucial role of collectivism and the state at national and local level in the dramatic improvements in child health and welfare over the past 150 years—for example, in the key public health measures of the last century, the development of council housing and a system of income maintenance and social security.
  Clearly, rolling back the frontiers of the state and deregulation mean reducing the ability of our society to tackle the blatant inequalities of health that are most definitely still with us 13 years after the Black report.
  We know that the decline in infant mortality rates has been much slower over the past decade than in previous ones. It may well be harder to reduce mortality rates beyond a particular level. Earlier, I said that it is especially worrying that the rates have declined more slowly in Britain than in other comparable countries, and we now have one of the highest rates in Europe.
  The clear correlation between low birth weight, death in infancy and various measurements of social deprivation has been illustrated frequently, not least by various reports of Select Committees. While infant mortality has decreased, there has been much less of an improvement in the socio-economic related causes of death. The National Audit Office reported on maternity services in 1990 and pointed out:
  "above-average perinatal mortality rates are likely to be associated with above average levels of social, economic and housing deprivation."
  The conclusions of that report were endorsed by the subsequent maternity services report of the Select Committee on Health, which was initiated largely by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise)—she is in her place today. She will have noted, as I did, that the
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  recent survey by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, which was published on 9 June, showed that more than 1,000 new-born babies die each year due to a lack of basic equipment and inadequate staffing in NHS neonatal units.
  In that maternity inquiry, I recall, as will my hon. Friend, taking evidence on the importance of the school health service and the provision of good-quality school meals not simply for the health of the children concerned directly but for the health of the babies that they would subsequently have. I also recall the unanimous concern of witnesses about the need to take drastic action to reduce smoking among parents, which retards foetal and infant development, and children in later life.
  The Government's response to the vitally important conclusions of that report are well know—they removed the Chairman of the Committee. He and other members of the Committee had been faced with the fact that there is an obvious connection between social deprivation and poor health, which the Government are simply refusing to address in various policy documents, including "The Health of the Nation". That connection has arisen through the lack of an adequate and nutritionally balanced diet.
  Both the National Children's Home and the Family Welfare Association have shown how so many low-income families simply cannot afford nutritionally healthy diets. The annual NCH fact file, which is a fairly objective view of the status and care of children in our society, said:

  "1. Every day in this country, at least 9,000 children in families on income support go hungry.

  2. At least a further 9,000 parents and families on income support will go hungry to feed their children.

  3. Every day, the children of 553,000 families living on income support will not eat a good enough diet.

  4. Every day, more than 3 million children will be living in poor families, unable to afford items that a majority of people regard as a necessity."

  We must add to that the misery that is endured by millions of people who are homeless or poorly housed because the Government have abdicated their responsibility to house them adequately. We can see exactly how much Britain's ratification of the United Nations convention has meant.
  The Secretary of State for Social Security talked only this week about poor people making second-rate efforts because of the universality of state benefits, which he intends to cut. Every day, in my constituency and elsewhere, I see poor mothers and fathers struggling to survive and give their children a chance in life. They are kicked in the teeth almost daily by the Government, who treat poorer people with total and utter contempt.
  The Secretary of State may well cut even further the pittance that they are allowed on which to exist. Let him not forget that, just as the mass unemployment created by the Government is directly responsible for the increase in public expenditure, so he should not be in the least surprised when his benefit savings have the knock-on effect of requiring additional subsequent expenditure on health care, child protection measures, provisions for young offenders and an expanded prison system.
  I have spoken at length—longer than I intended—about my party's concern about the implications for our children and young persons of a lack of any form of political strategy to address their needs. I should like to have said much more on the measures that might be taken in the short term to have an immediate impact on child

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  welfare, especially the reform of our adoption and divorce laws. My party believes that reform of those laws is long overdue.
  Some time ago, we had a debate on the adoption law review proposals, when I made clear the views of my party. I know that my legal colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench have set out their thoughts on the Law Commission's proposals for divorce law reform. I endorse the need to take urgent steps to protect the interests of those 150,000 children under the age of 16 who are caught up in divorce every year.
  It is absolutely vital that couples are given time to reflect on the breakdown of their relationship and access to the counselling and mediation services that are necessary to help them and their children. Great Britain now has the highest divorce rate in Europe—one in every 2·3 marriages breaks down. Whatever our politics, we should all be deeply worried about that fact. I can point to the economic and social reasons that sometimes contribute to marital breakdown, but there are deep moral questions about the overall direction of our country which also have a direct bearing on family breakdown.
  When it comes to partnership—marriage in the family—which is the starting point for all our children, Conservative Members seem to say one thing and frequently do another. They say one thing about personal morality of the individual and often do something different, as we have seen yet again this week.
  When the moral direction of the Conservative Government for the past 14 years has been one of active encouragement of personal selfishness, opting out and looking after number one, is it any wonder that we see the values needed to underpin personal relationships and family life disappearing, and family breakdown on an unprecedented scale? Is it any surprise? When will the Minister see a clear connection between the moral direction pursued by the Government and the lead that they have given to the nation, and the social consequences that we see locally in our daily lives?
  We need nothing less than a whole new agenda for children. The starting point must be no longer regarding social inequality as a positive virtue. In policy terms, that means positive discrimination towards the poorest in our income tax and benefit systems, and moving in precisely the opposite direction to the present strategy. It means fundamentally reviewing our moral attitudes and values, and moving from the opt-out, look-after-number-one view of life to a renewal of societal concern for the less well-off, beyond the occasional rattling of tins and personal consciences.
  It means rejecting the idea that mass unemployment is a price worth paying and an economic regulator to be switched on when required, regardless of the human consequences. It means listening to the message in the Black report on the abolition of child poverty, the provision of school milk and nutritious school meals, investment in day care, ante-natal facilities and local authority housing. It means recognising that society's main tool for the achievement of such ends must be positive and substantial Government intervention.
  It means developing a health climate that is aimed at evaluating inequalities and a health service that positively discriminates towards areas of deprivation. Above all, it means recognising the importance and value of our children, in a way that is certainly not happening at present under this Government.
  10.48 am
  Mr. David Evans: I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to the Dispatch Box and wish him every success in his new job.
  This debate goes to the heart of the problem that we have with the most crucial aspect of our lives—the health and welfare of our children. When I was young, I was brought up to fear three things—almighty God, my father and the village policeman. Children need to be guided by a firm but sure hand. Instead, they are confused by a hesitant and soft system that is filled with fairy tale theories and seriously lacking in common sense. By deliberately shedding the vital ingredients of discipline, authority and supervision, we have been left with a system that threatens and damages the health and welfare of our children.
  The Government can be proud of their record on health. Infant mortality has fallen by 40 per cent. since 1979. The rate of immunisation of children is at record levels: 95 per cent. of children receive diphtheria, tetanus and polio immunisation; 92 per cent. of children have received whooping cough immunisation; 93 per cent. of children have received measles, mumps and rubella immunisation. Expenditure on vaccines for immunisation of children is estimated at £40 million per annum, with 650,000 children being immunised every year. The number of cot deaths or sudden infant deaths fell in the first nine months of 1992 by more than 55 per cent. compared with 1991. So we Conservatives have more than kept our promises on the health of our children.
  Today, I wish to concentrate on the welfare of those who most need our Conservative principles. The focus must be on those whom I call latchkey kids. Unfortunately, many children are allowed to run riot. People scratch their heads in disbelief and ask why that occurs. I am sorry to say that it occurs simply because we have allowed it to occur. We have created little monsters and pint-sized Rambos. To whom should we apportion the heaviest blame for this sickening state of affairs?
  I blame the parents who do not give a damn about their kids and let them run wild. I also blame the socialist do-gooders on the Opposition Benches for their politically correct baloney, which tells us that it is wrong for a child to experience discipline and authority.
  Mr. Corbyn: The hon. Gentleman referred to pint-sized Rambos. Does he believe that there is any connection between violence among young people and the violence that they experience in society through what they see on television, the war games that they are taught and the war toys and video games that are pushed on them? Does he not think for a moment that there is some connection between the continual intake of violent images and the violence that is later exhibited by them as young people?
  Mr. Evans: It is not often that I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but in this instance I agree with him entirely. [Laughter.] It may come as some surprise to the hon. Gentleman that we agree. I shall deal later in my speech with the point that he raised.
  I blame the socialist do-gooders on the Opposition Benches. [Interruption.]I have said that already and I say it again. The hopeless, has-been hippies have created a system in which some children have no rules and responsibilities. It is no wonder that so many children are going off the tracks.

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  Also, society has undermined the authority of the police. I give one example. For a minor offence, a policeman has to fill in 47 forms. For a more serious offence, he has to fill in 119 forms. It takes two hours to fill in 47 forms. So, for four minor offences, a policeman spends the following day in the police station filling in forms rather than outside on the beat where we want him. That is one way in which we have undermined police authority.
  The problem is clear. We face a breakdown of discipline in society. It stretches from the home to the school and to the world at large. Too many parents pay too little attention to the upbringing of their children. As a result, my constituents tell me that they are scared to go out at night for fear of being mugged, raped or robbed. They are fightened to leave their homes unguarded. That happens because the parents of little hooligans—that is what they are—could not care less where their children are, what they are doing or who they are mixing with. I am not alone in that view. It is shared by the vast majority of the British people.
  A Home Office research paper found that in the past 20 years some 70 to 90 per cent. of respondents in a succession of surveys identified lack of discipline by parents as a major cause of juvenile crime. These negligent parents are completely irresponsible. They allow their children to watch all kinds of filth and violence on the television and on video. The dark influences of the visual media have had a disturbing effect on those youngsters who are not lucky enough to receive firm parental guidance.
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's analysis about filth on the television; it is not suitable for people of any age. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the fundamental purpose of the production of most of that filth is making private profit? Do not his Government deplore any interference with such an objective?
  Mr. Evans: The Conservative party believes in free enterprise and free choice, but I agree with the hon. Lady that the material that we see on our televisions gives great cause for anxiety. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House feel exactly the same as I do and that the matter will be discussed at some length at another time in this place.
  Where else do youngsters get the idea of maiming toddlers? Where do youths get the idea that wielding a gun or knife is glamorous? Too often, violence is depicted without the moral standpoint. Worse still, the homicidal maniac is idolised.
  We have also heard recent reports about computer porn. Children spend much of their time in the evenings in their bedroom playing violent computer games or watching computer porn while their parents are downstairs oblivious to the world of their child because they never set foot in the child's bedroom. They never talk to their children. They never take any interest in them, pay any attention to them or exercise any supervision of them.
  Children need to be protected from harmful influences. That requires the participation and authority of parents. Sadly, many parents prefer to neglect their responsibilities and leave their children to their own devices for long periods. When those neglected children inevitably go off
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  the rails, their parents feel aggrieved that they are asked to come to the school or police station to pick up their child. They shrug their shoulders and tell the authorities, "He is not my problem. Why don't you do something about him?"
  It is a sad world when thousands of married couples would give all their time and money to love and care for a child while many people lucky enough to have children show no love or responsibility for them. The politically correct cuckoo brigade on the Opposition Benches would recommend a jolly good lecture to negligent parents, highlighting the need to show more affection to their children.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: I am listening carefully. Undoubtedly, the hon. Gentleman will achieve his objective of a line in The Sun tomorrow morning. I make a serious point.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: That was a cheap point.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: It is a cheap speech. Does the hon. Gentleman think that there might just be a connection between the example that we have had from Ministers this very week and the moral direction in which society as a whole is going? This week is not an exception. We seem to get it virtually every week from the very top of the Government. Does the hon. Gentleman see a connection or is he completely oblivious to the common ground between the behaviour of the Government and behaviour at grass-roots level?
  Mr. Evans: It was a socialist Home Secretary who started what we are now paying for 25 years later. The Conservative Government have done more than any Government to put that matter right. Unfortunately, the problem goes back a long way.
  Mr. Gary Streeter: Twenty-five years.
  Mr. Evans: More than that.
  Highlighting the need for parents to show more affection to their children does not work and will not work. I recommend a bloody good kick up the backside. If parents will not show a natural interest in their kids, it is up to the Government to make the parents of persistent young offenders more responsible. Perhaps their child benefit should be suspended as and when their child is convicted. Failing that, perhaps those parents should face a custodial sentence. That would give them some future incentive to show some responsibility for their offspring. Children need role models and they need to respect authority. Sadly, the pathetic behaviour of negligent parents leaves many children with no role model and no respect for or deference to authority.
  The problem of negligent parents has a knock-on effect in schools. Lord Elton, in his report on discipline for the Department for Education, noted that he was
  "aware of research findings which link anti-social and aggressive behaviour in school to the quality of the child's upbringing and family relationship".
  Mrs. Llin Golding: Can the hon. Gentleman tell why it is mostly boys and men who commit crimes? Does he believe that that is connected with the role model of the father?
  Mr. Evans: I would like children to look up to those role models that I respected when I was young—God, my father and the village policeman. They are the role models that I have in mind.
  Pathetic parents lead to badly behaved children and that leads to trouble in schools. With the abolition of corporal punishment, however, schools no longer have an effective means of disciplining children. That loss of discipline has led to a loss of respect and a loss of control
  The recently deceased novelist, Sir William Golding, shot to fame with his first novel "Lord of the Flies". Little did he know that it would come to reflect the present anarchy in the classroom, where little hooligans are allowed to rule the roost, with brutal consequences. We have heard horrific reports of children being savaged by sadistic forms of physical and mental bullying. The power and authority of teachers, however, has diminished to the point where they are scared even to touch a child for fear of being suspended. We even hear regular reports of teachers being subjected to violent physical and sexual assaults by children who are, quite simply, out of control.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: My hon. Friend may be aware that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and other charities have expressed great concern about bullying in schools. One of the difficulties that they face, however, is schools' refusal to recognise that that problem exists. Even when parents raise the issue, they have to fight governors and teachers who say that there is no bullying problem at the school. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is part of the problem to which he has referred?
  Mr. Evans: One need only recall the head teachers conference to appreciate that they do not recognise what discipline is about. One need only observe the conference of the National Union of Teachers to discover what they think about discipline. Need I say any more?
  Naturally, I blame the parents who have failed to give problem children a proper upbringing, but I also blame the succession of Ministers who did not have the guts to re-establish a sensible framework for authority and discipline in schools by reintroducing corporal punishment. Generally speaking, that lot on the Opposition Benches seem to reject corporal punishment on the half-baked notion that they are protecting children. What a lot of rubbish. I believe that the absence of corporal punishment has allowed little thugs to bully and harm pupils and teachers.
  Children are not stupid. They know that if they are not going to get punished when they do something wrong, they can go on doing it. That process of permitting delinquency has graduated from the schools to the streets. The Home Office has instructed the police to caution rather than prosecute juvenile offenders. On occasions, juveniles who have been caught four or five times committing offences have merely received four or five cautions. Where is the logic in that? We can caution youths until we are blue in the face, but unless we come up with an effective deterrent, those delinquents will carry on offending.
  If anyone is interested in reading horror stories arid has already read the most recent Labour party manifesto, I suggest the 1990 criminal statistics for England and Wales. I was shocked to discover that youths had merely been cautioned for rape, indecent assault on a female and
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  conspiracy to murder. A staggering 2,071 youths aged between 14 and 17 had been cautioned for burglary. What is going on?
  Those young offenders should be properly punished for their crimes. We have been told that the borstals for youths will be up and running in three years' time, but my constituents ask me what we are going to do about those youths who are running riot today. Even when those special borstals are established, I doubt whether they will do any good. Those baby borstals will be about as tough as kindergartens. The staff will be instructed to comfort and cosset the offenders. I would not be surprised if the Home Office issued a circular to instruct the staff to provide offenders with a nice hot cup of cocoa before bed time.
  Last May, The Sunday Telegraph reported on another Home Office circular, under the heading
  "Are you enjoying your porridge?"
  Apparently, the staff had been instructed to ask offenders whether they were having their underpants changed regularly enough, whether their cells were hot enough, cold enough, too noisy or too quiet. They were asked whether they could sleep at night. That is just what the new borstals will be like, because they will be run by socialist do-gooders.
  I suggest that we drop the trendy socialist claptrap philosophy and return to a dose of discipline and authority. We need to urge my right hon. and learned Friend the new Home Secretary to take the bull by the horns and introduce a framework that will being those kids back into line. Let us reintroduce flogging—cat-o'-nine-tails if you like—because that will make those thugs think about crime. That would certainly have a better effect than one pointless caution after another, which lets thugs go out and rob and rape again. That is what is happening every day.
  The socialist softies on the Opposition Benches may shake their heads, but they should bow their heads in shame, so should many on the Conservative Benches, at the fact that their soft soap slogans and slushy nonsense have landed us in a mess. By listening to their sort for too long, we have removed responsibility, authority and discipline from our society. The nation is now being held to ransom.
  A solution has emerged from an unlikely source—the European Community. My friends know my honest view of Europe: no, thank you. One practice of the Community that I would grasp with open arms, however, is national service, not necessarily in the armed forces, but in the community. Young people, men and women, could then learn the benefits of discipline, team work and a deference to authority.
  The Government should be encouraging young people to get out, get active and get stuck in. Children, sadly, no longer seem to have any sense of participation or involvement in events. That is particularly true of sport. Children just lounge around their bedrooms at every opportunity, playing computer games or watching television. When they get fed up with those computer games, they go out in the evening and hang around the streets and estates, where boredom, inevitably, leads to mischief.
  Children should be encouraged to play more sport. School teachers have, sadly, become 9 to 3.30 merchants. They should hang their heads in shame when it comes to latchkey kids. In my day, when the school bell went at

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  3.30, we were encouraged to participate in sport, whether it was cricket, hockey, netball, swimming, running or jumping. The teacher took pride in producing a swimming team. The whole school was made to stay back to cheer its side. That created team spirit and pride, rather than the dreadful individualism which seems to be affecting our nation, our youth and, dare I say it, our party.
  Sad to say, these days, the most vulnerable go home to an empty house while mum is at work. They have two hours to fill in, which, in itself, produces problems. It may even be necessary to pay teachers overtime to stay on at school, because a concentrated effort to encourage youngsters to participate in sport would be in the long-term interests of everyone.
  As a youth, I played football and I was fortunate enough to make football my career. I only wish that more children could enjoy the excitement, sense of achievement and discipline felt when participating in sporting activities. The politically correct crackpots of the Opposition would probably disagree and argue that sport is too rough and too competitive. Perhaps that is why they cannot win a general election. Looking back on the Labour party's record, I think that it makes the English football team look successful. I would not be surprised if it appointed Graham Taylor as its new campaign manager—he could not be worse than the one it has got. Sitting opposite that lot day after day, I have had to conclude that they lacked discipline in their upbringing and are obviously a bunch of political delinquents. I do not wish to spend any more time on that lot because they are losers—there is no hope for them.
  Children are different. They have a life of potential and achievement ahead of them. It is up to us to guide them through the path to adulthood with care, attention and supervision—most of all supervision—and provide them with role models in authority and the use of discipline. The Government must free themselves from the clutches of the chattering classes and adopt a commonsense approach to the health and welfare of our children. We do not need to spend vast sums of taxpayers' money. All that is required is an occasional clip around the ear and a cuddle every night before bedtime. For the health care of our children, I give the Government three plus points and a gold star; on the subject of our children's welfare, I would say of the Government that they are trying, but could do better.
  11.14 am
  Miss Joan Lestor: If the views of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) have been formed as a result of his activities on the football field, I recommend that the Government ban the sport immediately. I cannot believe the speech that I have just heard and I do not intend to pick up on it in any way, except to throw out one or two general thoughts.
  People call for activities for our young people at a time when youth service facilities are decreasing, many regions do not have recreational facilities and the aspirations that the Government describe as important cannot be met because of cuts in local authority expenditure. Therefore, to talk about activities in that context seems to undermine the philosophy that we should adopt.
  Some of us have fostered children or worked with children in need and children who have suffered in a way
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  that it is hard for others to comprehend—where children have been abused, ill treated, violated and moved from home to home never to be rehabilitated. After 12 or 15 years of such existence, many such children end up as delinquents who are antisocial and violent. But unless one traces the history of those children and learns the lessons of how to guard against a repetition of such events, we will end up with more borstals, more secure accommodation and more measures designed to curtail such behaviour. I do not think that most hon. Members would want that.
  We must learn the lessons of what has happened in the past. To be fair, I think that the Government have sometimes responded well to the problems. We can all remember the cases of Maria Colwell, Tara Henry, Jasmine Beckford and Kimberley Carlile, and a host of children who died because we let them down. We must always be sure that the structures that we set up as a result of the inquiries we undertake following the deaths and suffering of those children are watertight. We must constantly review the position.
  Yesterday I was disappointed by the reply I received when I asked whether there was to be a review of all the structures involving children and young people in residential care. I was told that that would not happen in a major way. We must always review the provision. People slip through the net and we cannot know at all times what is happening in any home or organisation for children.
  I was interested in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) about boys. Persistent offenders are nearly always—although not always—boys. Why is that? Is it because we expect too much of our boys, who find that they cannot meet those expectations and so become young offenders? Is it because the status of young men in society is measured in terms of owning large cars and becoming providers, breadwinners and heads of families, and many boys believe that they will never achieve that status? We should consider that aspect.
  We should also study what is happening to young girls. But we must remember that we are talking about a minority of young people. An increasing number of very young girls are having babies. They do not have babies in order to obtain a house. Perhaps they do so because the only way in which they can achieve status in society is to become a mother. The lack of educational and work opportunities for many young girls results in an increasing number of them seeking refuge in obtaining some form of status by becoming mothers, which worries me. However, it takes two to make a baby and we should ask why the number of teenage pregnancies is increasing. What sort of society produces such a problem?
  We all know that unless we intervene at an early stage to help alleviate the problem of young people, the pattern tends to he repeated. I have fostered children for a long time. Happily, I have seen some of them adopoted or rehabilitated, but some were less fortunate. Of the less fortunate, those on whom I have managed to keep tabs over the years have, unfortunately, tended to become part of an ever-repeating pattern.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: The hon. Lady mentioned teenage pregnancies as though they might all he intentional. I also have some experience of child care work and I think that she will agree with me that most teenage pregnancies are not intentional.
  Miss Lestor: I was just about to comment on that. We kid ourselves that young people are well aware of birth control, but they are not. The hon. Gentleman is right when he says that many teenage pregnancies are not intentional. Many young girls who become pregnant decide to go ahead with the pregnancies despite the social difficulties which they know that they will face. We must address that issue. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have not tackled the issue of family planning and birth control for boys and girls in our society. We could develop an argument on the subject of why teenage pregnancies are becoming more frequent. They were not so common years ago when less knowledge was available about family planning. The age of teenagers who become pregnant is decreasing.
  Parents are blamed for everything in today's society. All hon. Members with children have neglected them in some way or other. Being a Member of Parliament means that we have to neglect our children—we have to leave them to our partners as we are at Westminster most of the week, not with our children. If they are honest, hon. Members from both sides of the House, irrespective of political affiliation, will admit that sometimes they fail to get to a birthday party or some other event.
  There are degrees of neglect of children, but the accusation of neglect must not be levelled simply at the poor, which is not fair. The poor care for their children as much as those who are better off; it is someone's circumstances which can lead to neglect. To argue that parents do not care and should be put in prison is ridiculous and shows the lack of understanding about the neglect of children. All hon. Members—the majority of whom are men—are fortunate. The men, if they have children, have wives at home looking after them.
  I remember one Conservative Member who asked me who were the lovely little children who were running around me. I said with great pride that they were my grandchildren. He said that my response made him feel terrible as he would not see his children until Friday. When we talk about the neglect of children, we must be careful about what we say. People who are poor or unemployed care for their children just as much as anyone else, but they cannot afford to pay other people to assist them, as many of us can.
  We must consider the impact of television, to which probably all children are subjected. People will say that only a minority become violent and behave in an antisocial way as a result.
  All our children these days play video games and watch a great deal of television. It is important to find out whether what they see on television is reinforced in the family circle. If children see violence and are told by their parents that violence is terrible and that people should not behave like that, they will begin to question what they have seen. If, on the other hand, they are told that the violence is wonderful and manly, they will react differently. There is a generation gap: we did not play video games, so we do not know about their impact. In any event, how we react to what we see on the screen and how schools and other institutions in charge of young people react to it is all important.
  There is not just one cause of antisocial behaviour by this minority of children. Our schools are not collapsing because of indiscipline. I repeat that the problem is confined to a minority. Most youngsters who are
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  cautioned—85 per cent. of them—never offend again. It is unfair to maintain that there is a relentless tide of bad
  behaviour—
  Mrs. Wise: Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to hear about the experience of a member of my union—an elderly lady who took part in a television programme about young people. She listed several instances of good behaviour, but they were not included in the final programme. Only the criticisms were included.
  Miss Lestor: I am not surprised. We hear about this minority all the time; we concentrate on it. We have all had a great many letters, however, from young people in our constituencies asking how they can raise money for various good causes. They want to be involved. They are increasingly aware of environmental issues. We have all been to functions at which we have seen the good activities carried out by young people. Certainly, there is a problem with a minority, but that problem cannot be divorced from the social circumstances in which many of them find themselves. If we forget that, we sell these young people short.
  Young people do not become violent out of the blue. We should remember how many of them become thugs after they themselves have been treated violently. Similarly, many youngsters who suffer sexual abuse go on to become sexually abusing adults—but not all of them do. A majority of the most violent people in this country have been violently treated themselves.
  I am also worried about the fact that a large number of young people who end up in penal institutions used to be in local authority care, often taken into care to remove them from unsatisfactory homes. Perhaps the personality damage had already been done before they went into care, but there must be a link. Equally, a disproportionately large number of young people sleeping on the streets have been through the care system. We cannot ignore these factors or claim that social circumstances are irrelevant. There is a thread that runs through all these experiences and we should not just dismiss it and call for the return of the birch.
  The National Association of Young People in Care will bear out what I am saying. We need to ensure that our structures for dealing with children and young people are not open to abuse. Children who have suffered at the hands of people in the care system, in which we have placed them for their own protection, will obviously encounter problems and difficulties later on.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) dealt adequately with many aspects of the Children Act 1989, but I draw attention to the decline in the school nursing service and the problems that that will entail. I recently asked a parliamentary question about the numbers of school nurses in post. In 1979, there were 3,810; in 1985, 3,110; in 1991, there were 3,050. Clearly, there has been a decline. Now, two health districts, Bath and Bristol, have said that they no longer intend to provide a school-based nursing service and that they intend to reduce universal school children health surveillance programmes. Doubtless the Government will say, as they have in the past, that the service is not needed so much—that children are healthier and are going to see their family practitioners. I question that and so does the Royal College of Nursing.

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  Schools nurses in many areas see every child for a health interview at the start of his or her school career. That leads to the early detection of problems, on which advice can be given. It is therefore a great pity that the service is to be allowed to deteriorate. Statistics may show that more of our children are healthy—I am sure that that is true—but what an indictment of 14 years of Conservative Government it would be if there had been no progress on this front. More children are being immunised—we have stamped out many diseases during the past 50 years—but there will always be a minority to whom the overall approach does not apply. They will be the children who will lose out; they are the ones who do not go to family GPs, whose parents may be poor and unable to take advantage of the service in their area. The Government and health authorities are selling children short if they allow the school nursing service to decline.
  In this country we are good at concentrating on pre-school health services for children. We have a good health visitor service—long may it last: I hope that it will never be tampered with. After children go to school, however, the service is not so good.
  The British Dental Association and other organisations have expressed concern about children's teeth. The number of examinations carried out is declining. It will be said that children's teeth are improving because of fluoridation. That may be so, but too many young children still get caries and there is not enough early detection. That may be partly due to the cost for adults of going to the dentist, which may lead to fewer children accompanying their parents to the surgery. There is a wide variation in the prevalence of dental caries among five-year-olds. The highest incidence is in the northern urban districts and among poorer people with poorer diets. The lowest incidence is in the southern areas where people tend to be better off.
  Mr. Corbyn: Does my hon. Friend agree that another problem has been the continual cuts in the school meals service, the abolition of nutritional standards in 1980 and the high price of school meals? More and more children are bringing packed lunches to school, often containing far too many sweets and far too little protein and fruit. It is simpler to pack sweets than to prepare sandwiches.
  Miss Lestor: I was coming to children's diets, and advertising. Most of us have expressed concern about the decline in the school meals service. A recent survey in a school showed that children were bringing white bread sandwiches with jam or paste, chocolate biscuits, packets of crisps and drinks full of sugar. That may be the result of ignorance or of poverty. When we did away with decent school meals, we opened the door to all sorts of problems with our children's health. It is a great pity that the service has declined.
  Another related issue is the effect of food advertising on children. The dental health promotion, Community Dental Service, in Hampshire recently sent to me a copy of a letter that it had written to the nutrition section of the Department of Health regarding a chocolate drink, manufactured by Crookes Healthcare Ltd., a subsidiary of Boots, and sold under the brand name of Farley's. That drink is designed to encourage toddlers to sleep.
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  Anyone who has ever had a baby knows that the biggest mythical phrase in the world is "sleeping like a baby", because they rarely do. I am sure that many parents have been attracted to that drink, for it says that it will soothe their toddlers to sleep. The drink is called Bed Timers and is aimed at children between the age of 12 months and four years. Bed Timers contains a total of 43·3g/100g of sugar. Almost half the content of that product is sugar.
  Other products that are on the market are just as bad. If hon. Members have ever sat in front of their television sets during half-term or at other times when children are at home and watched the advertisements, they will know that cereal and all sorts of drink advertisements are aimed at children and that children, just like us, are being brainwashed. Those who care about children's health should talk to the promoters of these products and ask them to take out the sugar. They should also ask them not to show these advertisements at a time when children are likely to be watching television.
  Mr. Roger Knapman: Does the hon. Lady agree that good example and respect for the law are important? Will she therefore ask for another survey to be conducted? Five Opposition Members are in the Chamber, of whom two actively encouraged their constituents not to pay their local taxes. What sort of an example is that to young people in their constituencies?
  Miss Lestor: We could talk about Chancellors of the Exchequer who have their legal fees paid by the Treasury and the rest of us. If the hon. Gentleman wants to go into this game, there is a whole string of issues that we could raise.
  Mr. Corbyn: What about watches?
  Miss Lestor: Yes, watches as well, but do not let us be silly. I began my speech on the assumption that we all care about what happens to children. What the intervention of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman) had to do with the sugar content in drinks I cannot imagine.
  In 1990, a Food Commission survey found that half of all advertising during one week of children's television was for food and soft drinks—51 per cent., eight times higher than any other category. In just over 10 hours of viewing, there were 92 advertisements for food and drink, an average of nearly 10 an hour. The vast majority—78 per cent.—were for pre-sweetened cereals, sweets, crisps, fast foods and soft drinks. After the Government White Paper "The Health of the Nation", which includes the health of children, it is nonsense that our children should be subjected to such a barrage of influence on their diet.
  We all know abut the dangers of heart disease later in life. I make the same criticism, in a different context, of the promotion of smoking in such a way as to attract young people to begin to smoke. These are issues that we rarely examine. Instead, we congratulate ourselves and say that for many children things are much better. Of course they are. However, for a minority of children—in some instances, a growing minority—things are getting very much worse. The problem is linked to unemployment, bad housing and poverty. The gap between the two is widening. That worries me very much.
  Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): I take many of the points that the hon. Lady makes regarding soft drinks, but does she commend the Independent Television Commission for preventing in this country

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  something that happens on a dreadful scale in the United States—the linking of cartoon films with toys that are available, the suggestion being that if a child does not have a particular toy that is shown on a cartoon there is something wrong with the child—that in some way he or she is inadequate?
  Miss Lestor: A little bit of that is creeping into advertising in this country and it is to be deplored. I mentioned some time ago in the House that Benson and Hedges uses the puffin symbol to advertise cigarettes. The moment we begin to link positive images for children, characters that they love with something else, we are on the road to disaster.
  I welcome the debate. All of us who care about children have a duty to them and to all who look after them to make sure that the services that exist are provided to them all. Unhappily, as I have already said, the gap between children is widening. We cannot separate the social circumstances in which many children find themselves from many of the difficulties that they face. We must always be vigilant and ensure that when we pass laws we include all children in the provisions, not just the majority, for it is the minority of children who cause us concern and it is they who are suffering in a disgraceful way.
  11.35 am
  Mr. Roger Sims: I join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) on his appointment, and on the manner in which he has swiftly got to grips with his portfolio. He rightly covered a number of strong points, and he had some good stories to tell about children. He also highlighted problems that continue to have to be faced.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) made a typically robust speech. Although I agreed with some of his criticisms, he would not, I am sure, expect me to agree with some of the others. Stripped of party rhetoric, however, no one doubts his commitment to children, and his sincerity.
  Health and welfare is a vast field. It is impossible to cover everything in a brief speech, so I intend to confine my speech to a few issues that interest me, particularly those that stem from my involvement with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the magistracy and the Children Act. That Act represents one of the two landmarks in child welfare in recent years. There have been a number of admirable initiatives. I refer also to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which was agreed and ratified by the United Kingdom.
  Both the Children Act and the United Nations convention are admirable in their intentions and philosophy, but we must ensure that they are fully implemented. We must ensure that the philosophies that underpin the Children Act are implemented and that the philosophies that underlie the United Nations convention are implemented in other countries. One could give a list of problems that show that the convention is not being applied throughout the world. We must ensure that it is.
  It is accepted here that children represent a distinct section of the national community. They have their distinctive problems and needs. There is a case, to put it no higher, for considering the appointment of an independent
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  children's rights commissioner to act as a watchdog and to view the legislation that emanates from all Government Departments from the angle of the child.
  Organisations and individuals are appointed to look after the interests of various sections of our society—women, the disabled and ethnic minorities. Children are just as important, if not more important, a part of the community, and merit particular attention being paid to their needs.
  A number of interesting initiatives that affect children have emerged in the past few years. Childline, set up by Esther Rantzen, enables children in trouble to pick up a phone and talk to people who may be able to help them. There is no doubt, from the thousands of calls that Childline has received, that this service has met a very real need.
  The NSPCC has developed, alongside that service, its child protection line, which enables people who are concerned about certain children to voice those concerns, make contact with appropriate people and have action initiated. It also enables desperate parents to ask for and get help before problems that are emerging reach a tragic climax. The thousands of calls that both services receive show the extent of the problem and the need for those services.
  I believe that the Children Act may prove to be one of the most important measures passed by the last Parliament, and, indeed, by this Government. It is worth reading the words of the chairman of the Children Act advisory committee, the hon. Mrs. Justice Booth, who reported in the foreword to her annual report on the Act:
  "What can be said with confidence is that the enthusiasm and goodwill that greeted the Act have remained unabated."
  The Government's report on the working of the Act generally supports that view.
  Having said that, the report also points to the inevitable problems that have arisen, one of which has already been mentioned—day care. Paragraph 4.35 of the report says:
  "Examination of correspondence from MPs and the general public confirmed that some local authorities were seeking to impose on childminders and daycare providers more stringent or higher standards than those recommended in the national guidance."
  I must confirm that that certainly seems to be so. An admirable holiday play scheme operates in my constituency. With a few professionals, volunteers help to run schemes in school buildings during the holidays to enable children to occupy their time in a range of worthwhile educational and leisure pursuits. The scheme suddenly faced quite unduly onerous requirements on the qualifications of voluntary helpers, on health checks for every helper and on space, with no account being taken of the playground or playing field, all of which threatened the future of the scheme.
  A similar case arose more recently. I learned of a constituent who, for many years, has run an admirable and well-supported nursery group. She was visited by the inspection manager of the local authority children's division, who required a number of quite unreasonable changes to be made before the group, which had run so successfully and satisfactorily for many years, could be registered.
  The predecessor of my hon. Friend the Minister issued some guidance on 11 January. Paragraph 4.38 of the Government's report says:
  "The circular … reminds authorities that, in the interests of children and families, they must strike the right balance

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  between ensuring standards and encouraging development of provision. There is a presumption under the legislation that registration should be granted unless the authority has good reason not to register."
  I invite my hon. Friend the Minister either to issue further guidance or to emphasise that circular in the next annual report. We must ensure that the implementation of the philosophy behind the Act is not strangled by bureaucracy.
  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted a survey into respite care for children. It found:
  "The increased bureaucracy undermines the previous flexibility of services and is causing link families to leave."
  It quoted from a respondent, who said:
  "'I feel that the requirements of the Children Act have placed some unnecessary burdens on carers, workers and users, making arrangements more inflexible. Existing good practice may well be eroded by such formality and form-filling.'"
  It is important to strike a balance between what those who were involved with the Children Act wanted to achieve and what is happening on the ground.
  Mr. Bowis: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter. He is right to say that, in practice, some well-run organisations, day centres, playgroups and so on have suffered from bureaucracy and an intrusive interpretation of quite well-intentioned rules. That is why we issued guidance in January.
  I hope that it is working and that the debate may draw it to the attention of people who operate the Act. I hope, equally, that he and any hon. Member who is aware of instances where it is not working will draw them to my attention, because I want to pursue the problem and get the matter back on the rails.
  Mr. Sims: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for responding so promptly to my point. I invite him to respond similarly, if not immediately, to the next matter that I want to mention—the continuing problem of the number of children who are on the at risk register but who have been unallocated. It is worth reminding the House that a child is put on the at risk register because somebody is concerned about what has happened or because of signs that they saw in the child or the family.
  Paragraph 2.59 of the Government's report on the Children Act says:
  "As at 30 June 1992 the total number of unallocated children … was 1,543 or 2·9 per cent. of the total numbers of children looked after."
  It notes that, in 31 authorities, all the children have been allocated. I am happy to note that my borough is included. That shows that it can be done, but some have a very poor record; indeed, three authorities account for two thirds of the unallocated figure.
  We can argue the toss about resources and I have some sympathy with the point that the hon. Member for Wakefield made, but I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to put the strongest possible pressure on authorities that have so many unallocated children to organise their resources and get their priorities right.
  The courts seem to be settling down to the new Act and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to magistrates who sit in the family courts. They are not the family courts that some of us would like to see, but we are getting there. Those magistrates had, in effect, to forget all that they had learnt and to be almost retrained.
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  Some evidence shows that not all legal practitioners have become used to the new approach of the Children Act. They must forget the adversarial approach that they have used in the past and probably still continue to practise in other courts. It is not a question now of whose side they are on. There is only one side in family courts—the child's.
  I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to investigate the role and workings of guardians ad litem, who play a particularly important part in court procedures. He should consider whether they should be managed centrally rather than by local authorities. He will realise that local authorities often bring cases before the court. If they are also managing the GALs, it must, to some extent, compromise their independence, or at least the perception, if not the fact.
  It is interesting to note that some courts have been issuing explanatory leaflets to the parties involved, including solicitors, to assist them with the new procedures of the court. Perhaps there is a case for doing so on a national basis.
  If children are likely to appear in court, they now have the advantage of the admirable child witness pack issued by the Department of Health, the Home Office, the NSPCC and Childline with support from the Gulbenkian Foundation. That was exactly what was needed, but not only for children. It would be a great advantage if something similar could be produced for practitioners, parents and others who are to appear in court.
  The value of the television link in court, which enables a child to give evidence without physically having to be there, is already being proved. Recent provisions enabling videos to be admissible as evidence are also to be welcomed. There are still circumstances, however, in which a child has to appear in court, which can be extremely intimidating and traumatic.
  I hope that the Minister, in conjunction with the Lord Chancellor's Department, will further consider the idea of pre-trial hearings at which a child could give evidence and be cross-examined in chambers—thus as far as possible avoiding the necessity of the child having to appear in court.
  While on the subject of court proceedings, I must mention the recent case in which Judge Ian Starforth Hill referred to the eight-year-old victim of attempted unlawful intercourse as "not entirely an angel", As one of my hon. Friends says, that is disgraceful, and it was also the general reaction. Surely, when a child is abused by a adult, the child cannot and should not be blamed for the abuse.
  A further dimension to the problem to which I feel I must draw the House's attention is the Attorney-General's sentencing guidelines on incest. The guidelines cite as a mitigating factor the apparent
  "genuine affection on the part of the defendant rather than any intention to use the girl simply as an outlet for his sexual inclinations."
  It is well know that the genuine affection shown by the abuser, especially when the relationship between the abuser and the child is a close one, may have a traumatic effect on the child because of the profound betrayal of trust. I hope that the various Departments involved in this sphere will review all the sentencing guidelines on incest and provide more training for the judiciary in child sexual abuse and similar cases.

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  Finally, I refer to the scandal of cases in which children have been abused and, in some instances, have died, but where no criminal proceedings have followed, simply because of the right of silence.
  A well known, relatively recent case was that of Kim Griffin, who died from dreadful injuries at the age of only two months. She had been in the care of her parents. The coroner's verdict was death by unlawful killing. No charges were brought. Both parents exercised their right of silence, so it was impossible for the prosecution to proceed. The parents were free to leave the interrogation to which they had not responded and, of course, they are free to have more children, which means that there is a possibility of a repetition of that sad event. The case, alas, is not an isolated one; there have been a number of similar cases in recent years.
  Many people believe that the law must be changed. The NSPCC has presented a well-prepared dossier on joint enterprise to the royal commission. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Minister will make the valid point that the issue is being considered by the royal commission, but I am worried by press reports suggesting that the commision has already decided against any change in the right of silence rule. Whatever its views on the application of the rule generally, I suggest that there is an overwhelming argument for a change in its application in the cases that I have just described.
  We all accept that we have an overwhelming duty to protect the rights of the child. Surely, the younger and more defenceless the child, the stronger our responsibilities. If we fail to protect a child who has been neglected, abused, gravely injured or even killed, we must at least ensure that those responsible are punished, and that justice is done.
  11.55 am
  Mrs. Llin Golding: "What sort of person could do that?" Are they the words of disbelief that we use to justify our lack of action in dealing with the unimaginable pain and suffering inflicted on the children who are the victims of physical, mental and sexual abuse? Do we really feel that, when an offender is caught, charged and put behind bars, our expression of revulsion and the detailed coverage in the press and other media are sufficient to enable us to say that another monster has been caught, another child has been saved and that we can now push the problem to the back of our mind until the next shocking headline? Is the banging of prison doors the end of society's responsibilities? Should not we be asking ourselves how it happens, why it continues, what happens to the victims and the offender and, most important, what can we do to stop it happening again?
  How does an apparently normal person justify to himself the molestation of children? I say "normal" because it is not identifiable men in dirty raincoats who do these evil things but men—it is mainly men—in all walks of life, men who are often well respected and in responsible jobs. What has happened to them that means that they refuse to see that their behaviour is wrong, wicked and evil?
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: The hon. Lady is correct in saying that most of the people engaged in child abuse are male, but she will no doubt have seen that there are, sadly, many cases in which women become aware of the abuse but defend the abuser. There was such an instance only last
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  week in Wales. Two brothers committed suicide because of years of continual abuse by an uncle. The mother was aware of it, but turned her gaze from it, believing that her discovery would lead to the abuse stopping. While the hon. Lady is considering the fact that most abusers are men, will she postulate on the issue of why, when women learn of the abuse, they often defend the abuser?
  Mrs. Golding: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. The reasons are varied: fear of the man, fear of the family splitting up or a failure to recognise what is happening in the house. There are many complex reasons and I am sure that we could have a separate debate on the subject, but, if I may, I shall stick to a narrow brief today. What has been done to change attitudes and to protect children from being further molested by men? Giving offenders fairly short prison sentences and then releasing them back into the community is certainly not the answer. More often than not, prison reinforces their behaviour and fails to make them face up to the damage that they have wreaked on so many children's lives. I am aware of the many efforts to provide treatment for sex offenders in prison, but I believe that such treatment has little hope of success unless it is long term and intensive. Our Prison Service cannot and does not provide such treatment.
  I am convinced that the only hope that society has of changing the attitudes and beliefs of sex offenders is attendance at clinics such as Ray Wyre's Gracewell clinic. Ray Wyre has faced up to the ugliness of this world with determination and great courage. He knows that too few sex offenders receive experienced, specialist treatment. Too many are allowed to continue offending.
  Mr. Michael Stephen: Is the hon. Lady aware of Dr. Wyre's views on the effect of pornography on sex offenders? From a lifetime's study of the subject, he is convinced that the availability of pornography contributes to sexual offences against children.
  Mrs. Golding: The hon. Gentleman is right. There are wide-ranging concerns about pornography. We recently had an exhibition in the House and I am certain that it shocked many hon. Members who had no conception of what was going on in the world of pornography.
  The funding of clinics needs to be addressed. The Gracewell clinic is a charity which is funded by donations. Ray Wyre has told me that community care funding from the local authority will be the source of additional funding. The Faithfull Foundation has now been established to carry on the work that the Gracewell clinic started. It was established by the determination of Baroness Faithful, that champion of all causes concerning children. She spent days on the telephone to raise money to enable the foundation to be established. In future years, she will have to find the funds to keep it going. Surely it is nonsense that that should happen. These organisations fight vile crimes against children. The Government should see that and should fund them as such so that they do not have to go, year after year, cap in hand, to different Government Departments attempting to get money to continue work that so badly needs to be done.
  What happens to accused sexual offenders who never come to court? Many do not because the Crown Prosecution Service says that it would be too great a strain on the child to give evidence. Few parents are as enterprising as a lady who wrote to me in anger because of the release of the man who had molested her small

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  daughter. She cut out details of the case from her local newspaper, photocopied them and delivered them to every street near where the man lived. That relieved her anger, but it did not bring justice. The real crime was that the man was set free into the community to molest other children. In considering the welfare of the child who had been molested, the court failed to address the welfare of children who were put at risk by the decision not to prosecute.
  Is not it time that sexual offences against children were dealt with in some other way, outside the formal courts system? Is not it time for a different form of sentence, which recognises that the abuser needs treatment, to be considered for a man who is found guilty of sexual offences? It is obvious that the release of such men into the community or the shutting of a prison door is not the answer when the welfare of children is at stake.
  Mr. Fabricant: Does the hon. Lady agree that there is a danger that if the miscreant receives treatment, those providing the treatment may believe that he is cured? The danger that then arises is that the miscreant can be let out into society when he has not been cured.
  Mrs. Golding: The hon. Gentleman may think that there is a cure for these men. People who deal with them say that it is difficult to cure them. All they can do is make the offenders think and look at the reality of what they have done. They can then, perhaps, let the offenders go back into society. If they have saved a number of children from being molested in the short term, that is something and it is better than doing nothing. However, the more work is done, the more we learn about such men. The more we learn, the more we can help.
  If we are to protect children, every effort must be made to identify signs of abuse. There has been a highly successful campaign that tells children to say no to strangers. However, it is usually not strangers, but people who are responsible for the care of children—often members of the family, a family friend or baby sitter—who molest them. What thought has been given to advising children, without frightening them, that sexual abuse by adults is not normal, loving behaviour? How can a bridge be built from children to adults to allow them to realise that sexual abuse is occurring? It is difficult because abuse is veiled in secrecy.
  A child is coerced by an abuser into believing that the abuse is a secret which must not be revealed because if it is, terrible things will happen. Sometimes, children are made to believe that abuse is normal and a sign of love, so to say no would make them wicked; in any case, it is all their fault. How can that barrier be broken down? Children often hide their hurt and distress because they are afraid of not being believed or are afraid that, if they are believed, they will be taken away. What they most want is for the hurt or the abuse to stop and for everything to be all right. We do not want adults to go rushing in and to destroy the children's small world.
  I spoke to one of the officers of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I asked him what he would do if he were given enough money to do one special thing—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) will be interested in this. He answered unhesitatingly that the one thing would be to have one fully trained person in each school who had time to listen
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  to children and to talk to them in small groups so that he or she could pick up signs of what was worrying them. The children would then know that they had someone whom they could trust and someone who would not tell them to go away because he or she was busy and did not have the time. In the real world, we are unlikely to have that. We have people who care about children, but who have other jobs to do as well. Many of those people have been mentioned in the debate today.
  One group, the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses, had a training seminar in Birmingham last Saturday, which I attended. The nursery nurses listened not only to Ray Wyre talking about the sex offender but to the internationally acclaimed Madge Bray, who spoke on healing the child who has been abused. Who knows better than she what an extremely difficult job that is?
  The training programme and training packs help to identify the children who need our help, but, having found them, where do we go from there? The process of healing needs to begin quickly. Delays in court hearings put strain on children. To attempt to give a child therapy while being aware that the child may need to go to court to give evidence is difficult. Is not it time that the excellent Pigot report on video evidence was looked at again and that legislation was passed to avoid additional strain being put on children? Parliament has gone a long way in changing the law on children's evidence, but we have not yet gone far enough. Would it also be a good idea for money to be paid from the criminal injuries compensation scheme directly into a trust fund to help to heal children who have been damaged by sexual abuse?
  Madge Bray and her colleagues have set up two houses in Shropshire which give a home, care and therapy to children who have been severely damaged by abuse. More funding is needed to enable them and others like them to deal with the children who need their help. The abuse of children is a difficult and complex subject, of which sexual abuse is only a part. I have touched on only one aspect of the work that numerous people in all professions are doing to help children.
  Are we in the House the sort of people who say, "What sort of person could do that?", and wait for others to deal with the problem? I do not believe that we are. We, more than most, have the power to alter things. We should look again at our legislation and the need for change. The welfare of children is the responsibility of us all. We should not leave them alone to cry in the night.
  12.10 pm
  Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): It is a rare privilege to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding), my fellow Staffordshire Member. Before I begin on the serious matter of this debate, I seek the forbearance of the House for the fact that I am wearing what Dame Edna Everage might call her face furniture, due to a minor—I hope—injury to my left eye. I had the choice of looking like Roy Orbison or wearing an eye patch and looking like Moshe Dayan. I opted for the Roy Orbison look. While the Minister is on the Front Bench, I should like to commend to my hon. Friend the Minister for Health Dr. Jeremy Prydel and his colleagues in the medical eye unit of St. Thomas's hospital, who looked after me so well yesterday morning.
  I believe that it was Oscar Wilde who said that the best way to make children was to make them happy. I could not

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  agree more. The good health, well-being and happiness of children should not only be the aim of parents everywhere but should be the responsibility of the Government. It is a responsibility which the present Government have taken on with relish; they have recognised the duty of care and are fulfilling their obligation. We are witnessing a marked improvement in the health of children, as many hon. Members have said. The Children Act 1989, on which I shall concentrate today, was one of the most comprehensive and radical reforms of child law enacted by Parliament for many years. That Act has been widely hailed as a great success.
  The Opposition—notably the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock)—have for many years scorned what they call our obsession with the traditional family or with family values. We make no apology for that so-called obsession. We are not embarrassed by it. I believe that it is family values which maintain the structure of society and protect children in our society. Even Professor Halsey—for so long a Labour party guru and major influence on the Labour party's thinking on social issues—last year extolled the virtues of the traditional family:
  "Children from these families",
  he said,
  "tend to do better physically, educationally and emotionally."
  It is a sad fact that more than a third of all families in our society are single-parent families. There are many apologists for that—many people who try to justify it or even defend it. I believe that there can be no substitute for the traditional family.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: I find the hon. Gentleman's comments on Labour's attitudes to family values somewhat strange. I am not aware of my hon. Friends having made comments of the kind that he suggests. We believe fundamentally in family values. Our comments have been on the Government's performance and on the fact that the wider policies that they pursue do not support family values but lead every day to the break-up of families.
  Mr. Fabricant: Naturally I cannot agree with what the hon. Gentleman has just said. If he is stating that there has been a change in Labour party policy—or in views that some members of the parliamentary Labour party have previously espoused—I am delighted to hear it.
  Families provide the sense of security that is so beneficial to a child's development. They also provide role models from which a child can learn much and without which children may flounder. Baldwin—not the Baldwin who was quoted yesterday but James Baldwin, the 19th century American writer—wrote:
  "Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
  For that reason, it is tremendously important that parents—or a single parent—should provide a suitable role model. Our appreciation of the value of family life lies at the heart of the Children Act. The Act provided for intervention in family life by public authorities and courts only where that was absolutely essential in the interests of the child. The aim of the Act was that, wherever practicable, children should be brought up and cared for in their own families and that, when they were needed, social workers should work with parents in partnership.
  The Children Act introduced the new legal concept of parental responsibility. Is not it sad that that sense of responsibility—something which we should all innately
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  have—should need to be written into the law? The Act also balanced parents' rights and duties with the powers of local authorities and the child's interests.
  Quite rightly, parents are held responsible under the Act for bringing up their children, but local authorities and other agencies are also given a role to play. No court order transferring a parent's responsibility for caring for a child can now be made unless that is better for the child. That tremendously important principle has now been enshrined in English law. The welfare of the child is now the paramount consideration.
  The Government have every right to claim a great success with the Children Act. Mrs. Justice Booth, chairman of the Children Act Advisory Committee, has called it "a great Act" with "huge potential". We can already see a new spirit of co-operation developing between the judiciary and our councils and welfare services. I am especially conscious of that—as, I am sure, is the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme—because we in Staffordshire have experienced our own difficulties with the care of children in recent years.
  We should rejoice in the fall in the number of court orders since the Act was introduced and the decline in the number of cases reaching the courts. In my view, the statistics are impressive. There were more than 1,500 applications for emergency protection orders from October 1991 to June 1992. The equivalent figure a year earlier for place of safety orders was more than 3,000.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: May I caution my hon. Friend on the subject of the figures? I am sure that he is not suggesting that, in the past year, there has been a dramatic reduction in the amount of child abuse. I put it to him that one reason why there may have been fewer emergency protection orders is that many local authorities are coming to terms with the complexity of the new law. There is another side to the argument: there may be children who are unprotected by the Act at present.
  Mr. Fabricant: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. He is right: there will always be unprotected children.
  The Children Act 1989 has been criticised for being complicated. However, any such all-embracing Act must be comprehensive and complex. We should be encouraged by the fall in the number of children removed from their parental homes. Local authorities are forming a genuine partnership with parents and they are helping families to stay together. The new emphasis on parental responsibility and on court intervention only when that is to the benefit of the child is worth noting.
  Since the Children Act came into force, the Government have monitored carefully the child protection register. The aim has been to concentrate minds in local authorities on the reasons for placing children on the register and for keeping them there. We should be pleased that the numbers fell by 15 per cent. between March 1991 and March 1992. However, we cannot and will not be complacent.
  The performance of some local authorities is deeply worrying. Like many hon. Members, I am very concerned about the number of children on protection registers who are not being allocated social workers. Last June, Lambeth sadly had 914 children on its register—twice as many as any other London borough. The legislation to which I have referred has been backed solidly over the past year by

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  additional Government expenditure. Local authorities' standard spending on children's services for 1992–93, the first full year after the Children Act, was more than 20 per cent. higher than for 1990–91.
  The Government's campaign to improve the health of our children is being fought on many fronts. The leading cause of death in children over five is accidents. That death rate fell by 27 per cent. in the 1980s, but there is still more to be done and there is no room for complacency. A Department of Health task force is examining accident prevention with a number of agencies, including the Child Accident Prevention Trust, and schemes are being developed to teach road safety to very young children.
  Children are being encouraged to adopt a healthy life style through a wide array of projects. I was grateful for the comments of the hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) about the way in which unhealthy eating habits for children are encouraged on television. It is important that the Health Education Authority counters that.
  The HEA can boast the comprehensive "My Body" project which develops health education through physical activity in primary schools. The health in clubs project for youth workers would no doubt encourage my hon. Friend for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) who spoke earlier.
  Immunisation rates against infectious diseases are at record levels. There is now a 95 per cent. coverage for diphtheria, tetanus and polio and 92 per cent. coverage for measles, mumps and rubella. Over the next five years, £5 million will fund projects aimed at helping children with life-threatening illnesses. That was very welcome news when it was announced last year. Respite care, home support and residential care should benefit. I am confident that that initiative will achieve its goals in due course. It focuses sensitively on a child's home and local community, his family home and friends. It will, without doubt, lead to improved services for seriously ill children.
  All that good work is now being bolstered by the Department for Education. That shows that, although we might not talk about "national strategies," there is a co-ordinated strategy on the Conservative Benches, between the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the Home Office. The national curriculum has ensured the provision of essential health education for school children aged between five and 16. The National Curriculum Council has identified the key components for health education and its advice has been issued to all primary and secondary schools. Is not that a national strategy that crosses the boundaries between Government Departments? I applaud the response of our schools in developing health education programmes. That is indeed a national strategy which we are putting forward in deeds and not simply words—as is the case with some Opposition Members.
  The drive for higher standards in schools shows how concerned the Government are about the welfare of children. Education, like health, is crucial to a child's healthy development. Alfred Horn said:
  "The first thing that education teaches you to do is to walk alone."
  Providing the means to walk alone is one of the most serious obligations of a Government. The provision of a national curriculum will he remembered as one of the
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  greatest achievements of this Government because we have a duty of care to all our children for health, legal care and education.
  In their radical reform of child law, and through the provision of decent health services and a decent education, the Government have shown how deeply they care for our children. As Douglas Newton said:
  "The worldwide fraternity of children is the greatest of savage tribes, and the only one which shows no sign of dying out."
  In this country, at least, we can go further: this tribe is all set to thrive and the Conservative Government can claim much of the credit.
  12.24 pm
  Ms Liz Lynne: I welcome the Minister to his new appointment and wish him well. As the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, I welcome the opportunity for this debate.
  It almost goes without saying that the health and welfare of the country's children is one of the most important issues to be addressed by any Government. It may seem a cliché, but it is clearly true to say that children represent the future and if we do not have regard for them now we fail to have proper regard for our own and our country's future. The health and welfare of children must therefore be at the forefront of our minds.
  There has recently been a series of major stories in the press about the health problems of individual children, one of which ended up in court. The most recent of those cases was publicised by the National Health Service Support Federation only last weekend. A young boy was born three months premature, suffering from detached retinas in both eyes. Suitable treatment is not available in the United Kingdom, but it is in America. However, because the NHS is unwilling to pay for the treatment in America, the family must raise £60,000 themselves. Some hon. Members may respond to that story by saying that, of course, it is a very deserving case, but there are many such deserving cases and the NHS cannot afford to deal with them all and difficult choices must be made.
  Whatever one thinks of that argument, it ignores the fact that the cost to the health service, let alone to the child and his family, of having to support a visually impaired child is much greater than the cost of the operation. Not only is the Government's position uncaring, it is economic nonsense and a reflection, perhaps, of the underfunding of the health service. I know that the Minister will claim that more money has gone into the health service, but I argue that the health service needs yet more money.
  Hospital care for children has also been in the limelight in the past week as a result of the publication of the report of the London specialty reviews. The review relating to children recommends, as do the others, a concentration of facilities in fewer and larger hospitals rather than specialist services spread around a large number of specialist hospitals. Obviously, there is much concern among staff and patients at the hospitals affected. People are naturally concerned about the loss of national institutions.
  Those fears are not confined, however, to London and the home counties. They can also be found among the people of Greater Manchester and elsewhere. For instance, Booth Hall children's hospital in Manchester—hailed as a centre of excellence by a Minister, no less—is now threatened with closure by the end of the century. Naturally, local people are up in arms. One woman who

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  was interviewed did not even know where the new children's hospital site was and she was desperately worried about that.
  If the Government are to press ahead with rationalisation, they must consider providing support to families on low incomes, to enable them to visit a sick child whenever they consider that they are able to do so. I was pleased to note that that point was made by the specialist review team—a reflection, I believe, of the hard work of the Two Dear to Visit Campaign. However, despite the importance of hospital services and the media publicity that they rightly generate, we should give much greater attention to the health and welfare of children. The bare necessities of life, such as a decent home in which to live and a good diet are the basic requirements of good health and welfare.
  It is a disgrace, therefore, that in one of the richest countries of the world there are increasing reports that many children do not have their basic rights. A recent report by the National Children's Home states that the number of children placed in temporary accommodation by London councils more than tripled from 14,000 in 1986 to 43,166 in 1992. Furthermore, 18 London boroughs have said that they do not have enough family-sized homes to house all their priority homeless applicants. London is certainly not alone; that is happening throughout the country.
  Mr. Stephen: Is the hon. Lady aware that, at present, there are about 10 times as many empty houses as there are homeless families in this country? What should we do about that?
  Ms Lynne: I am aware of that. We have to make sure that those homes come back into the public domain. The Government can help by releasing capital receipts. I know that they will release them in future, but capital receipts are still tied up. Much of that money could he spent on repairing property that is not presently used by homeless families.
  Virtually everyone in the National Children's Home sample could provide a catalogue of symptoms and conditions that they and their families had suffered. Many of them were as a result of living in cold and damp conditions. Also, there were illnesses such as rheumatism which are worsened by such conditions. Those health problems are not helped by the absence of health care for many of those families. One couple claimed not to have received a visit from a health visitor, despite having very young children. As a consequence, children are missing out on vaccinations and developmental checks.
  Of course, in such conditions, children's development and health are impaired. There is little or no room to play or learn. Frequent moves make it difficult for children to make and keep friends. Children are, often teased for being homeless and some become disruptive at school as a consequence. We have heard many reports of that.
  The health and welfare problems of children are not confined to children in those circumstances. I have received information from a consultant paediatrician on the effects of an adequate diet on the health of children in inner cities in particular. The report showed that between 30 and 50 per cent. of children of Asian origin in inner cities suffered from iron deficiency. In one Sheffield practice alone, the figure rose to 55 per cent. of all children tested.
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  The action of iron in the brain is especially important during childhood growth. Iron deficiency might cause a delay in neurological development. Clearly, that is a potentially serious problem which the Government should address and I hope that they will. However, "The Health of the Nation" does not mention it and, in the opinion of the consultant to whom I spoke, the problem has virtually been ignored by health planners.
  What is required is appropriate nutritional education by properly trained health professionals and a mass screening programme such as that in the United States, particularly in inner cities. Surprisingly, however, primary health workers who are responsible for nutrition education in Britain do not receive specific training in nutrition. Despite that, many health visitors are eager to screen for iron deficiency, but the modest capital needed for the required equipment is not available. I hope that the Government will look at the problem and take appropriate action as soon as possible.
  Just those two issues higlight the health and welfare problems of vast sections of our child population. The problems are made much worse by poverty.
  A report in the British Medical Journal in March this year showed that children whose parents were classified as unoccupied had the worst mortality rate of all social groups. The conclusion of the article was that strategies to promote the nation's health must take more account of material and social deprivation. If, as a result of this debate, the Government finally acknowledge that key point, the first step has been made to improve the health and welfare of a vast number of our nation's children.
  I hope that the Minister will accept my final point. If children whose parents are just above the income support level are charged for prescriptions, it will be detrimental to the children's health. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues will put pressure on the Treasury to rule out the possibility that children whose parents are just above the income support level might have to pay for prescriptions in the future, because many of those parents will not be able to afford to do so.
  12.35 pm
  Mr. David Amess: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) on his debut at the Dispatch Box. His promotion was entirely on merit. I hope that this will not be the kiss of death, but I wish him a long and successful career.
  I have been greatly interested in the speeches of all hon. Members. The House is made up of Members from all sorts of backgrounds and we bring our own experiences here. I intend to do that today. None of us is an expert and none of us has the solution to any of the difficult problems regarding the health and welfare of our children. I certainly intend to draw on my own experiences as a father.
  You may, Madam Deputy Speaker, have missed the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans). He greatly entertained the House and made some relevant and pungent points on discipline. I wrote down one of his expressions about cuddling children and giving them a clip around the ear.
  The hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) said that many of us were poor parents. I certainly admit to falling into that category because, when I telephoned my wife earlier today—not having seen her since the weekend—it

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  seemed as though there was a riot going on in my house. I shall have to return this evening to instil some discipline into my children.
  In the interests of being politically incorrect on the Conservative side, I am happy to use state services in my constituency of Basildon. I am delighted to say that we have an excellent local hospital. It is a trust hospital and dispenses magnificent services throughout the local community.
  I shall draw on an experience I had five weeks ago with our youngest child, who is only 18 months old. I am vain enough to say that at present she looks like Shirley Temple; unfortunately, her behaviour resembles that of the Terminator. I was up late sitting in a chair—I had fallen asleep while reading a book. Suddenly, my wife came down with the 18-month-old in her arms. Clearly, the child was running a temperature and in some distress.
  When I woke up, I saw my wife dispensing Calpol. Within a flash, she said, "Phone for an ambulance." The situation then became like a horror movie. I could hardly believe what was happening because, while I was telephoning the ambulance, the child stopped breathing. Unless one has experienced that and has some expertise in how to deal with it, one does not realise what a shock that is. I learnt at first hand what a great shock it can be.
  All I can say is that the emergency services were absolutely superb. There is no question that there was any special treatment or favour. This happened in the small hours of the morning. The emergency services came quickly and resuscitated our child. We ended up at the hospital. A few days later, it was explained to us that the child had overheated. Nature is so wonderful that, if that happens, the child then has a fit and everything is restored. After five children, we thought that we had seen it all. Now we know that, no matter how robust a child is, such things can still happen. I pay tribute to the marvellous treatment that our local hospital gave.
  I wish to highlight several areas of activity at Basildon hospital since it became a trust. Basildon hospital not only has two wards providing comprehensive medical and surgical care for sick children but a children's centre providing comprehensive assessment and support services for parents of disabled, chronically sick and handicapped children.
  The children's centre encompasses physiotherapy, speech therapy, audiology, child psychology, family therapy, social work and clubs for Down's syndrome children. The trust has recently refurbished a distressed parents room which provides privacy and comfort. It is supported by a bereaved parents counselling service which provides help for parents for as long as they need it.
  Beds are provided so that every child can have a parent sleeping beside him or her or in more private peaceful facilities away from the ward. Security measures have been implemented to protect children in our care. Stringent security checks are carried out by the director of nursing and the personnel department to ensure that suitable staff are working in our wards and to minimise any risk to children.
  The trust is taking a pro-active approach to increasing the number of registered sick children's nurses working on the wards. To assist with that, the trust is seconding nursing staff to attend the relevant English National Board
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  for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting training course for the care of sick children. Three nurses were sent last year and three more will be sent this year. It is expected that the trust will achieve the Department of Health recommendation that, by 1995, two registered sick children's nurses should be on duty at any one time. Professional practice on the children's ward is monitored closely. Any cause for concern is rapidly highlighted. If any nurse gives cause for concern, he or she is immediately removed from the children's ward pending further investigation.
  Moving on rapidly to the welfare of our children. I was touched by certain comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield. I am convinced that there is a general lack of discipline in society. On occasions, we experience it in the House. Who are the opinion formers who set the example to our great nation? Sadly, whether or not we are to blame ourselves, it appears that politicians are becoming marginalised or trivialised.
  We had a Minister resign only yesterday. I am beginning to wonder whether people will be generally satisfied with resignations. Will they want Ministers to be brought to our market squares and put in the stocks or publicly executed? One wonders where it will all lead eventually. Because I happen to love this place and believe that it is all-important, I believe that we should be listened to and have real contributions to make.
  We have a real contribution to make towards the conduct of society.
  Mr. Wicks: I agree that we need to instil values of honesty, integrity and compassion in our young people and that the Government can set an example, either a good or a bad one. Which example does the hon. Gentleman believe that the Government are now setting for our young people?
  Mr. Amess: The hon. Gentleman has highlighted the reason behind the remarks I am about to make. If we allow our discussions in the House to resort to the subject of individuals' personalities and behaviour, there is no hope for democracy. I am not ducking the point that the hon. Gentleman made, but there is a huge gulf between the socialists and the Conservatives. It concerns me greatly that we seem to make too many excuses. Where are the standards? We seem to accept the lowest common denominator. Someone must say what the right standards are. As for the welfare of our children, it is not the case that the Government—I know that the socialists want a grand plan for everything—can act as parents for our children.
  Mr. Wicks: I believe that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood my point. I was not talking about the Government's social policies. I was attempting to help the hon. Gentleman to develop his theme about the importance behind the way in which the Government, or any other institution, conduct their affairs and the example, either good or bad, that they set for young people in terms of honesty and integrity. I was not talking about personalities or the hon. Gentleman's mates in the Government. I was referring to Governments in general. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that Governments set a good example to our young people?
  Mr. Amess: I am a Government supporter and I happen to believe that the Government are setting a very good example to our young people.
  Mr. Corbyn: The hon. Gentleman is on his own there.
  Mr. Amess: Oh no, I am not. On 9 April 1992—not that long ago—I was not on my own. I have no doubt that when the next election is called, all the nonsense and trivia will be put aside. The British people are not so daft that they will be taken in by the Opposition and their lack of policies, which is evident day in day out, week in week out, month in month out.
  I do not want to be distracted from my argument about the welfare of our children. We need proper standards and discipline. It is appalling that the peak age for offending is 15. What are we going to do about that? Are we always going to make excuses and say that Jonathan's behaviour is bad because his parents were brought up badly and the parents of those parents were brought up badly? When are the excuses ever going to stop? We need to draw a line and say what standards are expected by a civilised society. We set the laws and we should see that they are enacted.
  Mr. William Cash: Does my hon. Friend agree that children prefer a disciplined environment? Many of the difficulties and psychological problems from which children suffer stem not just from family background but from a lack of discipline. That is evident in our schools as well. The root cause of their difficulties is not only that they are not taught the difference between right and wrong but that they grow up in an atmosphere of imposed insecurity.
  Mr. Amess: My hon. Friend is entirely right—children respond to discipline. We can see that in terms of Government behaviour—once we show a chink or weakness, the situation quickly gets out of hand. As long as we are certain that what we believe in is worth fighting for, we must he strong and determined. I have no doubt that we must take that approach to the welfare of children.
  Young people are responsible for so many good activities in life. I pay a warm tribute to the local organisations in my constituency—scouts, guides, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, boys' clubs and pre-school playgroups—which are doing a magnificent job. The Government support and encourage voluntary organisations, but such groups cannot do it all. The schools cannot do it all—they cannot bring up the children. Opposition Members may not ask for extra money for voluntary organisations, but they ask for extra money for all sorts of things. Ultimately, the voluntary organisations cannot do it all. It is important that we all take on our responsibilities, and set and meet standards.
  I have an example to illustrate the core of the problem. In February, I attempted to introduce in the House the Human Fertilisation (Choice) Bill. When it was defeated, it was a sad day for Parliament, which should be eternally ashamed of what happened on that day. I had naively thought that sex selection was undermining the essence of the health and welfare of our children. I was not ready for what happened in the House.
  Feminists and others came to the Chamber to speak against and vote against my Bill. It was interesting that when, four or five weeks ago, "The London Programme" telephoned a number of hon. Members who had voted against my Bill to ask them to appear on television and articulate their case for sex selection, those hon. Members said, "Oh no, of course we are against sex selection. We
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  were only voting against the Bill because of Basildon." That lack of discipline in the House undermines the democratic process.
  I thought that there would be all-party agreement on my Bill. We know only too well that sex selection runs counter to the feminist position. However, that was not the case when it came to voting on the Bill. It was voted down when a majority of hon. Members decided that life and what we were trying to discuss in the Chamber were so trivial that it was all right for parents to decide whether they wanted a boy or a girl.
  I congratulate the Government on their record in the health and welfare of children. I have no doubt that, within a short time, Opposition Members will see the error of their ways and join the Government in recognising that such problems cannot be solved by the state and Government, and that individual responsibility is all-important.
  12.53 pm
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: I. had intended to congratulate the House on dealing with this subject in a wide context, but, having heard the speech by the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess), I feel that things have gone too far. Indeed, I begrudge every moment not devoted to the subject of the health and welfare of children.
  Nothing contributes more to damaging the health, welfare and happiness of children than bad housing. I will not labour the point, because others have already made it, but I associate myself with what they said.
  Every week, many of my hon. Friends and I are faced with the tragedies that are acted out in homes and, in the case of those not fortunate enough to have homes, bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Many children live in the kind of homes which can only give them the message that they are well and truly animals of the lowest order, deserving of no humane consideration. The root cause is the financial pressure on councils and housing associations.
  Long ago, when my grandfather stood as a Labour candidate in a local authority election, he referred to the importance of housing. It is a pity that we have to discuss the subject today in the same terms as he used.
  I believe that play is for children the equivalent of work. It is certainly of the utmost importance. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) was mocked when he suggested that it is no use telling children to play football if they have no football ground to play on, but he had a valid point. Not only do we lack sports facilities: we lack the most elementary play facilities, even for the tiniest children. Our children are often made to play in areas where they are a nuisance to older citizens.
  For some time, I have looked into the problem of the general neglect of play safety, especially of bouncing castles. The slashing cuts in the Health and Safety Executive budget perpetrated by the Government notwithstanding, it should be pointed out that, had a new machine been introduced to a factory, more care would have been devoted to ensuring the safety of its users than has been devoted to the safety of those who use bouncing castles. I was involved in an intermnable correspondence which was passed from Department to Department—none

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  of them knowing whose responsibility these castles were. Finally, the Health and Safety Executive emerged as the responsible body.
  Accidents are supposed to be reported, but nothing is done to collect the statistics without which we cannot compile our knowledge of the subject. We are talking here about serious accidents—not bruises, but broken necks and a toe in an eye. Our neglect of such matters shows how profoundly unfriendly and neglectful society is to children.
  I should like to touch briefly on the experience of mothers at birth. Although there has been a gratifying reduction in perinatal and infant mortality, there is no room for complacency. Social inequality is as great as ever; 4,000 babies' lives would be saved every year if the figures for social classes 4 and 5 were brought up to those of social classes 1 and 2. The figures come from a Public Accounts Committee report of about two years ago.
  There is unnecessary trauma. An inquiry by the Select Committee on Health revealed that many mothers, when giving birth, experience unnecessary trauma and distress, and their dignity and their wishes are often disregarded in a cavalier fashion, to the great detriment of the beginning of their lives as mothers and the founding of their families. We outlined many splendid recommendations that have been taken up with alacrity by the midwifery profession in particular and by voluntary organisations, such as the Maternity Alliance, the National Childbirth Trust and AIMS—the Association for Improvements in Maternity Services. I hope that the Government will respond positively.
  We uncovered an almost total lack of research into the post-natal health of mothers. If the health of new mothers is neglected—everything from depression to backache—the life of the infants in their care will be detrimentally affected. I therefore await energetic action by the Government.
  A fairly narrow issue, it may seem, although it affects many people, is the Government's proposal that there should be a limited or selected prescription list. Last Saturday, a mother came to see me and brought with her a petition. She did not know that one has to pray to this honourable House in specific, archaic language. She just wrote down her experiences and fears and collected the signatures of other people.
  Although it is not an official petition, I want to share with the House what this mother wrote. She and her husband, who had never done anything like this before, collected 900 signatures. She said:
  "Alexandra is what would appear to be a normal, healthy, happy, six-month old baby, but unfortunately she suffers from a skin condition called atopic eczema. This form of eczema affects her in the most distressing ways, as she is unable to sleep more than two hours at one time and also requires up to eight forms of medication a day and 24-hour care. The Government is considering the removal of all types of skin medication from the NHS medical list. This would mean going without medication due to costs which cannot be met by the ordinary working family, resulting in permanent disability or full-time hospitalisation. Alexandra is one of many who will suffer if the Government is allowed to go ahead with yet another policy aimed at helpless and defence less children. Please show your support for the future of Alexandra and many like her."
  If hon. Members know anything at all about skin conditions, they should use their imaginations for about 10 seconds and consider the life of that family. My
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  constituent is wrong when she says that all forms of skin medication would be removed from the prescribed list. Those that would still be available on prescription, even under the Government's proposals, would be the fiercest and most potent forms, which have to be used with the greatest discretion and whose use, especially their long-term use, should be minimised.
  Those potent forms of medication must be backed up by the constant use of emollients of all kinds. It is important that they should be of all kinds. Skin sensitivities are so precise and so varied that one cannot talk about generic prescribing and thereby meet the needs of these people, many of whom are children. The lives of their families will be rendered utterly miserable, as will the lives of those children.
  Miss Lestor: When I was lobbied recently by dermatologists in Salford, I discussed this very point with them. In addition to my hon. Friend's point, they referred to the fact that, in the case of children, they have to experiment with a treatment because, as my hon. Friend said, there is no one overall treatment. The Government's proposals will cause havoc and misery to families, and will be very expensive for the parents.
  Mrs. Wise: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Furthermore, new sensitivities can appear. The medication often has to be changed. There is scope for further exploration of this condition and the use of alternative therapies. More research should be done into allergies. However, none of that is a substitute for topical preparations to be applied to the skin.
  The proposal is concerning professionals as well as parents. I have a letter from a health visitor in Preston, who says that she comes
  "across many families who have children with Eczema or similar skin complaints. These children often need many months or even in severe cases, years of treatment with Dermatological creams. The area in which I work has a very high unemployment rate and a large number of single parents, as well as people on lower wages. I feel that, if people have to pay for these essential medications, they will not seek treatment if they have not got the money to buy these creams and may try to use other substances which they can buy more cheaply over the counter, but which will not be as effective. If Eczema is left untreated it can cause a lot of ill-health by introduced infection due to scratching, misery for the child keeping it awake at night, and for parents as well as the child".
  The problem is not confined to my constituency or only to poor families. I received a letter from a mother in Hampshire, who says:
  "My four year old daughter has severe atopic eczema and has to use a large range of emollients together with topical steroids to keep her condition under control. She has to be moisturised regularly at hourly intervals to stop her skin cracking and peeling and I am at present using 500 grams of moisturiser on her a day. He skin is very sensitive and through trial and error we have at last found the creams that suit her. Should these now cease to be available, I know her condition will deteriorate badly. She has already had a spell in hospital and it is only the constant use of these emollients that keep her out of hospital. Surely it is more cost-effective to continue to provide these valuable creams on the NHS than to take up much needed hospital beds, not to mention the extreme suffering which will be caused to the eczema sufferers and their families."
  I am glad that that mother chose to write to a Labour Member. I do not know what conclusion to draw from that, but I am glad that she chose to share her information with me.
  Someone from London says:

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  "Our four-year-old son Peter has suffered from eczema since he was six weeks old. For the first two years of his life he itched so intensely that he woke scratching several times a night and his physical and mental development was held back. In 1991 he started to see Dr. John Harper, the consultant at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children, Hackney"—
  about which I will have more to say later—
  "and also at Great Ormond Street. Thanks to the sophisticated management provided by QEH, the eczema is now well controlled, and Peter is a happy and lively little boy … Peter regularly uses a combination of seven back oils, emollients and creams. Of these only one is proposed to remain on the Selected List. If the others are removed, we shall have to purchase them via private prescriptions at an average cost of just over £24 per week or over £1,250 per year excluding any dispensing fees charged.
  Both of us hold reasonably well paid professional jobs. We would manage to find this amount, simply because we could not do otherwise—although there would be sacrifices by the rest of the family. The impact on a low-income family would be horrific. (We point out that £24 a week is three times the amount of Child Benefit Peter receives)."
  I chose to read those letters because sometimes we have to let people speak directly to the House, in their own words and from their own experiences, which often are more immediately relevant than ours.
  I think that the Government hope that the general public will think that skin complaints are trivial. Of course they are not life-threatening; they are just profoundly life-damaging. A member of my family once experienced such intensive itching that she wanted to throw herself under a bus, so I can imagine what it must be like if the person affected is a baby.
  I urge the Government to think again about the selected list in general, and in relation to skin preparations for allergic conditions in particular. I know that the Government have been fully briefed by the National Eczema Society. Eczema is a chronic problem, but there are other problems relating to children's intensive care needs.
  Hon. Members may have seen the television programme about the shortage of intensive care beds for children; I do not intend to labour the points that it made, except to say that it reduced my mother to tears. As a great-grandmother, she imagined her great-grandchildren suffering the deprivation depicted in the programme. I hope that the programme reduced Conservative Members to tears—and, more important, spurred them to action.
  One particular case that received publicity involved my own local hospital, the Royal Preston. An 11-year-old girl died of asthma, and my local hospital was one of three which could not give her the intensive care she needed. She died two miles from the Alderhey hospital in Liverpool. She lived in Cumbria; one does not need much knowledge of geography to understand the significance of that.
  She was first treated at a hospital in Lancaster, but, through lack of intensive care beds, it could not give her all she needed; nor could Preston or Manchester. If she could have been treated at the Royal Preston, she would have been in intensive care considerably before the final crisis that was reached in the ambulance.
  Asthma kills 2,000 people a year. It is a serious and increasing problem, and many of its victims are children. Some suffer relatively mildly, but many suffer a great deal of misery and handicap at school, for example. However, as 2,000 people a year die from asthma, it is imperative that there are sufficient beds for children, and that they are specialist paediatric intensive care beds. I have been
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  appalled by the regrettable complacency in some—although not all—of the speeches made by Conservative Members today.
  However, hospital beds for children represent only a relatively small part of the way in which we deal with children's health. We do not want to fall into the trap of providing a national sickness service rather than a national health service—a national health service should be a much wider concept—but, if we cannot even manage to provide a national sickness service, we are falling at the first hurdle. That failure is affecting many children.
  I refer briefly to the situation in London. I do not represent a London constituency, which possibly makes it all the more appropriate for me to draw attention to the problems facing highly deprived areas not very far from the House itself. The recent specialty review gave some valuable information and made some interesting, possibly dangerous, and certainly expensive, recommendations. I shall share with the House some of the information.
  The report stated:
  "As might be expected there is a correlation between deprivation and high admission rates to hospital for children under 15"—
  but, in the case of the very highest deprivation, there is a dip in admission rates which suggests that such populations
  "might experience difficulty in gaining access to health care."
  The figures for London show that the two areas with the greatest levels of deprivation—Tower Hamlets and Hackney—have lower hospital admission rates for children up to the age of 14 than less deprived areas. That is not because the reasons for hospital admissions suddenly end. Deprivation and admissions should not follow a curve—a more deprived area having more hospital admissions—that suddenly drops if an area is even more deprived, although those children do not need to go to hospital. The figures show that there is something wrong with hospital provision. Will the specialty review remedy that?
  The review recommends the closure of the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Hackney, and its transfer to the Royal London hospital site. The review says, however, that the Queen Elizabeth
  "has a paediatric, accident and emergency service, which provides a major contribution to primary care in this locality. We heard good reports of the service provided at the Queen Elizabeth from local GPs."
  I cannot understand how the report could then say:
  "We recommend as a matter of priority that the services currently provided at the Queen Elizableth are transferred in their entirety to the Royal London Hospital."
  The review also says:
  "Since the proportion of children in the population is so high and their needs are so great, it will probably he necessary to reprovide out patient and day care facilities on or close to the Queen Elizabeth site … The site development plans for the Royal London will have to be worked through carefully if children are to receive the maximum benefit from our recommendations. The impressive new unit at the Royal London hospital will not be large enough to meet all requirements."
  I may be cynical, but I think that we shall get the closures and the transfers. I do not think that we shall get the re-provisions, the extensions and the maintenance of numbers of doctors and nurses which the report also recommends. I may be cynical; there is one way to prove me wrong.
  The provision is patently too low at the moment. It is fashionable to say that London is over-provided, but, in

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  Hackney and Tower Hamlets, it is not over-provided but under-provided. Cynics like me should be proved wrong by lifting the provision first, by providing the extra first, and by stopping trying to use hon. Members such as myself, who are from provincial seats, as a stick with which to beat our colleagues in the deprived inner areas of London. Some of us saw through that ploy long ago.
  Mr. Corbyn: I appreciate very much, as do many London Members, what my hon. Friend is saying about the health service in London. In Professor Tomlinson's proposals, consideration was given endlessly to the financial consequences to this hospital, that hospital or the other hospital. Consideration was given to the market potential of this or that hospital, and to the private sector.
  No consideration was given to the problems of poverty, bad housing and homelessness throughout London, and the Government are clearly approaching the health problems of London from the wrong angle.
  Mrs. Wise: I agree with my hon. Friend. The studies of London health care are inadequate and are endangering London's health service, which could certainly stand a lot of improvement. I think that we shall get the closures, but not the improved primary care. We shall get the closures to the children's sector, but not the extension of provision and the re-provision.
  As a mother and grandmother, I would rather keep what I have, even if it is not first-class and de luxe, than have facilities closed and fail to have adequate re-provision.
  In the atmosphere of cuts, there will not be adequate re-provision. It is a pity that, in discussing the health and welfare of children, we must focus on those children who may die for want of hospital care, or those who may suffer endless miserly for lack of something as simple as a cream with which to soothe the skin. I would rather have spoken, as some of my hon. Friends did, of the wider issues in society. There are so many respects in which our society—and in particular, the Government—let down our children.
  I will conclude by referring to my constituency, and by making a point about adolescents. A few weeks ago, I received a letter from members of staff at the Royal Preston hospital about the adolescent unit of that hospital. The letter said:
  "We have recently been informed that this service is to be transferred to an acute paediatric ward specialising in burns, plastic surgery and orthopaedics which will offer only four adolescent beds instead of current eight beds."
  The letter says that the adolescent ward
  "offers adolescent patients the facilities of their own lounge, kitchen, shower and laundry room, together with full-time supervision by trained nurses with dedicated responsibility for adolescent patients."
  The staff thought that the number of beds was to be cut from eight to four. I have found out today that there is now no specialist adolescent provision at the Royal Preston hospital. Adolescents will either go to the paediatric wards or to the adult wards.
  There is now no specialist adolescent accommodation as described in the letter from the hospital staff. That is deplorable. I have no doubt that the decision has been forced on the hospital by the general stringency in the health service. I am making a criticism not of the Royal Preston hospital, but of the situation faced by our
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  hospitals. It is important that children are in children's wards, and that the special requirements of adolescents are met fully.
  I hope that, in time, we will be able to say that our society properly looks after the welfare of our children, in sickness and in health and whether they are poor or from a more fortunate background. I deeply regret that that is not the case today. We cannot make that claim, and the situation is getting worse for many children and their parents.
  1.22 pm
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: I made my maiden speech in the House in July 1975. In it I referred to how the trade unions represented the interests of those at work and in work, while the rest of us have responsibility mainly for family and domestic interests. Many in the union movement have rightly given attention to matters other than work-related interests.
  It is worth noting that in 1975, the then Labour Government proposed a two-year freeze on family allowance, yet wanted to have a pay increase every six months for those in work. The problem was that inflation was running at a rate of 10 per cent. in the first six months of 1975. People were that much worse off in a short time. The control of inflation makes a great difference to those who care for dependants. That is where the issue of health and welfare of children comes in.
  I would define health and welfare as trying to improve the chances of well-being and to reduce the incidence of avoidable disadvantage, distress and handicap. There is no point in thinking that either we or our children can go through life in a totally risk-free environment. We know that, even at the time of birth, a significant proportion of children suffer from congenital malformations or disabilities.
  It is worth starting where Arthur and Peggy Wynn did in their analysis of pre-conceptual care. People should be aware that for a child born to a non-smoking father the chance of a severe congenital malformation is 0·8 per cent. If the father is a smoker and consumes tubes 20 times a day at lop a time, the chances of a child suffering a severe congenital malformation rise two and a half times to 2 per cent. That is an increase in avoidable risk which people should know about.
  I do not argue that everyone can give up smoking straight away. I call smoking tubing to avoid the glamorous word. I prefer to say more accurately that people buy a tube which is three or four inches long, bring it near their faces and light it up. That practice can increase the chances of severe congenital malformation by two and a half times. It should also be known that if a mother has consumed significant amounts of alcohol in the 48 hours before conception, that also has a statistically significant effect on the chances of a child being born with a handicap.
  I do not want to pretend that handicap has to be life changing. People can come to terms with handicap and many handicaps are not terribly relevant to people's lives, although some are. However, the smoking and drinking to which I have just referred are, in terms of avoidable disadvantage, distress and handicap, things that people should know about.
  I believe that people should be practising what I call "conception control" if they are sexually active at a young age. There would then he a greater span between the

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  generations and people would move from puberty and grow up before taking on the responsibility for children at too early an age.
  One of the developments that I have welcomed over the past 10 years since the House began to debate family policy issues is demonstrated by the fact that The Daily Telegraph now has a weekly family supplement. As well as the more jolly things, that supplement refers to some of the more serious things in life.
  I have a plea for our radio and television broadcasters. Most of us who watch television or listen to the radio are aware that, every week, there are startlingly obvious programmes about gardening which tell people, for example, "Now is the time to prune your wisteria" or "Now is the time to scratch the thatch from your grass."
  When will we have programmes to help the 600,000 or 700,000 people each year who are forming a family or the 200,000 or 300,000 people who are going through family separation, divorce or break-up? What about the 1·4 million people who contribute to a pregnancy which leads to birth or the 1·4 million parents whose children reach primary school age each year? What about the 1·4 million parents whose children reach the troubled teenage period?
  In addition to the soap operas, there should be opportunities, in five-minute or 10-minute bursts once a week or half an hour a month, to raise the kind of issues that parents face for the first time because those issues have been faced by generations of people before. Such coverage might help people to develop confidence and competence in the experiences that they face.
  Parents are primarily involved in raising children. They determine most of the health and welfare. They improve well-being and help reduce the avoidable risks that children face. Parents are even more important than the medical and social services and teachers. Clearly, when parents can work in partnership with the professions, life becomes much better for the children. That is clearly shown by the remarkable figures produced by the national health service in relation to child immunisations.
  There is a difference between the apparent Labour party position and the Government's position in respect of child immunisations. About five years ago, some 40 years after the establishment of the national health service, we woke up to the fact that we had a lower level of childhood protection against avoidable childhood diseases than there was in Zimbabwe or Beirut in the middle of civil war. We had taken our eye off the main aim of the NHS, which is to cut out avoidable or disabling disease.
  Taking the figures generally, it was clear that the worst problems were in the inner-city areas. People asked whether it was difficult to set the same immunisation target for inner-city areas as for suburban or countryside areas. Although I do not want to stress this too much, at that time, some Opposition Members thought that we should set a lower target for immunisation in inner-city areas, because the problem there was more difficult.
  I believe that the Government were right to say that, as the problem was more difficult in inner-city areas, there should be greater incentives to reward doctors and others. It was clear that the parents would be rewarded by the fact that their children would not fall ill. There was an incentive for doctors and practices to provide good support staff, to involve the parents and to create a culture in which parents were aware that protection was important, knew how to get it and received reminders if they forgot to come forward at the right time.
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  I am not convinced that we were right to allow the school medical service or the school nursing service to die away. What we have managed to achieve in respect of the first six to 18 months of life should be extended throughout the school years. I ask the Government to consult people in the education service, the national health service and the royal colleges to see what can rightly be done at reasonable cost to try to extend the advances that we have re-established for the very young to children of primary and secondary school age as well.
  There are some shocking facts in terms of the well-being of children. One is that eight is the peak age for a male child to be hit by a car in a traffic crash—not an accident, a crash. The peak age for a female is 11. That in part answers the question about the difference between boys and girls or men and women in terms of crime and so on. We give more protection to our daughters than to our sons. If we could extend protection of our sons for an extra three years, they might turn out still to have exciting, risk-taking lives but not to the ludicrous extent that so many of them get themselves killed by cars and not to the extent that they get into habits or activities out of school which lead to a life of crime for a period.
  It will come as a surprise to many people listening to this debate that, by the age of 30, 30 per cent. of men have been convicted of a serious criminal offence—one for which they could have been sent to gaol for six months or longer. Studies—sadly, they are not up-to-date studies; they are not the result of a sudden crimewave—showed that 10 per cent. of 15-year-old males and 25 per cent. of males by the age of 21 have been convicted of a serious criminal offence. That is a lack of order on which we should focus.
  It comes down to care and control. I have always put the emphasis on "order" rather than on "law". We bring in law to define as criminal behaviour that which is seriously anti-social or dangerous. It is the order or structure that matters.
  I visited an impressive primary school—Middle Park—in my constituency, where ordinary teachers with ordinary children managed to have control and care in an assembly in which no voice was raised and in which teachers could speak to 200 or 300 people even more quietly than I am speaking now. Children from each class were rewarded for an improvement in their behaviour or for their work. They got recognition for the good things. They were treated by the teachers in a calm, quiet way. I should like that attitude to be extended to secondary schools as well. In my constituency, I recently learnt a good deal about the upbringing of three children, Georgina, Stuart and Stephen. I heard about how they have been taken along to Sunday school classes, how their parents encouraged them at primary school and at secondary school, about their weekend activities, and about Stephen and his father doing things together. I also heard from others such as a police inspector who used to go running with Stephen, who was involved in the London marathon—a very fine thing for someone approaching 18. I also heard how Stephen had worked at school and was going to qualify as an architect. I heard from ministers in the Methodist Church how the family of parents and children attended church together.
  That is the kind of upbringing that many others in my constituency would benefit from. If more people had the upbringing that Georgina, Stuart and Stephen received, fewer children would get into serious trouble and we

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  would certainly cut the number of those who wander aimlessly around the streets with knives—one of whom, sadly, murdered Stephen at a bus stop in my constituency about two months ago. That might be an extreme case, but one should look upon Stephen's family as a normal family—people who are capable of doing the things that hon. Members pontificate on.
  I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider a decent response to this national year of the family. I make two suggestions. First, every three to five years—perhaps starting next year—there should be a publication across Departments on what the family policy targets are. By "family policy", I am not talking about what people should believe or what they should do with their bodies—we can get over-excited about such things; in my 18 years in the House, no one has ever come to my surgery to ask for advice on either matter. They have come to ask for advice on the upbringing of their children and how to overcome some of the barriers which are in front of them. Those barriers are rather more in front of the poor, the underprivileged and those who have bad housing than others.
  The targets set in 1986 by the Department of Transport for reducing casualties have led to a reduction in serious injuries of 35 per cent. The number of deaths is down by 25 per cent., although traffic has increased by about 30 per cent. Such targets have worked in child immunisation and casualty reduction and can work in other areas such as education. Targets can be specified in health, the Home Office and housing.
  I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider setting up across Europe a framework for cohort studies, perhaps with European Community help. The child cohort studies were the ones that gave us the first clue to the impact on child development of mothers smoking.
  With a basic framework, all European countries in the Community—and perhaps some outside—could cooperate to set up a new cohort study every seven years and provide framework funding so that we can carry out further analysis as people go forward. That would be a positive approach—it would not require a directive, but could show co-operation.
  As a final European point, the House knows that 20 children a year die unnecessarily on our roads because we refuse to move to common European time. Obviously, there is some risk to children going to school in the mornings, but there is a much greater risk to children coming back from school and during the hours when they are playing. There would be the same number of hours of daylight, whether we had common European time—as I call it—or double summer time and we moved to an hour earlier in winter, instead of Greenwich mean time.
  The number of deaths and the number of serious and slight injuries are predictable. The work has been done by the Transport Research Laboratory. The gain in Scotland is as great as, if not greater than, the rest of the United Kingdom.
  If there is any other field of public policy where we knew that we were condemning 140 people to death because we could not bother to apply common sense as a result of some political failure, we would change smartly and the newspapers would be right to criticise if we did not. I ask the newspapers to start examining the issue of
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  the 20 children and 120 adults who will die unnecessarily this winter because we cannot move to common European time. We should start to have that sort of rational approach which leads to great benefits to our children in terms of their health and welfare.
  1.37 pm
  Mr. Malcolm Wicks: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) because we worked together for a number of years when he chaired the Family Forum and I was at the Family Policy Studies Centre.
  I shall outline some of the key trends and issues relating to the themes in this debate on health and welfare as they affect families with children in the United Kingdom. I shall outline some trends that are associated with insecurities and new needs. We always need to balance that with a recognition that some of the new trends and emerging family developments are associated with strengths.
  I can remember the hon. Member for Eltham talking about backing the sense of competence and confidence of families. We need to do that. When we discuss family life in Great Britain or read about it in our newspapers, it is as though the trends are pointing in a downward direction and we ignore some of the strengths. We always look back to the golden age of the family—I suspect that the historians among us would say that it never existed. The remarkable capacity of the British to be optimistic only about the past is something which we need to question. I am as interested in the strengths in family life as in its weaknesses.
  We need to understand the major changes that now affect societies like our own—I include the European family, because the trends are not restricted to our own shores. Those of us who are interested in family policy and in relating matters about health and welfare to a wider policy agenda affecting employment, law and order, housing and many other matters must understand the force of some of those changes. Some of them are remarkable in terms of their scale and development over a relatively short period.
  Let us recognise that more and more of our children are born to people who are not formally married. The increase in the proportion and number of children born outside marriage is demographically significant. It may have social significance, too. We need to understand it. Back in 1981, just 13 per cent. of our children were born outside marriage, most to single mothers. Today, almost one in three children—32 per cent. at the end of 1992—are born outside marriage. The change that has taken place is that, although many of those children are still born to single mothers, about half are born to cohabiting couples. The increase in cohabitation has taken place throughout Europe. The level of cohabitation is high in Scandinavian countries, but it is on the march throughout Europe. It is of social significance. As someone who is interested in analysing such issues and examining data, I worry that we know too little about that trend.
  I am pleased that my former research institute, the Family Policy Studies Centre, will soon publish a report funded by the Rowntree Foundation on cohabitation and its significance for social policy. We do not know much about the trend and its significance. If the children born outside marriage—whether to cohabiting couples or to single mothers—were as secure and had the same needs as

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  those born to the more conventional families, cohabitation would be a matter of interest only to theologians, churches and so on. It would have no social policy implications. At present, we do not know the answer to the question whether the life chances of children born to cohabiting couples are any different from those born to conventional married couples.
  We rely to a great extent on the official collection of data on matters such as the number of marriages and the number of divorces for our social analysis. Therefore, let us recognise that our official statisticians are not capturing many emerging family patterns. If a couple cohabits and the relationship breaks down, with consequences for the children, by definition that is not captured in statistics on divorce because if the two people were not married in the first place, they do not divorce. We all get excited about the number of divorces every year and whether it has risen a little or fallen a little. Let us remember that that statistic captures a smaller proportion of the picture of family breakdown than it did a generation or even 10 years ago. That is significant.
  The importance of cohabitation has increased. More couples choose to have a child before marriage. Most of the couples go on to get married. In older generations, of all the things that one did, one got married first. Certainly in Scandinavia, and to some extent in Britain, marriage is the thing that people do at the end of the process. The Swedish demographers tell me that a couple may have one child and then get married when the second child is on the way or the first child goes to primary school.
  Although many pundits deplore the decline in the popularity of marriage, the remarkable thing sociologically is that marriage is still so popular. Most of the material and legal advantages of marriage have disappeared—although not all of them. Yet by the year 2000, seven out of 10 people will probably still get married. That is the interesting factor which has policy implications.
  As we all know, marriage is an increasingly risky institution and occupation. Of new marriages taking place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, 37 per cent. will end in divorce. The proportion seems to be increasing. The significance of that to today's debate is clear, because most of the marriages that break down will involve children under the age of 16. That is a worrying factor. Every year, approximately 160,000 children in Britain see their mum and dad divorce. The risk of a child under the age of 16 having divorced parents is about one in four.
  I urge the House to examine those trends carefully. In 1969, for England and Wales, and a few years later for Scotland, the House decided to legislate for easier divorce. Personally, I have no quarrel with that decision, but I doubt whether the House was able to think through the social, psychological and economic implications of its decision for so many of our children.
  The evidence that is emerging increasingly proves that divorce can be an economic and emotional disaster for adults and children. I am not pleading that the clock should be put back and the law changed—far from it—but we should recognise that the social revolution in family life has not been bloodless. It has had calamitous consequences for women and children in particular, although I know that men, too, have been adversely affected.
  Although many one-parent families have been created by divorce, many result from the rise in single parenthood.
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  The economic consequences of that are obvious. Surely it is worrying that as many as seven out of 10 such families are dependent on income support. Of all one-parent families, 85 per cent. will spend some of their lives on income support.
  If I were Chief Secretary to the Treasury—I doubt whether that will happen for a while—and I were undertaking a review of public spending, I would not have started at the end of the process. There is no point in asking why we are spending so much now and what we can get away, politically, with cutting. I would start at the beginning of the story and I would try to understand why more and more of our people and families with children are becoming socially insecure. I would ask questions not about social security benefit but about employment, training and child care. I would ask how we can create socially secure families. If I were serious about cutting spending on social security, that is where I would start. Perhaps the Government will prove me wrong in showing that they have had the wisdom to start at the beginning of the story. That is always a useful place to start.
  Divorce and the rise in the number of one-parent families have produced more socially insecure children. There was a time when some people wanted to hope that the great social revolution of family change was having no calamitous consequence. However, research from my former institute, the Family Policy Studies Centre, shows that on a range of indicators, based on longitudinal survey data, children in one-parent families do less well than those in intact ones. That is clear whether one is studying data on the numbers who acquire educational qualifications, on those who leave school early at 16, on those who form a cohabiting relationship or on those who have a child while still a teenager.
  It would be good to debate the balance of reasons for that disparity, which range from material and economic disadvantages, which I would stress, to the psychological and emotional difficulties of bringing up a child single-handedly. I would certainly lay stress on the sheer difficulty of doing that. I sometimes think that debates between ideologues about one or two-parent family life should give way to a new movement for three or four-parent families; the costs and strains are now so immense that the more parents a child has, the better!
  Today, between one in five and one in six of our children are brought up in one-parent families. Life is tough, emotionally and psychologically, for many of them. Those children are more likely to leave home early because of family break-up. Life is also very tough materially and financially. Those difficulties should be one of the major issues on our future social policy agenda.
  The political right use the term "dependency culture". As a relatively new Member of the House, however, I am struck by the number of people in one-parent families who come to see me at my advice surgery who, for want of other opportunities, or for want of realising that they exist, are totally dependent on the state. Life is not good in such circumstances. If all that people can look for is more money from the income support system—goodness, they need it—or a slightly better flat in a local authority tower block, life is tough. If we are to offer hope to so many children we need a new agenda on training and employment.
  Another significant change that we need to consider is in the pattern of work and family life. We now have almost contradictory trends—the rise of mass unemployment

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  means that many children in this country do not know what it is like to be in a family whose head, whether woman, man or both, gets up early in the morning and goes out to work. Many children do not have experience of that working pattern. By contrast, more of our children are growing up in families where both the mother and father work outside the home. That has important social policy implications for child care.
  I know that other hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall curtail my remarks. The policy implications are important as they show the interdepartmental nature of the family policy agenda. The Minister rightly talked about the concerns of the Department of Health from his departmental base. But we are talking about a far wider policy agenda than that.
  The 19th century public health reformers found that if one wants to improve the nation's health, one does not necessarily start from doctors and hospitals but should consider housing and general public health measures. In the same way, many of today's key policies on health and welfare involve education, housing, employment child care and training. I hope that we shall adopt that wider agenda in future. The key to the policy is to build a partnership between the family and the state. It is an idle debate to pretend that either the state or the family can do everything in terms of pre-school care and health and welfare. We must ask what partnerships we need to build in future.
  One aspect of the moral dimension that we should stress is that the rapidly changing social patterns and the emergence of new family forms—one-parent families and step families—can be associated with stress. We need to debate the subject of step-families more frequently, as 9 per cent. of children are in step-families and many of them face difficulties and stresses, which we seldom debate or recognise.
  How should we build the partnership and what balance should we strike between the rights of families to work, child care and training, and family responsibilities? How do we strike the right balance between duties and rights in the future? Such questions should form the cornerstone of future debates on family policy.
  1.52 pm
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: I thank the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks) for his characteristic generosity in allowing me enough time to contribute to the debate. Having listened to the contributions, I must say that it has been a pleasure to be here, as the quality of speeches from both sides of the House has been high.
  I shall refer to only two contributions, but that does not mean that I think that the other speeches were not worthy of comment. My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) drew attention to the guidelines on sentencing on incest. I agree with most of what he said, but I shall voice a caveat about his perception that, in dealing with such crimes, we should be interested only in punitive sentencing. I say that knowing of specific cases in which a child has drawn attention to an incident of sexual abuse and a close relative such as a father or uncle has been
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  arrested and charged with the offence. The effect on the offender has been to produce such feelings of guilt that there have been instances of suicide.
  I ask the House to consider the effect of such events on the child who has drawn attention to the abuse—probably, dare I say it, with no clear perception of what the abuse amounted to. If the child draws the abuse to the attention of the authorities and loses the relative involved, it can have a crushing effect on the child. When considering the guidelines on incest, it is important to bear that factor in mind.
  The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) rightly spoke of the importance of listening to children, and I endorse her comments. We need to listen not only to children at home and at school but to children in care. So often when children in care have had something to say about their experiences, they have not been heard. There have been several recent instances of that.
  I must declare an interest as president of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Cardiff, vice-chairman of the Welsh council of the society and honorary consultant on law and policy to the society. I have acted for the society in Wales for many years in many of the cases that it has brought before the courts. I am pleased that the society in Wales is working on two projects with local authorities, creating children's rights officers with the primary aim of encouraging children in the care of local authorities to feel that they have an independent person to whom they can turn.
  Over the years, the perception of child care on the part of the legal profession has undergone quite a change. When I first qualified as a lawyer, we were not required to have any training in the subject. A great deal has altered since then, culminating in the 1989 Act. Now, we have panels of specialist child care lawyers. Here I declare another interest as a member of the Law Society's panel of specialist child care lawyers.
  Some aspects of the Children Act are worthy of the description of the most radical reforms of child law this century. The emphasis on working together—much debated throughout the 1970s and 1980s—is one. The hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) mentioned the fact that there have been many inquiries in the past, and one of the key lessons to emerge from them was the necessity for professionals to work together, to share information and to develop a multi-disciplinary approach. That was encapsulated in the legislation, which also emphasised parental responsibility—although how we enforce that effectively is a continuing question. It is all very well to emphasise perental responsibility, but many cases arrive in court because that responsibility has not been exercised or has been exercised wrongly.
  Another great advantage of the Act has been the training of magistrates and judges. It is now first class—so much so that it has become rather better than the training given to lawyers. Some aspects of the Act, however, need to be treated with caution. I drew that to the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) when he referred to the fall in the number of emergency protection orders. I simply do not believe that there has been a dramatic reduction in child abuse, and I am not yet persuaded that only the cases that need to be brought before the courts are being brought. Herein lies the fear about the complexity of the legislation. In other respects, it was certainly a great step forward, but had it come to the House three or four years earlier it would have

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  emerged rather differently. It followed the Cleveland inquiry, and it was more parent-centred than child-centred.
  The Act involves a great deal of bureaucracy and I fear that that may partly explain the reduction in the number of cases that have been brought under it. We need further to examine the role of the law in respect of children. As the editorial in the current issue of the "Practitioners Child Law Bulletin" asked,
  "Is child law good for children?"
  Have the complexities of the legal system started to override the interests of children? That is a matter perhaps for philosophical debate, but we need to keep it at the forefront of our minds.
  The NSPCC, in its justice for children campaign, drew specific attention to the fact that that question was bound to be answered more on the side of the legal system than on the side of the child. The NSPCC view is that when children are caught up in legal proceedings, their needs are not met. It is often the case that the different professionals, working together, pay specific attention to their own needs in the proceedings and sometimes lose sight of the needs of the child. Nowhere is that more clearly illustrated than in the approach adopted by Crown Prosecution Service lawyers in taking cases before the courts.
  I have been given specific instances by the NSPCC of young children who have drawn attention to abuse that they have suffered. An eight-year-old child, of perhaps limited intelligence, may manage, through foster parents, to draw attention to an instance of abuse. One case that was drawn to my attention showed that this child was unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy—so much so that the child believed that a pantomime was real and was therefore sick as a result of the fear of being present at that event. Unfortunately, that child was unable to receive therapy. The Crown Prosecution Service felt that evidence of that treatment might be used in court, and that it would he claimed that in some way the child had been coached for the proceedings.
  This is an important matter. The way in which professionals deal with cases and the way in which the Crown Prosecution Service takes steps to protect the interests of children will no doubt have to be discussed by the House on a future occasion.
  2.2 pm
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I am grateful for having 10 minutes in which to speak and to other hon. Members for co-operating on the timetable. I am particularly pleased that the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) mentioned the appalling case of the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the horrors that followed for that family and so many other people. It is a scourge on the country that young people like Stephen should be murdered in such a vile way. I hope that the media will recognise the horror of racist attacks and racist murders and the increase in the number of those crimes throughout the country.
  We are debating the health and welfare of children. I believe that there is a strong link between the welfare of children and the poverty of the family and the area in which they live. There has been a study of children's health needs in London. An independent review of specialist services in London was published this week. By means of a series of tables, it shows the Townsend score of deprivation in inner London districts.
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  The deprivation level for my district, the Bloomsbury and Islington district health authority, is seven, which is quite serious. The highest score is 11, which is for Tower Hamlets. The average figure for inner London is seven and for outer London districts minus 1. Those are much less deprived areas and they are relatively affluent. The score for the other districts in the four Thames regional health authority areas, which extend out into Essex, Kent, Middlesex and Surrey, is given as minus 3, which means that, by comparison, they are very affluent.
  It is hardly surprising, therefore, that infant mortality rates and perinatal mortality rates in inner urban areas such as those that I represent are considerably higher than elsewhere. Therefore, I would say with the greatest kindness to the Government that they have got their health strategy for London wrong. London does not need rationalisation and hospital closures. What is needed is a serious examination of the health of Londoners, particularly of London's children and of the associated socio-economic problems, and a rapid improvement in primary care, housing and education facilities. That would be the best possible contribution to the health needs of inner London children.
  A serious problem, which has not had much of an airing, is the high level of air pollution in London, as well as environmental concerns. I firmly believe that there is a link between the high levels of bronchial and asthmatic conditions among children and air pollution. One only has to go into any infant of primary school and talk to the school secretary. There one finds a shelf full of Ventolin sprays that are given to children during breaks and at lunchtime. It cannot be right that the solution to air pollution in London is the prescription of more and more Ventolin to children to alleviate their suffering. The problem, surely, is the air quality of the city. I am glad that many hon. Members have signed my early-day motion on the subject, because unless we consider the transport, industrial and waste incineration problems of London, air pollution will only worsen. The Department of Transport follows a policy of encouraging car use in London by increased road building. These problems must be investigated.
  The area that I represent is an inner-city community. There is a danger, which other hon. Members have mentioned, in saying that somehow or other if children are more deprived in a poor area it is because their parents or guardians care for them less than parents from more affluent areas care for their children. That is not true. Many parents care dearly, want the best and do the best for their children, but that is a little difficult when both parents are unemployed and live in high-rise blocks with inadequate play space, no single bedrooms for the children and none of the things that many hon. Members simply take for granted.
  Like other hon. Members, I hold a constituency surgery every Friday evening, which is always packed. There is a huge queue every time I arrive. I have a fair idea what most of the problems are, because they tend to repeat themselves week after week. The majority of them relate in some way or another to poverty and bad housing.
  Children come in with their parents to see me and in order to be able to talk to parents I often say to the children, "Would you like to draw a picture?" and I keep a handy supply of toys and bits of paper for them. I said to one little girl, "Would you like to draw me a picture?" She said, "What of?" I said, "You choose whatever you

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  want and I shall look at it when you have finished." I spoke to her parents about their housing problem and 10 minutes later she gave me her picture. I asked, "What is that?" She said, "It is my dream bedroom." She has to share a bedroom with two older brothers, and there is little chance of their being offered a reasonable-size flat in the near future because my borough council is not allowed to build or buy anything. The only construction is a small number of housing association properties. The number of people who are in bed and breakfast, the number who are street sleeping and the number who are concealed homeless is increasing. The problem is getting worse not better.
  If hon. Members talk to teachers in inner-city infant schools and nurseries about the problems that are associated with overcrowding and bad housing they will begin to understand why children under-achieve at school. We want the best for our children. We should like our children to grow up with the ability to play in parks and gardens and have their own bedrooms. That would be heaven for many of the children whom I represent and I ask the Government to look seriously at such social problems and the background to them.
  There are connections between the problems of children's lack of achievement and pre-school education. I believe strongly in the need for a wide variety of pre-school education. Socialisation among small children is important. The ability of children to play safely and the ability of parents, particularly single parents, to get a break when the child is at playgroup, nursery, creche or whatever is vital.
  The importance of access to good, qualified nursery education cannot be over-emphasised. Life is a complete nightmare for many parents who are both working. It is incredibly expensive for parents to put their children into private nurseries because they cannot get them in local authority nurseries. They then have to arrange other kinds of informal care, which are often very expensive and, in some cases, extremely unsatisfactory.
  The provision of nursery education is particularly important. My borough has a fairly good record on attempting to provide pre-school nursery education. We are not thanked, applauded or helped by the Government for doing that. Indeed, quite the opposite. Islington, like other inner-London boroughs, apart from Wandsworth—we should all like parity with Wandsworth's standard spending assessment—has done badly in its SSA. Wandsworth, like Westminster, has been dealt with specially by the Government to return a Tory council—the Minister, the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), knows perfectly well what I am talking about.
  In Islington, two nurseries—Springdale and Harvist—are due for closure. The parents and those who work there have occupied them and undertaken to continue to operate them to try to persuade the council to keep them open. At one level, the argument is with the council because the council has decided to close them. There is strong support for what the parents and workers are doing and I hope that the council rescinds its decision and decides to expand nursery provision. All the parents, children, neighbours and the hundreds and thousands of people who have signed petitions supporting the nurseries know that the real problem is central Government's attitude to inner-city local authorities. The victims of that
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  attitude are often children and the very poor of those communities. I hope that we shall not lose sight of those connections.
  I have very little time, but it would be remiss of me not to make two further points. First, if children are to be able to develop, they need open space. I like the idea of children playing sports—football, cricket or whatever they want to play—and of their having decent play facilities. It is a bit rich of Conservative Members to say that there should be better sports facilities in inner-city schools when the Conservative Government, through the London Residuary Body, is selling playing fields all around London. Schools in my constituency have to rent playing facilities from private schools on the outskirts of London in order to have a sports day because they have no sports fields of their own. That cannot be the right way to treat many inner-city children.
  What about library closures and the reduction in library opening hours? It means that children have few outlets other than to watch endless television programmes, some of which are good, some of which are bad and some of which are appalling. Alternatively, they play video games, some of which are good, some of which are bad and some of which are downright evil.
  Secondly, there is an international dimension to today's debate. When I arrived home from the House a few weeks ago, my son Ben, who is six, rushed to meet me at the door and said that he wanted to talk to me about something very important. He had just been watching "Newsround" and wanted to know what the Government were doing about the import from India and elsewhere of carpets made using child labour. Although we want the best for our children, we should also ensure that our trade policies are not leading to the exploitation of child labour in other countries simply so that we can import cheap carpets and crafts.
  That leads me to the problem of unaccompanied child refugees. The Government recently fought bitterly against an amendment that would have guaranteed the statutory provision of a supporter for every unaccompanied child refugee. We have a great deal to do to ensure that our children—and all children—grow up in a safer and cleaner environment than we have so far managed to achieve.
  2.12 pm
  Mr. Hinchliffe: With the permission of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall speak for a second time.
  This has been a useful debate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) for putting it in an international perspective, which had been lacking. Many of us are aware of the need to deal with the issues that he raised.
  I listened carefully to and agreed with many Conservative speakers, but it is commendable that the majority of Labour Members who have spoken have been women, whereas no Conservative women have spoken. I believe that women bring a specific perspective to these issues, and it is helpful to have a balanced debate.
  Time is limited, but I shall pick up one or two points that have been made. One of the main points made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), with whom I entirely agree, was that we should not rely too heavily on statistics, especially in relation to child welfare. I think that the Minister will probably accept that. I speak with some concern because I was a social worker under the

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  old law, prior to the Children Act 1989. I am absolutely convinced that too many place of safety orders were taken out under the previous legislation, often to protect the social workers who were being attacked by the media for not acting.
  I am sorry that the Minister does not take more seriously the daily dilemma facing many social workers. They must decide whether to intervene. From personal experience, I know that, whatever one does in social work, one is wrong in somebody's eyes. We should recognise that and praise the valuable work of many social workers. If we are concerned about unallocated child care cases. we are saying, in a roundabout way, that social workers are doing a reasonable job.
  We have had some good speeches and some less serious speeches in the debate. The people who entertained us have departed long ago. I shall not spend too much time responding to some of the rather silly points that have been made in what, overall, has been a useful and constructive debate.
  I was sorry to hear the Minister talk about the little villians and young thugs. He needs to analyse the issue deeply. Are these little villains and young thugs born bad? If they are, the task of social policy is to pick up the ones who are born bad and to lock them up from the word go so they will not cause problems. I do not believe that children are born bad. We must address the issue, which has been picked up by Conservative Members as well as by some of my hon. Friends, of why a small minority end up causing society difficulty. I am sorry that the comments of certain hon. Members did not contribute to serious thinking on those issues. It is all very well talking about socialist do-gooders, but we should remember that the Government have been in power for 14 years and must, therefore, have some responsibility for the overall state of British social policy.
  Conservative Members talked about blaming the parents. I listened carefully to the serious speech made by the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley). How we prepare parents is an important point. I was in no way prepared to be a parent. I had no preparation whatever for the most important task of my life. One learns as one goes along. I have made mistakes—we all have. There is something that we can do and the hon. Member for Eltham was right to make such points.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) spoke with great authority and experience. She talked about the decline in the school health service—a point echoed by the husband of the Secretary of State for Health who talked about the service dying away. We should all be concerned about that. My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles may be aware that a report is due to come out in the next couple of weeks from the British Medical Association, the Health Visitors Association and a number of other organisations. It deals with the issue of attempting to resurrect this crucial children's health service.
  The hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) made his usual serious and well-thought-out speech. He and I do not agree on everything, but I believe that he made some important points and I hope that his hon. Friend the Minister will listen to his plea for a children's rights commissioner.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) made a brave and sensitive speech on how we deal with child sexual abuse. How is it that only some people abuse children and how do we deal with those
  628
  people? Is imprisonment the best way? My hon. Friend made an important point by saying that we need to fund the few clinics, such as Gracewell, that have a different approach to the treatment of people who offend in such a way. Are there other forms of dealing with sexual offenders?
  The hon. Member of Mid-Staffordshire ( Mr. Fabricant) talked about Labour's attack on family values, but he was not able to substantiate his point, so I could not understand him. I felt that he overdid the argument that the Children Act 1989 introduced the concept of parental responsibility into law. Having worked in child care from the late 1960s, I am aware that there has always been parental responsibility in law. It has been addressed in a different way by the Children Act, but the hon. Gentleman should not go away with the impression that, suddenly, we have something different. We have not.
  The hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) raised the Two Dear to Visit campaign. It rings a bell because, in my constituency, parents have expressed concern about having to pay to park when they see their children in hospital. We are reaching a bad state of health care when people have to pay to go to see their loved ones in hospital, and it is causing great problems.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) made a powerful speech about maternity, the Select Committee report on the selected list and skin complaints and, especially, on the implications of the shortage of intensive care beds for children and the tragedies that arise directly from that. I take note of her comments on the implications of the specialty review in London. We are aware of what the review may mean in terms of retarding health care in London.
  I agree with virtually everything that the hon. Member for Eltham said about smoking, about preparation for partnership and parenthood and about the role of males in crime. The socialisation of men must be addressed seriously. I have raised that matter before—and have been laughed at—but we must be concerned at the damage that some men do in society, and to women and children.
  My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks) made the useful point that divorce statistics understate the extent of family breakdown.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North made what is, I believe, the key point in today's debate when he drew attention to the crucial link between child welfare and poverty. If we are to make that link, we must adhere to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. I suggest that, if he has not yet done so, the Minister should look at what is in the convention. I draw his attention to one article whose conditions the Government have not met. Unless we meet them, we cannot honestly claim to adhere to the convention. Article 24 gives a child the right to clean water. I came across a case recently of a 12-year-old girl who had commenced menstruation whose family had no water for her to bathe in. Buckets of water had to be brought to her house to deal with those circumstances. That is unacceptable in this day and age. The Government have taken from numerous families the right to clean water.
  The Minister said that children should be enabled to achieve, and I agree. My concern about Government policy is that, in so many ways, it is not enabling children to succeed.and achieve. That is, to me, the central message of today's debate.
  2.22 pm
  Mr. Bowis: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall respond to the debate. First, I thank the hon. Members for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) and my hon. Friends for their kind words of welcome. I also thank everyone who has participated in a thoughtful and good debate—the hon. Members for Wakefield, for Eccles (Miss Lestor), for Rochdale, for Preston (Mrs. Wise), for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks), for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding), as well as my hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant), for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans), for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), for Basildon (Mr. Amess), for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) and for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans). My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) unfortunately did not succeed in participating, but perhaps he will follow in his predecessor's footsteps and include the occasion in his diaries.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield referred to infant mortality. I must correct his comparisons with Europe. We are on a par with the best in the European Community. Our achievements are the same as those of France and Germany. The hon. Gentleman is looking at examples from Scandinavia, where Sweden has reached the figure of four per 1,000, which is our target, too.
  The hon. Gentleman said that unemployment was important and I would not disagree with that, but he forgot to mention or to welcome the fact that unemployment has fallen for the past five months. No doubt that was an oversight.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to homelessness. He would acknowledge that lead responsibility for the homeless lies with my colleagues at the Department of the Environment. However, as much research has shown that many young people who end up sleeping rough have been in local authority care at some stage in their lives—a point made by the hon. Member for Eccles—I naturally also take a strong interest in that area of policy.
  During the past three years, the Government have provided £96 million to help those who are sleeping rough in central London, where the problem has been at its greatest. We have provided 950 extra places in short-term hostels, of which 190 are specifically for young people. However—and this is important—most of the resources are going towards 2,200 places in permanent housing so that people who have been in hostels can move on. That initiative has been particularly effective for homeless young people. A count by voluntary organisations in November found about 420 such people, compared with more than 1,000 three years previously; more important, of those 420, only 20 or so were aged 18 or under. There has been progress and the hon. Gentleman might have acknowledged it.
  As the hon. Gentleman said, young homelessness is not exclusively a problem for London. That is why we have provided £3 million over three years under our single homeless young people initiative, which is funding 14 projects outside London. That is the Government's response to a perceived and understood problem and I hope that we can do better in future.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield referred to the Limitation Act 1980. I understand the problems and I know that a recent House of Lords judgment in respect of
  630
  inter-familial abuse decided that the Limitation Act applied in that case. However, it is by no means clear whether it applies in other cases. The law is not straightforward in that regard and the best advice at the moment is that legal advice should always be sought in particular cases. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me I will give him a considered reply on that important point.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield also referred to child migration. The Child Migrants Trust provides for children who were taken to Australia before the war. The Government have given the trust a £25,000 grant to allow it to carry out work on behalf of those children. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Australian Government have also made a contribution. We are looking for other ways in which we can help.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield referred to a moral lead and I accept that challenge. We must set the moral lead for which the hon. Gentleman is looking. I believe that we are setting that lead. We have made it clear that parents are responsible for their children and that is very much in tune with the United Nations convention to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
  We believe that an individual is ultimately responsible for his or her behaviour. However, we also believe that society is responsible for helping the vulnerable. We believe that society has a duty to help those in need to achieve and that it is society's duty to enable individuals to become responsible citizens. We do not duck the moral lead which the hon. Gentleman is seeking. However, we believe that there should be a partnership, as hon. Members have said, between individuals, organisations, Governments and agencies to enable people ultimately to be responsible for themselves.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield and the hon. Member for Eccles may be surprised to learn that they came together on the question of television. The hon. Lady was of the Martyn Lewis school of thought and believed that we should have more good news on television. There was an interesting meeting of minds in respect of the way in which violence on television poses a threat to, and influences, young viewers.
  We all agree that physical and verbal violence can influence young viewers. The way in which women and children are treated by actors playing parts can also cause problems. References to drugs on television can be harmful to young people and may even be a come-on. Too many role models smoke on television—although perhaps fewer than used to be the case. We also see people drinking to excess.
  Television companies must strike the right balance between alerting children to the problems that they will have to face and protecting them from bad influences. In that respect, I pay tribute to the Book Trust and its work in providing material that brings difficult problems to the notice of children in a way that they can understand, but which does not frighten them.
  The hon. Member for Eccles referred to the circle of television and it is right that we should explore such issues. Circles do exist. We can recall children playing with bows and arrows and then playing cops and robbers. More realistic versions of such games were shown on television and there is now a more dangerous fantasy world of violence and horror. That must be examined.
  The hon. Member for Eccles referred to a cycle of care, to crime and rough sleeping. We must also take notice of that. She referred to the parliamentary question which I

  631
  answered yesterday in which she requested an inquiry into residential care and children. We have probably had enough inquiries for the time being what with Utting, Warner and all the rest. We now need action and that is why we have set up the task force to ensure that we have action on the basis of those inquiries. Let us have action first and then see whether we need to look further.
  The hon. Member for Eccles and my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham referred to school nursing services. I note what they say and I will certainly consider the matter, but the important point is that, although there has been a small decline in nursing services, there has been a 20 per cent. increase in the number of GPs. Also, 90 per cent. of GPs are involved in child health surveillance. Of course, that gives the continuity that many families welcome.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst, in his usual thoughtful way, referred to several issues. He rightly said that I would have to respond to some of those issues by saying that they are matters for the Lord Chancellor's Department—for example, pre-trial hearings, the eight-year-old girl he referred to, and the right to silence. They were matters in which children are involved, so I shall take a very close interest. On guardians ad litem and their independence, I agree on the importance of independence. We have tried to build that requirement into the system, but we will keep the matter under review.
  It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

  BBC World Service
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wood.]
  2.30 pm
  Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: I am delighted to have this opportunity to debate the future of the BBC World Service. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there is great interest in the House on this subject. My case is succinctly put in early-day motion 1780, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris), and it has attracted so far the support of 362 hon. and right hon. Members. It emphasises the great concern about
  "current proposals to reduce the grant-in-aid which will diminish Britain's capacity to capitalise on the considerable credibility built up by the BBC World Service over many years."
  Few early-day motions have attracted more names, or more senior names.
  On 30 July 1981, Lord Carrington, when he was Foreign Secretary, in another place, said:
  "Let me begin on a note upon which there will be no disagreement in any quarter of the House: that is, the support and admiration of all of us—and of course I include Her Majesty's Government—for the work of the External Services of the BBC. There is nobody who does not recognise the excellence of what they do. Certainly so far as I am concerned, I believe them to be an important arm of Government foreign policy. Indeed, I think we have got to look at the whole of our defence and foreign policy as one, and external broadcasting has a most important part to play in the influence that Britain can exert throughout the world."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 30 July 1981; Vol. 423, c. 811]
  Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): Is my hon. Friend aware that surveys conducted by the BBC World Service, and indeed by other international broadcasters, clearly demonstrate that the BBC World Service has more listeners than The Voice of America, Radio Beijing, Radio Moscow and Deutsche Welle combined?
  Mr. Townsend: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall refer to that point later.
  Two years later, on a Channel 4 television interview, the same noble Lord made these rather revealing remarks:
  "When I was Foreign Secretary, I was told I had to save money on the overseas service of the BBC. I think that was really totally counter-productive and the money saved was trivial compared to the amount of damage done. I think that the time has now come, really, when the Treasury and the Government ought to look at the cutting out of a function in Government rather than cheese-paring on the things that are essential and have to be done."
  In both Houses of Parliament, there is a vast reservoir of good will towards the BBC World Service. We have had many debates on its funding over the years. I previously took part in one in July 1987. I find that many of the comments that I made then still apply today.
  We have been here before, many times. For Conservative Members, there. is annoyance that this old and deep wound for our party has been opened up again. In a debate in July 1981, a former Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sir Anthony Kershaw, with whom I used to share an office, was speaking for many when he said:
  "We have two assets in the BBC—the English language and its high reputation, based on its activities during the Second World War, which it has managed to maintain.
  We are to be asked to approve reductions in expenditure on the overseas services at a time when our country has

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  reduced political power and when there is an increase beyond our imagination of the power of the spoken word that reaches out beyond frontiers and speaks to each man in his own tongue."—[ Official Report, 23 July 1981; Vol. 9, C. 579.]
  Perhaps I can quote two other witnesses of the high standing of the World Service abroad. In the New York Times, Malcolm W. Browne once wrote:
  "The BBC is, for the free mind, what OXFAM is for the hungry".
  I like best a remark made by, of all people, Colonel Gaddafi:
  "All the Arab radios rave from dawn 'till noon nobody listens to them because everyone switches on London."
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) said, the World Service has many competitors in both television—its new and successful service—and on radio, especially in 'the United States, Germany, France and Canada. But they lack the essential history of the BBC—they lack its integrity. That is why viewers and listeners do not put those services in the same category. The World Service has been shrewd to resist so-called crusader broadcasting.
  The Foreign Secretary has described Britain as punching above its weight. The World Service is part of the answer, together with our Rolls-Royce diplomacy and the British Council. The central feature of our debates over the years has been that Ministers praised the World Service while cutting its funding in reality. During one period since I have been in the House, it was cut nine times in 10 years. That is a disgraceful record, but explains why it is a sensitive subject today.
  In 1982, the cuts ended Spanish for Europe and the Italian and the Maltese services, and French for Europe and the Brazilian service were halved. I came across this extract in the BBC handbook from 1984:
  "The role played by the External Services in coverage of last year's events in the South Atlantic is generally accepted to have been a vital one. The Argentina invasion of the Falklands came at a time when the External Services had just suffered the most wide-spread operational cuts for many years. Morale amongst highly motivated staff had been considerably shaken and many talented broadcasters had been lost."
  Today, the World Service—the world's most successful broadcaster, reaching a regular audience of 124 million people, plus unknown millions in China—once again is braced to face severe financial cuts. I emphasise to the Minister—I am delighted that he is here today—that Bush house fully understands the Government's need to reduce its public sector borrowing requirement of £50 billion—about £1 billion a week. It accepts that every major organisation, public and private, has scope to reduce waste and improve efficiency. It appreciates that each and every spender of limited public funds is bound to be scrutinised closely at this time.
  But the World Service offers good value for taxpayers' money. The United States spends considerably more on international radio than the United Kingdom, but achieves considerably less. The World Service is more cost-effective than The Voice of America.
  It is not always easy to please the National Audit Office. Its June 1992 report said:
  "World Service has a generally satisfactory system of resource planning, financial management and control, including internal value for money reviews, and has developed comprehensive procedures with which to assess the effectiveness of its output."
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  That is an A-plus report. No wonder. In the past seven years, there have been 23 reviews of different World Service departments, all but three by outside consultants. The hours of broadcasting per employee have risen from 14.1 in 1989–90 to 14.8 in 1992–93. Each World Service department has set its own performance indicators. This is a tight ship.
  On its 60th anniversary, in December last year, Prince Charles described the World Service as the model of public service broadcasting. At much the same time, the model was told by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that its budget would be cut by £5 million in each of the next three financial years. It was also asked to prepare potential cuts of 2·5 per cent. and 5 per cent. of its total budget.
  If the maximum cut is imposed, the World Service will have to find up £13 million next year, with similar reductions in subsequent years. My hon. Friends will appreciate that that is serious. I give two yardsticks. I checked this morning and was told that the Arabic service cost £4.3 million and the Chinese service £1.8 million. Commenting on the £5 million a year cut, Mr. John Tusa, the former superb managing director of the World Service said:
  "If this cut goes ahead, it will go straight to programmes. It will be very, very damaging."
  I suggest that he ought to know.
  I expect the Minister to say in his reply that the World Service has had a 40 per cent. increase in budget in real terms in the past decade. That sounds good, but the figure has to be carefully examined, as always in government. I am told that total BBC grant in aid increased from £71 million in 1981–82 to £166 million in 1992–93. Using the Treasury measure of United Kingdom inflation, that was an increase of 36 per cent. in real terms. Between 1986–87 and 1989–90, the BBC took over responsibility for certain relay stations from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Taking that into account, the increase over the 10-year period reduces to 29 per cent.
  Over many years, I have found the system of funding the services to be unsatisfactory. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been responsible for accounting for grants in aid only since the financial year 1977–78. The responsibility rested formerly with the Home Office.
  The World Service has an excellent and happy relationship with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I welcome that, and do not wish to damage it. However, as the Minister knows, since 1977, Foreign Secretaries, including our present distinguished one, have resorted in desperation to that old and trusted policy of equal misery all round within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office vote. The thinking is, "If diplomatic and information office posts are to go, those chaps in Bush house should not expect to escape scot free."
  But is it equal misery all round? I would welcome the Minister's comments on that point, because I am not so sure.
  Over the 10-year period that I mentioned earlier, the BBC's share of the total Foreign and Commonwealth Office vote, which includes the diplomatic wing, the British Council plus the BBC—decreased from 16·5 to 13·7 per cent. It will decrease further in 1993–94 to 12·9 per cent. Is that fair? Is equal misery all round the only possible approach?. Why not have greater discretion? Why not attempt to have some priorities: after all, what are

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  Ministers there for? Should not a medium in which Britain is regarded as the world leader be regarded as one such priority?
  The manner in which successive Governments—certainly not just this one—have handled the service would be laughable had it not damaged our reputation abroad, as, no doubt, our ambassadors and high commissioners have mentioned to the Foreign Office in their dispatches.
  Some years ago, in an attempt to make savings, a Conservative Government suggested to Bush house that the number of broadcasts to friendly nations should be reduced. That was wondrously short-sighted. In 1979, it was proposed that Turkey should be cut off from the service, but Parliament objected. The very next year, the Foreign Office came back with a request that broadcasts to Turkey should be increased.
  I note that Mr. Tusa believes that the independence of the World Service would be enhanced if the FCO renounced its say in the services that it provides. He believes that that would result in a better and speedier editorial response. Could the Minister support some moves in that direction? Perceived independence from Government is important, and the World Service would like closer integration with a strong, independent BBC.
  I understand that some press reports and comments have exaggerated the new crisis, but it is a crisis. What assurance can the Minister give us about the exact level of future funding for the World Service? Are the most serious options for savings—common, I agree, to all spending Departments—still under consideration?
  Where information is in the hands of Governments—sadly, a growing trend—and where there is no permitted outlet for the voice of dissent, people turn to a respected and honest broadcasting service not only for coverage of events in other countries, but for news of their own country. In countries where there are multiple sources of information, the World Service's ability to become the preferred source of information—perhaps India is a good example—has tremendous importance now, and far-reaching implications for the United Kingdom in the future.
  I want the BBC's past successes in overseas broadcasting to be built on, not pulled down. I want them to be expanded, not contracted. A traditional Conservative role, and one too often neglected since 1979, has been to support our great national institutions.
  Are there those in high places who can see not only what the World Service has achieved in 60 years, but what it could achieve for our country and for our turbulent and largely undemocratic world in the 21st century?
  2.47 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd): The Government entirely share the views that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) has expressed on the high quality and value to Britain of the BBC World Service. We are well aware of its unrivalled reputation around the world and the important role that it plays in our international relations.
  I know that my hon. Friend has taken an interest in the World Service throughout his parliamentary career. I hope that I can reassure him that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office shares his views. I hope that I can
  636
  reassure him by showing that its past conduct towards the World Service and its funding for it is evidence of that affirmation.
  I recognise the concern, widely shared in the House and outside, that the World Service should have the resources it needs to do its job adequately. The Government have absolutely no reason to be apologetic or defensive about it. We have seen to it that the World Service has the resources. During the past decade, the funding has been put on a more stable three-yearly basis, and has been given a substantial boost—of about 40 per cent.—in real terms. Those figures are accepted by the World Service, which is where I take issue with my hon. Friend. When he says that Ministers praise the World Service while cutting its budget, I cannot possibly agree with him.
  The grants in aid to the World Service in the present triennium funding period from 1991 to 1994—which my hon. Friend knows well—continues to provide for real growth in each of the three years. The amount increases from £163 milion in the last financial year to £172 million this year. The World Service is benefiting from a substantial rise, well above inflation. For some reason, that fact often seems to be overlooked amid all the talk of cuts and threats.
  I know that my hon. Friend is a fair man, and I hope that he will take the opportunity, when discussing the subject with the World Service, to agree with what its current staff will say: that we have looked after them well. I hope that he will also take the opportunity to explain to his other colleagues and friends that we have, without fail, looked after the World Service well over the past 10 years.
  In the past decade, the increased resources have enabled the World Service to undertake an extensive programme to improve audibility in most parts of the world. A large number of old transmitters have been replaced, and overall power output has increased by more than 70 per cent. At the same time, the World Service has been able to expand its broadcast output substantially—there has been expansion, not cuts. The World Service has been able to make significant improvements in programme quality.
  An audibility improvement programme has taken place during the past 10 years. It included the construction of new relay stations in the Seychelles and Hong Kong. Some 20 new, higher-powered, transmitters have been installed in Caversham, Skelton and Cyprus to replace older equipment. An additional five transmitters have been installed at Ascension Island, Singapore and Lesotho.
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) that, as a result of the improvement programme, the BBC's market share of world audiences for major international broadcasters has been even greater during the past decade. It has increased from about 50 per cent. to an estimated 80 per cent. today. The World Service now holds an unchallenged position as the leader in its field—a great achievement, and a great asset to Britain.
  The expansion and improvements continue. So far in the current triennium, the World Service has been able to increase the number of hours broadcast weekly from 784 to more than 870—a substantial increase. It has also introduced two new language services, Ukrainian and Albanian—another increase, not a cut.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath mentioned prescription, which is the way in which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office maintains its interest in the World Service. It is a long-established custom, which

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  was endorsed by the Public Accounts Committee only last December. That Committee concluded that it must be for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to prescribe the levels of World Service output in the countries to which it broadcasts.
  Last year, the Foreign Office gave the World Service discretion to vary the number of hours broadcast by up to 5 per cent. in the current triennium without the need for prior authority. That flexibility was welcomed by the World Service, and we are more than happy to have discussions on that subject, as we recognise that flexibility is a valuable instrument for the service.
  I have no hesitation in saying that the success of the World Service is due, in significant part, to the World Service itself, but it is also the result of a joint effort based on our close and friendly relations with the World Service. I am very glad to have the chance to pay tribute to the effectiveness with which the World Service has used the resources with which it has been provided, and to the considerable internal efficiency gains that it has achieved, to make each pound that it receives go even futher.
  I hope that I have dispelled any impression left by some recent press comments that the FCO keeps the World Service in a chronically underfunded state. It is just not so, and the World Service makes no such claim itself. It has enjoyed more than a decade of solid and steady expansion. In this financial year, it is receiving every penny of its promised increase, in spite of cuts elsewhere in the public sector, including cuts in the overall Foreign Office budget.
  That is the context in which future plans for the World Service must be seen. Following usual practice, we recently held discussions with the World Service on its development programme and the allocation of resources in the next triennium, 1994 to 1997, based on proposals submitted by the BBC. The House will understand that I cannot at this stage make any commitment or give precise figures on future levels of grant in aid. Final decisions on the overall FCO and World Service funding depend on the outcome of this year's public expenditure survey. I do not know what that will be. No budget has yet been set for the World Service in the new triennium, so it is wrong to speak of cuts in the sense of cuts from previously agreed amounts.
  Our recent discussions with the World Service show that current funding projections, published in the latest FCO departmental report, will be enough to enable the
  638
  World Service to maintain present levels and standards of service. There will also be room for some new activity in response to the changing world situation, including even the introduction of new language services.
  That is possibly partly because of the increased revenue that the World Service is expecting to raise. Continuing efficiency savings and cost savings in less important services will also be needed, but we have no reason to think that any service or language need be discontinued. The most important elements of capital spending will also be safeguarded.
  I hope that I have reassured my hon. Friends that many of the recent reports about the damage supposedly being done to the World Service have been misleading and much exaggerated.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath referred to an immediate cut of £5 million. In the discussions that I have outlined, there was a cut of about £5 million in the funding baselines for World Service grant in aid in the years in question. It has been publicised and reported as a £5 million cut in the budget, but in practice the new amount represents a small, 6 per cent. increase in cash terms over the whole triennium—£530 million against £500 million—when other factors are taken into account.
  Final decisions on overall FCO and World Service funding will in any event depend on the outcome of the public expenditure survey. A cut in the baseline is not a cut in cash—indeed, it can result in an overall increase in the cash.
  As for the 2·5 per cent. and 5 per cent. illustrative cuts to which my hon. Friend referred, all spending Departments are having to prepare on a contingency basis of that sort in line with this year's PES. It is a general exercise, not one specially imposed on the poor World Service. Judging by the nod from my hon. Friend, he agrees with that.
  Continued Government support and funding for the World Service is assured. It is, however, unrealistic to expect that the World Service can be insulated from the general financial situation and public expenditure policy. But the Government will continue to give it a high priority and to respect the World Service's position as the world's most listened to, most reliable, most effective and most respected international broadcaster. They will provide the World Service with the resources to do the job and to keep it at number one.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Three o'clock.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Contract and Estate Law
  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what expressions of concern he has received(a) from small businesses and (b) from others about the current law of privity of contract and estate in England and Wales;

  (2) what representations he has received in support of the reform of privity of contract and estate.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor has received a considerable number of expressions of concern about the law in this area, the majority from small businesses and organisations representing their interests; but there have also been representations from landlords and property investors. It would not be practicable to list the representations that have been received. The Lord Chancellor is well aware of the respective interests of both tenants and landlords, and has already announced the Government's decision to implement the Law Commission's recommendations in this area for future leases.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Sunday Trading
  Sir George Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what account will be taken, in any reform of the law on Sunday trading, of public demand for all shops to be free to open for some period during the day on Sundays.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  We intend to offer Parliament a choice between the four main options for reform of Sunday trading law. Hon. Members will no doubt take pubic opinion into account before choosing between these options.

  Immigration
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the total number of non-United Kingdom nationals admitted for settlement in the United Kingdom in each year since 1982, indicating whether these originated in(a) the new Commonwealth, (b) the Republic of Ireland, (c) eastern Europe and (d) elsewhere; and if he will give an estimate of what proportion of this total was of working age.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The numbers of persons accepted for settlement in the United Kingdom, by nationality, are published in table 14 of the Home Office Command Paper "Control of Immigration: Statistics, United Kingdom 1990" (Cm 1571) for the years 1982–89 and in table 1 of Home Office Statistical Bulletin Issue 14/93 "Control of 280
  Immigration: Statistics—Third and Fourth Quarters and Year 1992" for 1990–92. Copies of both these publications are in the Library. These figures do not include citizens of the Republic of Ireland, who are generally able to move freely within the common travel area.

  The readily available information on age is for non-EC nationals accepted for settlement on removal of the time limit on their stay (ie subsequent to initial admission for a limited period) in 1992. These acceptances comprised the large majority of total settlement in 1992 (88 per cent.). Around 80 per cent. were aged between 16 and 60.

  New Age Travellers
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what advice he is giving local authorities to assist them in coping with large-scale acts of trespass on local authority or private land by new age travellers this summer; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  In 1991 we issued a leaflet giving general guidance to land owners, including local authorities, relating to trespass on land and we encourage all local authorities to liaise closely with the police if they suspect that any land in their areas is vulnerable to mass trespass. Officials have met representatives of the Malvern Hills district council and Salisbury district council to discuss their applications to the Home Secretary for orders under section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986.

  Custody Officers
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has on the number of physical attacks against custody officers within each police force area in England and Wales in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Maclean
  The information requested is not collected centrally.

  Illegal Employment Prosecutions
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions have been initiated in the last five years for the illegal employment of non-EC persons who do not possess a work permit.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Although it is an offence to take work in breach of conditions of stay, employers do not commit an offence simply by virtue of employing such people.

  Wolds Remand Centre
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many inmates were involved in the incident at the Wolds remand centre on 11 and 12 June; how many staff were on duty at the time and how many extra staff were called in; what is the value of the damage done by inmates during the course of the incident; for what reason the emergency services were called; and if he will call for a detailed inquiry.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the director general of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange a reply.

  Letter from Mr. D. Lewis to Ms Joan Ruddock, dated 24 June 1993:
  281
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question asking about an incident at the Wolds Remand Prison on 11 th and 12th June.

  49 prisoners, all in one unit, refused to return to their cells at lock-up on 11 June. 23 staff were on duty at the time. Contingency plans were put into operation, but for obvious reasons it is our policy not to give operational details of them for any establishment. It is standard procedure for emergency services to be alerted to an incident. The unit was quiet by 0015 and complete control was secured by 0135. The value of the damage caused by prisoners is put at £8,000. The Home Office controller, based at Wolds, monitors the contractor's performance and will provide a full report; the incident on 11 June does not merit a separate inquiry.

TRANSPORT

  New Age Travellers' Vehicles
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer of 3 July 1992,Official Report, column 726, what recommendations the vehicle inspectorate and the police forces have received underlying the policy of prohibiting from road use vehicles (a) not carrying tax discs or (b) which are unroadworthy; and if he will make a statement on any extra measures he is taking in respect of expected movements of new age travellers in the coming summer.

  Mr. Key
  The vehicle inspectorate normally imposes an immediate prohibition on vehicles which are in a dangerous condition. This prevents or restricts their use on the road until the defect has been rectified. Where there is a lesser defect, it may impose a delayed prohibition, which comes into effect only if the defect has not been rectified within a specified time limit. The police can only impose immediate prohibitions. Policy on prohibitions is a matter for chief constables, but generally the police use the same criteria as the vehicle inspectorate in deciding whether a defect is serious enough to merit an immediate prohibition. There are no powers for either the police or the vehicle inspectorate to prohibit vehicles not displaying valid tax discs.

  Most of the vehicle inspectorate enforcement resources are used to ensure that lorries, buses and coaches are safe, although some private vehicles are checked with police co-operation. No extra measures by the vehicle inspectorate are planned at present in respect of new age travellers. The deployment of police resources is a matter for chief constables.

  However, vehicles not displaying valid tax discs may be stopped by the police and the keepers prosecuted/fined. The maximum penalty is £1,000 or five times the annual rate of duty whichever is the greatest. Furthermore, a valid tax disc cannot be obtained unless the keeper is in possession of a valid roadworthiness test certificate.

  Rail Privatisation
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what criteria he will use to judge the effectiveness and value for money of his rail privatisation proposals.

  Mr. Freeman
  Our proposals are intended to enable the railways to provide a higher quality of service, with greater responsiveness to customers' needs, and to offer better value for money to the public who travel by rail.
  282
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what arrangements he has made to ensure that business travellers will still be able to use rail warrants to pay for tickets after the franchising of rail passenger services.

  Mr. Freeman
  Future participation in warrant schemes will be a matter for negotiation with operators. Arrangements to facilitate this are still under discussion.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which authority will become responsible, under his proposals for the privatisation of BR, for handling telephone inquiries for the inquiry bureaux currently operated by British Rail; and what steps he is taking to ensure that they continue to provide information for the whole of the national rail network.

  Mr. Freeman
  The provision of co-ordinated passenger information over the telephone is still under discussion. If necessary, it will be possible to impose suitable obligations through licences or franchise agreements.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to ensure that rail franchise operators will continue to accept Inter-Rail and Rail Europe Senior railcards after privatisation of British Rail.

  Mr. Freeman
  Franchisees will be required to honour existing tickets. Future participation in international ticketing offers will be a matter for commercial negotiation, as it is now for British Rail, within joint industry arrangements as necessary.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the first rail passenger franchises to be offered to the private sector; and which services these will be.

  Mr. Freeman
  I expect the first franchises to be offered to the private sector in 1994. These are likely to be the seven service groupings announced in February. The Victoria-Gatwick express is in the vanguard of the restructuring process and is expected to be offered to the private sector ahead of other services.

  Rail Services (East Anglia)
  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to seek discussions with British Rail over changes in levels of services announced in Norfolk and Suffolk; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  None. British Rail must be free to match service levels to demand. I understand that the changes in the winter Sunday services reflect the high cost of providing these lightly-used services, many of which cater for a largely seasonal trade.

  Disabled Rail Travellers
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy to place a duty on the Rail Regulator to consult the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee with the view of drawing up a national code of practice for disabled rail travellers.

  Mr. Freeman
  It is our intention to bring forward an amendment to the Railways Bill which places such a duty on the Regulator.
  283

  Channel Tunnel Rail Link
  Sir Keith Speed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many representations about the channel tunnel rail link his Department has received since 23 March from(a) the county of Kent and (b) the borough of Ashford.

  Mr. Freeman
  Until 24 June, 650 from the county of Kent and from Kent Members of Parliament, including 384 from Ashford postal addresses and from the hon. Member for Ashford. A separate total of representations from within the borough boundaries is not readily available.

  Railway Rolling Stock
  Sir Keith Speed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent discussions he has had with British Rail about their proposed order for rolling stock allowed for in the lease finance announced in last October's financial statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  British Rail is currently considering what rolling stock to acquire on lease using the £150 million facility made available in last year's autumn statement. The choice between the two options—dual-voltage Networkers for Network SouthEast or IC225s for the west coast main line—is entirely a matter for British Rail in the light of negotiations with suppliers and lessors. I expect a decision in the summer.

  I will support further leasing deals provided that they comply with the Treasury's guidelines.

EDUCATION

  Environmental Policy
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is his Department's policy on the purchase and use of(a) recycled paper, (b) low-energy light bulbs, (c) tropical hardwoods, (d) peat and (e) cars with catalytic converters.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Department's policy is to take full account of the environmental implications of all decisions involving the purchase and use of resources. An environmental policy statement has been issued to all staff which reaffirms our commitment to increase the use of recycled paper, reduce and eventually eliminate the use of non-renewable resources, and to reduce the use of hazardous substances.

  Further and Higher Education
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of Stale for Education what statistics he has on the percentage of students who take up further and higher education in each EC country.

  Mr. Boswell
  In 1992–93 some 71 per cent. of l6-year-olds and 55 per cent. of 17-year-olds participated in full-time education in schools, sixth-form colleges and further education colleges in England. In the same year the age participation index in Great Britain (defined as the number of young home initial entrants to higher education expressed as a percentage of the averaged 18 to 19-year-old population) was some 28 per cent. Further details are 284
  shown in tables 17 and 21 of the Departmental Report, CM 2210. Comparisons with certain EC countries are shown on pages 16 and 17 of "Education Statistics for the United Kingdom", 1992 edition, a copy of which is in the Library.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list the names, occupations and current employers of those who currently hold positions in each public body to which he makes appointments; if he will make a statement on the considerations taken into account when making such appointments; and if he will list details of the posts and salaries or allowances payable which have changed since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992".

  Mr. Boswell
  The names of those who have been appointed to the Department's public bodies are given in the table, together with details of changes as they apply to posts, salaries or allowances since publication of "Public Bodies 1992". Information relating to occupations and current employers of appointees could be supplied only at disproportionate cost, but we are satisfied that the members of our public bodies represent an appropriately wide range of backgrounds and are appointed on the basis of their aptitude, merit and suitability.

  MEMBERSHIP OF DFE PUBLIC BODIES WITH DETAILS OF CHANGES TO POSTS, SALARIES OR ALLOWANCES MADE SINCE I APRIL 1992

  Public Appointments

    Business and technology education council
    Chairman:

    Mr. Parry Rogers

    Members:

    Mrs. Gillian Armitage

    Mr. Barry Barker

    Mr. Derek Betts

    Dr. John Capey

    Mr. Richard Davies

    Mrs. Patricia Haikin

    Mr. Garry Hawkes

    Dr. Philip Hunter

    Mr. Michael Lickiss

    Mr. Morton Neal

    Mr. Keith Ratcliffe

    Mr. John Spence

    Ms Lynda Purser

    Mr. John Stoddard

    Central bureau for educational visits and exchanges
    Chairman:

    Mr. J. A. Carter

    Members:

    Mr. D. A. L. Avery

    Mr. R. Bailess

    Mr. M. Brackenbury

    Mrs. P. G. Collings

    Mr. I. Fraser1

    Mrs. S. Greenfield

    Mr. D. J. Hatfield

    Mr. N. H. Holmes

    Mrs. A. Longley

    Rev. D. Peacock

    Dr. R. Rix

    Mrs. J. Shackleton

    Mr. B. Tanner

    Dr. P. Troughton

    1 Appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    One additional member appointed since I April 1992.

    Centre for information on language teaching
    Chairman:

    Professor Martin Harris

    Members:

    Mr. Jim Beadle

    Mrs. Madeleine Bedford

    Dr. Ann Dowling

    Mr. Barry Jones

    Mr. David Jones

    Ms. Janet Little

    Mr. David Mallen1

    Ms Mary Ryan

    Ms Valerie Stone

    Professor Gareth Thomas

    Mr. Richard Townsend

    1 Appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland.

    Council for the accreditation of teacher education
    Chairman:

    Professor Sir William Taylor

    Members:

    Professor Robin Alexander

    Mr. John Burn

    Sister Vincent Duggan

    Dr. Richard Evans

    Mrs. Gay Firth

    Professor Malcolm Frazer

    Ms. Carolyn Hayman

    Mr. Douglas Keith

    Mr. Anthony Lenney

    Mr. Derek Mortimer

    Professor Anthony O'Hear

    Mr. Anthony Pellegrini

    Mrs. Margaret Pritchard

    Mr. Robin Reeve

    Mr. Rod Scarth

    Mr. Martin Tims

    Mr. Martin Turner

    Mr. Anthony Wates

    Rev. Dr. Kenneth Wilson

    Four additional members appointed since 1 April 1992

    Education assests board
    Chairman:

    Sir Tom McDonald, Increase to £24,030 pa—part-time appointment

    Chief Executive:

    Mr. H. S. Hoare (ex-officio), Increase to £47,424 pa—full-time appointment

    Members:

    (Members receive an honorarium of £153 pd)

    Mr. B. C. Arthur

    Mr. K. J. Bridge

    Ms. K. Buckley

    Mr. H. E. Couch

    Mr. J. M. Edwards

    Miss A. Lees

    Mr. P. S. Lewis

    Mr. G. Locke

    Mr. A. N. Solomons

    One additional member apponted since 1 April 1992

    Further education funding council for England
    Chairman:

    Mr. Robert Gunn, £33,170 pa—part-time appointment

    Chief Executive:

    Dr. William Stubbs, £84,227 pa—full-time appointment

    Members:

    (Members receive an honorarium of £4,000 pa)

    Mr. Nicholas Bennett

    Mr. Anthony Cann

    Dr. John Capey

    Mr. Anthony Close

    286

    Mrs. Margaret Davey

    Mrs. Patricia Haikin

    Mrs. Margaret Hobrough

    Mr. Christopher Jonas

    Councillor Les Lawrence

    Mr. Michael Lickiss

    Mr. Michael Rowarth

    Dr. Anne Wright

    Secretary of State's representative:

    Mr. Roger Dawe, DFE

    This body was established on 6 May 1992

    Further Education Unit Board of Management
    Chairman:

    Mr. Allan Ainsworth

    Members:

    Mr. Martin Cross

    Mr. Ken Franklin

    Ms Ann Limb

    Mr. Roger Morgan1

    Mr. Michael Rowarth

    Mr. Keith Rowland

    Ms Jenny Scribbins

    Mr. David Short

    Mr. Terry Melia

    Ms Lynda Purser

    Mr. Nigel Thomas

    Three additional members appointed since 1 April 1992
    1 Head of FHE2 branch, DFE

    Higher Education Funding Council, England
    Chairman:

    Mr. Brandon Gough, £33,170 pa—part-time appointment

    Chief Executive:

    Professor Graeme Davies, £82,925 pa—full-time appointment

    Members:

    (Members receive an honorarium of £4,000 pa)

    Professor Colin Campbell

    Mr. Michael Fallon

    Professor Brian Follett

    Mr. Robert Gunn

    Professor (Ms) Kay-Tee Khaw

    Sir Idris Pearce

    Sir David Phillips

    Professor Sir John Shaw

    Sir Robert Scholey

    Dr. Robert Telfer

    Miss Janet Trotter

    Professor David Watson

    This body assumed the functions of the PCFC and UFC on 1 April 1993

    National Council for Educational Technology
    Chairman:

    Mr. Jon Richards

    Members:

    Ms. Sandra Davies

    Dr. Michael Garnett

    Professor Ruth Gee

    Mr. Barnaby Gibbens

    Mrs. Jean Irvine

    Ms Pat Lowrie

    Mr. Owen Lynch

    Ms Unaiza Malik

    Ms Snehalathia Menon

    Mr. Kevin Satchwell

    Mr. Roderick Scarth

    Mr. Peter Shuker

    Mrs. Barbara Vanderstock

    Mr. John Young

    Four vacancies since 1 April 1992

    National Curriculum Council
    Chairman:

    287

    Sir Ron Dearing, CB, appointed 19 April 1993 (Remuneration increased to £293 per day)

    Members:

    Mr. John Burn

    Mrs. Penny Cooper

    Mr. Brian Hutchinson

    Mrs. Anne Locke

    Mrs. Brenda Lofthouse

    Mr. Graham Mackenzie

    Dr. John Marks

    Mr. John McIntosh

    Professor David Regan

    Professor Alan Smithers

    Dr. Roger Vaughan

    Mr. Anthony Wates

    Mrs. Jennifer Wisker

    One additional member appointed since 1 April 1992

    National Youth Agency Management Committee
    Chairman:

    Ms Jennifer Wisker

    Members:

    Mr. Nicholas Cross

    Ms Althea Efunshile

    Mrs. Sarah Joiner

    Ms Alison Murray

    Mr. Tanner Shields

    Mr. Linbert Spencer

    School Examinations and Assessment Council
    Chairman:

    Sir Ron Dearing, CB, appointed 19 April 1993. Remuneration increased to £293 per day)

    Chief Executive:

    Dr. Hilary Nicolle, full-time appointment—increase to £57,764

    Members:

    Mr. Roy Atkinson

    Mr. John Barnes

    Mrs. Janet Cohen

    Dr. Philip Evans

    Mrs. Janet Kowalski

    Mr. Arwel George

    Dr. John Marks

    Mr. Stephen Nepaulsingh

    Miss Gillian Peele

    Mr. Anthony Pellegrini

    Ms Kathleen Tattersal

    Mr. Philip Wood

    One vacancy since 1 April 1992

    Teaching as a Career Unit Board
    Chairman:

    Philip Merridale

    Members:

    Mr. J. Dodds

    Mr. J. Hendy

    Dr. Bernard Kingston

    Councillor P. Mullany

    Mr. I. Slocombe

    Ms C. Whatford

    Mr. G. Williams

    Professor M. Williams

    The following public bodies have been wound up since 1 April 1992:

    Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA)

    Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC)

    Universities Funding Council (UFC)

    Open University Visiting Committee (OUVC)

    Visiting Committee for Cranfield Institute of Technology (VCCIT)

    Visiting Committee for the Royal College of Art (VCRCA)

    The following public bodies have assumed their functions
    288
    since 1 April 1992:

    The Higher Education Funding Council, England (HEFCE)

    The Further Education Funding Council (England) (FEFC)

  Truancy
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education when the report of the investigation into levels of truancy in English secondary schools, which was carried out by the University of North London on commission from his Department, will be published.

  Mr. Forth
  Advance copies of the report have been published today. A copy is being placed in the Library.

WALES

  Rail Rover Tickets
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the loss to Welsh tourism if the Freedom of Wales rail rover ticket were not continued by the rail passenger franchise operators planned for the principality.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  I see no reason why Welsh tourism should suffer any loss. British Rail operates the existing scheme for sound commercial reasons and it will be in the best interests of a franchise to continue similar arrangements.

  Dental Health
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy to prohibit the manufacturers of fruit drinks with a high dental caries predisposition to market their products through free promotions in schools.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department has no powers to do so. The matter is primarily one for individual schools.

  Sheep Scab
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish figures showing the monthly reported incidents of sheep scab in Wales in each year since 1987.

  Mr. Redwood
  The number of reported incidents of sheep scab in Wales for each month since 1987 is as follows:

  Sheep Scab confirmed cases in Wales 1987–1992

  Number

  1987

  January

  4

  February

  3

  June

  2

  July

  5

  Total

  14

  1988

  November

  5

  December

  4

  Total

  9

  1989

  January

  3

  289

  Number

  October

  1

  December

  1

  Total

  5

  1990

  February

  5

  March

  2

  December

  2

  Total

  9

  1991

  January

  4

  February

  1

  April

  3

  May

  2

  July

  1

  August

  1

  September

  1

  December

  2

  Total

  15

  1992

  January

  6

  February

  2

  March

  3

  Percentage of science budget allocated to the University of Wales

  Aberystwyth

  Bangor

  Cardiff

  Swansea

  St. Davids

  College of Medicine

  Science budget support to HEIs

  1988–89

  0.17

  0.24

  0.40

  0.20

  —

  0.04

  41.46

  1989–90

  0.17

  0.21

  0.53

  0.25

  —

  0.05

  43.39

  1990–91

  0.16

  0.25

  0.46

  0.25

  —

  0.06

  44.65

  1991–92

  0.25

  0.19

  0.45

  0.31

  0.02

  0.05

  44.52

  11992–93

  0.22

  0.21

  0.47

  0.35

  —

  0.05

  49.40

  1 Estimate.

  Note: The figures exclude the Medical Research Council training awards, the Economic and Social Research Council funding prior to 1991–92, and funds provided to the colleges via research council institutes and interdisciplinary research centres.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Chartered Association of Certified Accountants
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what powers he has to investigate the balloting for elections for the council of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I have no such powers.

  Auditing
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has made of the cost savings to small businesses as a result of a partial abolition of small company audits and a requirement to produce a compilation report by accountants.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the consultative document issued by my Department in April, entitled "Audit and Accounting Requirements for Very Small Companies", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he has for legislation under which auditing firms would be prevented from writing up board minutes of their audit clients and then auditing the same.
  290

  Number

  April

  2

  Total

  13

  Note: Figures are available only up to May 1992.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  University of Wales
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proportion of the Government's science budget was allocated to each constituent college of the university of Wales for each year since 1988; and what is the projected figure for 1993–94.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The approximate proportion of the science budget allocated to the colleges of the University of Wales is shown in the table below for the financial years 1988–89 to 1992–93. This includes expenditure on research grants, studentships and fellowships. Projected figures for 1993–94 are not available as many grants are made in responsive mode and are therefore dependent on project proposals submitted.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  Under the Companies Act 1989, a person who is an officer or employee of a company—or a partner or employee of such a person—is prohibited from being appointed as auditor of the company. Moreover, under the Act the Secretary of State may recognise supervisory bodies for auditors only if the body appears to him to have adequate rules and practices designed to ensure that company audit work is conducted properly and with integrity, and that persons are not appointed as company auditors in circumstances in which they have an interest likely to conflict with the proper conduct of the audit.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he has for legislation to require the auditors of public limited companies to publish information about their affairs.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  An auditor which is a company or an unregistered company within the meaning of the Companies Act 1985 is already subject to the disclosure requirements of that Act. I have no plans to extend those requirements to unincorporated bodies, save for those partnerships which would be subject to the Partnerships and Unlimited Companies (Accounts) Regulations 1993, a draft of which was laid before the House on 21 June.
  291

  Supervisory Bodies
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to increase the public accountability of the bodies authorised to act as recognised supervisory bodies under the Companies Act 1989.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the reports for the year to 30 September 1992 by the five Recognised supervisory bodies, which were prepared and submitted to me under section 37 of the Companies Act 1989, and copies of which are in the Library.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he will be reviewing the operation of the recognised supervisory bodies.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  My Department will be reviewing later this year the operation of the recognised supervisory bodies procedures for monitoring compliance by their members with their rules.

  Auditing Practices Board
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations his Department has made to the Auditing Practices Board on the contents of the proposed going concern standard.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  My Department wrote to the Auditing Practices Board on 21 May with its comments on a draft of the proposed statement of auditing standards on going concern.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) what steps he has taken to ensure that the employing organisations of the members of the Auditing Practices Board do not exercise influence over its proceedings;

  (2) what plans he has to seek views on the membership of the Auditing Practices Board from (a) the Commission for Racial Equality and (b) the Equal Opportunities Commission.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The constitution and procedures of the Auditing Practices Board are matters for the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies.

  Accounting Standards Board
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what will be the cost of seconding his Department's head of accounting and auditing division, Mr. M. Butcher, to the Accounting Standards Board.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The secondment is expected to last for about one year. The Department has agreed to meet salary and salary-related costs for up to three months of this period. On the basis and at current salary levels the direct cost to DTI will not exceed £15,000.

  Bank of Credit and Commerce International
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what has been the total sum to date that his Department has collected from the 15 per cent. audit fees in the assets of bankruptcy from BCCI; and if he will make a statement.
  292
  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  BCCI is subject to compulsory liquidation proceedings and the total sum collected by the Department from the Secretary of State fee (previously known as the audit fee) since 1991 is £751,502. The Department cannot separately identify how much of this was collected at the 15 per cent. rate.

  The Secretary of State fee scales were amended on 14 January 1992 which has the effect of reducing the fee chargeable on amounts over £20 million.

  The total Secretary of State fee collected from all compulsory liquidations in 1992–93 was £4,870,885. Fees are used to defray the costs of the Insolvency Service.

  Pit Closures
  Mr. Anthony Coombs
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what progress has been achieved in implementing the £200 million regeneration package for pit closure areas.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Since October Lord Walker has been working with Government Departments, English Estates, British Coal Enterprise, training and enterprise councils and local bodies to determine how best the package could be used. The framework of regeneration measures announced in October and enhanced in the Government's White Paper "The Prospects for Coal" (Cm 2235) has now been put in place in all areas affected by pit closures.

  This is the start of the process of regeneration. In all areas local bodies are working together to ensure that these measures lead to new employment.

  Measures announced so far for each area are:

  NORTH EAST

  English Estates

  £16 million for the provision of industrial and commercial sites.

  TECs

  An additional £9.887 million budget allocation for TECs in coalfield areas.

  Coalfield Areas Fund

  £250k for regeneration projects in Easington.

  Enterprise Zone

  A proposed Enterprise Zone in the vicinity of Easington.

  Tyne and Wear Development Corporation

  £4 million for the TWDC.

  YORKSHIRE AND HUMBERSIDE

  English Estates

  £24 million for the provision of industrial and commercial sites.

  Plans announced:

  Barnsley—192,000 sq ft of additional factory/workshop space and 7.5 acres of land for further industrial schemes.

  Doncaster—110,000 sq ft of factories and workshops.

  Rotherham—30,000 sq ft of factories.

  TECS

  An additional £15.258 million budget allocation for TECS in coalfield areas.

  Coalfield Areas Fund

  Over £275k for regeneration projects.

  Enterprise Zone

  A proposed Enterprise Zone in the vicinity of the Dearne Valley.

  AA Status

  Barnsley, Doncaster to be upgraded to Development Areas in new Assisted Areas map.

  EAST MIDLANDS

  English Estates

  £21 million for the provision of industrial and commercial sites.
  293
  Plans announced:

  The provision of 93,000 sq ft of new factory space.

  TECS

  An additional £16.774 million budget allocation for TECS in coalfield areas.

  Robin Hood Line

  £6.5 million to help extend the Robin Hood Line from Newstead to Mansfield.

  Coalfield Areas Fund

  £1.4 million for regeneration projects in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

  East Midlands Regional Development Organisation

  £250k for the new East Midlands Regional Development Organisation.

  Enterprise Zone

  A proposed Enterprise Zone in the Vicinity of Mansfield.

  AA Status

  Mansfield to become an Assisted Area in new AA map.

  Regional Enterprise Grants

  Regional Enterprise Grants extended to specific wards in coalfield areas.

  WEST MIDLANDS

  English Estates

  £7 million for the provision of industrial and commercial sites.

  Plans announced:

  77,500 sq ft of new factory space and the acquisition of a 26 acre site.

  TECS

  An additional £4.793 million budget allocation for TECS in coalfield areas.

  Coalfield Areas Fund

  £826k for regeneration projects in Stoke.

  Regional Enterprise Grants

  Regional Enterprise Grants extended to specific wards in the Trentham area.

  NORTH WEST

  English Estates

  £4 million for the provision of industrial and commercial sites.

  Plans announced:

  88,000 sq ft of new factory space and acquisition of 10 acres of land.

  TECS

  An additional £2.178 million budget allocation for TECs in coalfield areas announced.

  Coalfield Areas Fund

  £270k for regeneration projects.

  BRITISH COAL ENTERPRISE

  Through the provision of Job Shops and investment in workspace for small businesses, British Coal Enterprise is providing counselling for all miners made redundant and backing young and growing companies across all affected areas.

  Region

  1987–88 to 1989–90

  1990–91 to June 1993

  Number of projects

  Amount of assistance

  Number of jobs

  Number of projects

  Amount of assistance

  Number of jobs

  £ million

  £ million

  East Midlands

  7

  0.7

  100

  20

  2.7

  534

  North East

  49

  3.7

  1,401

  104

  50.3

  5,738

  North West

  29

  2.4

  673

  70

  11.1

  2,358

  South West

  11

  2.9

  395

  9

  2.3

  489

  West Midlands

  3

  0.1

  111

  27

  6.9

  2,636

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  19

  1.7

  371

  32

  11.0

  3,463

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish the criteria submitted by his Department to the European Commission in connection with the submission of the assisted areas map to the European Commission on 15 June; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 23 June 1993]: In order not to prejudice negotiation with the European
  294

  Gas (Exempt Supplies) Act
  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to lay an order to bring into force the Gas (Exempt Supplies) Act 1993; and if he will consider streamlining the handling of authorisations for the supply of propane and butane in the interim period.

  Mr. Eggar
  I expect to bring the Act into force by mid-1994. In the meantime when existing authorisations for the supply of propane and butane expire they will be extended by the Director General of Gas Supply. As regards new authorisations, applicants will simply have to demonstrate that they:

  (a) had given the appropriate notice under the Pipelines Act 1962;

  (b) had systems which had been installed/inspected by a company or individual belonging to the LP Gas Association or another properly qualified engineer;

  (c) operated, or planned to operate when supply commenced, either directly or via an agency agreement, an arrangement whereby immediate action to prevent reported gas escapes can be initiated by telephone on a 24 hour basis; and

  (d) had secured, or planned to secure when supply commenced, rights of entry to premises supplied in order to deal with gas escapes or other damages arising from the supply of gas to the premises.

  I am reviewing the Gas (Authorisation Application) Regulations 1986 and will revise them as necessary to reflect the reduced information requirements in support of applications for LPG supply authorisations.

  Assisted Areas
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 9 June,Official Report, column 254, if he will provide a regional breakdown of projects, spending and jobs created for each year.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 21 June 1993]: On re-examination of our computer records we have discovered that the information given in our earlier reply about the number of projects supported was incorrect. The figure should have been 378 and not 651 as previously stated. The amount of grant paid and the number of jobs, were not affected.

  A breakdown of the information given in the earlier reply by region and for each year from 1987–88 is as follows:

  Commission, no information on the proposed assisted areas map will be released until it has been agreed with the Commission.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what discussions he had with local authorities in(a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Northern Ireland and

  295
  (d) Scottish district and regional councils prior to the submission of the assisted areas map to the European Commission on 15 June; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 23 June 1993]: Ministerial colleagues in Scotland, Wales and my own Department and I myself have met a number of delegations from local authorities during the assisted areas map review. As the review is of assisted areas in Great Britain, there have been no discussions with local authorities from Northern Ireland.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Somalia
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made in establishing police forces in Somalia.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  During the first months of 1993, UNOSOM and UNITAF provided assistance for the establishment of auxiliary police forces in various parts of Somalia including Mogadishu, Baidoa, Bardera, Belet Huen and Kismayo. These forces, numbering 5,000 officers, were reconstituted as the Somalia Police Force on 4 May 1993. Local police forces also operate in Hargeisa and Bossaso.

  UNOSOM II is now preparing a plan for the establishment of police, prison and judicial systems throughout Somalia. The Overseas Development Administration's overseas police adviser will visit Somalia in July to determine how best Her Majesty's Government can support the development of police forces in the north-west.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will give details of the Government's and EC's programmes approved within the past year geared to the reconstruction of Somali society.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Our bilateral emergency relief assistance has supported the reopening of schools, provision of basic health, water and sanitation services, supply of seeds and tools for farmers and help for the reintegration of displaced persons. We continue to explore with relief agencies the potential for further support for rehabilitation activities and have offered funds and technical expertise for project identification missions.

  EC assistance has supported a de-mining programme and the provision of veterinary services and water supplies. A joint EC/member states team plans to visit Somalia next month to identify potential areas for EC rehabilitation assistance to be funded from the special initiative for Africa, agreed at the 25 May Development Council.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment has been made by(a) his Department and (b) the EC of the adequacy of their response to the Somali crisis since the beginning of 1992.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Her Majesty's Government and the European Commission were among the first to respond to the crisis in Somalia with the provision of food and non-food emergency assistance. Since January 1992 British bilateral humanitarian aid commitments have 296
  totalled over £27 million. EC commitments have totalled almost £100 million of which the United Kingdom share is £16.68 million.

  The capacity of all aid agencies to operate effectively continues to be constrained by prevailing security conditions. My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development led an EC troika of Development Ministers in September 1992 to assess needs and has seconded an ODA official to the office of the United Nations Secretary-General's special representative to Somalia, Admiral Howe, to help plan the process of recovery and to provide advice on how we might assist. A joint EC/member states team plans to visit next month to assess the future EC aid programme.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what dates over the last five years(a) the World Health Organisation, (b) the Food and Agricultural Organisation and (c) UNICEF have been operating in Somalia; and what are their current activities.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Until 1991 WHO, FAO and UNICEF operated continuously in Somalia. From 1991 to date their provision of support for relief operations in Somalia has continued, although at various stages international staff have been withdrawn.

  UNICEF activities include the provision of primary health care, food for mothers and children and restoration of water supplies. FAO supports the provision of emergency seeds, veterinary services and the re-equipping of farmers and fishermen. WHO is supporting the establishment of an epidemiological surveillance system, control of communicable diseases and the supply of essential drugs.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what has been the policy of(a) UNITAF and (b) UNOSOM 2 in respect of disarming the warring factions in Somalia.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Broadly, UNITAF carried out disarmament when it was considered essential to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid. The mandate for UNOSOM II granted by UNSCR 814 emphasised the crucial importance of disarmament and the urgent need to build on the efforts of UNITAF. This process has already begun.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the United Nations about its civil reconstruction activities in Somalia since the UNITAF deployment.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  We have had frequent contact with the United Nations over the issue of civil reconstruction, must recently during the visit to New York earlier this month by my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development. We have also participated in the several UN-sponsored conferences that covered the issue, including the meeting in Nairobi on 22 June.
  297

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Rail Rover Tickets
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what assessment he has made of the loss of income to the tourist industry which would result if rail rover tickets were not continued by private rail franchise operators.

  Mr. Sproat
  No such assessment has been made.

  British Rail (Tour Ticketing)
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what discussions he has held with representatives of the tourist industry about the impact of the loss of British Rail's present inclusive tour ticketing arrangements if these were not continued by private sector rail franchise operators.

  Mr. Sproat
  I am fully aware of the concerns of representatives of the tourism industry. On Monday 21 June I met the Council for Travel and Tourism, and noted its concerns regarding the continuation of tour ticketing arrangements. I am, however, confident that as these tickets are very popular with passengers the private sector will be keen to retain these products.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will list the names, occupations and current employers of those who currently hold positions in each public body to which he makes appointments; if he will make a statement on the considerations taken into account when making such appointments; and if he will list details of the posts and salaries or allowances payable which have changed since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992".

  Mr. Sproat
  The Department of National Heritage does not currently hold a central list containing the occupation, current employers and remuneration of public appointees and to assemble this information would involve disproportionate cost. Careful consideration is given to the specific skills and experience required for each appointment and to the personal qualities and background of the appointee.

  Royal Palaces
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage, pursuant to his reply of 25 May,Official Report, columns 482–83, if he will give a breakdown of (a) the categories of expenditure at each of the occupied royal palaces and (b) the amount spent on utilities, wages and other costs.

  Mr.Sproat
  [holding answer 16 June 1993]: The figures for property service in 1992–93, broken down by palace where this information is kept separately, are as shown. The breakdown also shows expenditure on running costs (not broken down by palace), utilities and fire precautions.
  298

  Breakdown of expenditure at each of the occupied Royal Palaces in 1992–93 in £000s

  £000

  £000

  Running costs (not possible to break down this figure)—including salaries and other administration costs such as auditors

  1.109

  Projects costing £150,000 or more

  Buckingham palace

  1.003

  Windsor castle

  8.586

  St. James's palace and Clarence house

  0.762

  Kensington palace

  0.041

  Other

  0.423

  10.815

  Projects from £25,000 to £150,000

  Buckingham palace

  2.134

  Windsor castle

  0.341

  St. James's palace and Clarence house

  0.466

  Kensington palace

  0.472

  Other

  0.771

  4.184

  Jobs costing less than £2,500

  In-house labour (not broken down)

  0.438

  Contract labour

  Buckingham palace

  0.603

  Windsor castle

  0.188

  St. James's palace and Clarence house

  0.177

  Kensington palace

  0.096

  Other

  0.158

  1.660

  Other

  0.470

  Recoveries

  -0.719

  Total maintenance

  16.410

  Furniture and equipment

  Buckingham palace

  0.066

  Windsor castle

  0.070

  St. James's palace and Clarence house

  0.121

  Kensington palace

  0.001

  Other1

  0.339

  Recoveries

  -0.020

  0.577

  Utilities

  Buckingham palace

  0.889

  Windsor castle

  0.428

  St. James's palace and Clarence house

  0.180

  Kensington palace

  0.035

  In-house water—Windsor

  0.033

  In-house water—other

  0.023

  Other

  0.198

  Recoveries

  -0.131

  1.655

  Other operational expenditure

  Fire service

  London—wages

  0.096

  London—other

  0.164

  Windsor—wages

  0.128

  Windsor—other

  0.021

  Fire officers inspection

  0.008

  0.417

  Functions, royal gardens, custody guard services, etc.

  2.135

  Interest

  -0.308

  Windsor castle salvage

  1.164

  299

  £000

  £000

  23.159

  1 Includes a figure of £23,000 paid from moneys left from an earlier year. Actual grant-in-aid provision for 1992–93 is £23,136.

HEALTH

  NHS Budget
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the budget for the national health service in London in each year from 1991–92 to 1994–95 as a percentage of the total NHS budget.

  Mr. Sackville
  There are no budgets for most elements of family health services expenditure, which is primarily demanded and funded accordingly. Final cash limits (budgets) for district health authorities are set by regional health authorities and are not available centrally.

  Isobutyl Nitrite
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will investigate the extent of abuse of isobutyl nitrite among school children; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Bowis
  The Department funds the St. George's hospital medical school to produce annual reports on trends in deaths from volatile substance abuse, which includes deaths associated with abuse of alkyl nitrites. Copies of the latest report will be placed in the Library.

  Social Work Training
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the future of social work training.

  Mr. Bowis
  On 21 June my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced the appointment of a new chairman of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW), the body responsible for the promotion and regulation of social work training. At the same time, we published the Government response to a recent policy and financial management review of CCETSW, which emphasised that the main task of the central council must be to ensure that social services training of vocational, professional and post-qualifying levels properly equips staff to meet the needs of the 1990s. Copies of the report of the review and the Government's response will be placed in the Library.

  NHS Meetings (Public Admission)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health in what circumstances an NHS authority or trust can exclude members of the public from its meetings; what procedure has to be followed to provide for such exclusion and for publicising decisions affecting the public made at closed meetings; and if she will make a statement.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The national health service should be as open as possible to patients and others who rely upon its services. The meetings of NHS authorities are governed by the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960.300
  The meetings of NHS trusts are governed by the NHS and Community Care Act 1990. All decisions on the level and and manner of providing health services should be made public, and decisions about significant changes are subject to formal consultation procedures.

  Post-operative Care
  Mr. Loyden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to introduce charges for post-operative care in the NHS; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Sackville
  None.

  Liverpool Women's Hospital
  Mr. Loyden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the reorganisation of the women's hospital in Liverpool.

  Mr. Sackville
  Liverpool health authority approved proposals for the provision of a new women's hospital in 1991, following a positive response to public consultation. Construction of the new women's hospital is well under way and it will be operational in spring 1995. The hon. Member may wish to contact Ms J. Greensmith, chairman of Liverpool Obstetric and Gynaecology Services National Health Service Trust, for more details.

  Matrons
  Mr. Lord
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will now urgently reintroduce into all national health service hospitals, the title and traditional job specification of matron in order to improve the quality of nursing supervision.

  Mr. Sackville
  There remains a key professional leadership role for a senior nurse in all national health service hospitals. The exact titles and job specifications of senior nurses are best decided locally. The title "matron" may be used if this is felt to be appropriate by local managers.

  Every national health service trust is required to have a senior nurse as an executive director.

  UKCC for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many representations she has received in the last five years from(a) nurses and (b) patients concerned with decisions made by the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors professional conduct committee.

  Mr. Sackville
  [holding answer 15 June 1993]: Two from patients' relatives since September 1991. Records prior to that date are not comprehensive.

SCOTLAND

  Caledonian MacBrayne
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the contributions made from EC funds to the development of termini serving the Caledonian MacBrayne network in each of the past 10 years, stating existing ownership in each case.
  301
  Mr. Stewart
  [holding answer 23 June 1993]: The information is not readily available in the format requested. The total contribution made from EC funds to

  Piers/Linkspans

  Year of award

  EC allocation

  Total EC grant paid

  £

  £

  Tobermory pier

  1985

  110,000

  110,000

  Gourock pier

  1985

  175,000

  158,351

  Rothesay pier

  1985

  37,000

  33,306

  Lochaline slipway

  1987

  43,000

  43,000

  Lochboisdale quay wall

  1989

  200,000

  200,000

  Oban pier construction

  1985

  750,000

  750,000

  Wemyss Bay pier

  1988

  945,000

  943,548

  Tarbert, Harris linkspan

  1984

  750,000

  676,772

  Colonsay linkspan

  1988

  805,500

  802,250

  Castlebay linkspan

  1989

  950,000

  917,037

  Kennacraig linkspan

  1989

  150,000

  146,435

  Coll and Tiree linkspan

  1991

  2,331,931

  2,331,931

  Mallaig linkspan

  1993

  800,000

  —

  Fionnphort berthing facility

  1993

  40,000

  —

  Brodick passenger terminal building

  1993

  120,000

  —

  Brodick berthing facility

  1993

  120,000

  36,488

  Kennacraig berthing facility

  1993

  120,000

  —

  Note: All these facilities are owned by Caledonian MacBrayne.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the names, occupations and current employers of those who currently hold positions in each public body to which he makes appointments; if he will make a statement on the considerations taken into account when making such appointments; and if he will list details of the posts and salaries or allowances payable which have changed since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992".

  Miss Widdecombe
  In view of the number of appointments made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I will write to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  Industrial Tribunals
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for employment how many applications have been made since 1979 to industrial tribunals for interim relief; how many applications were successful; and how many were rejected.

  Miss Widdecombe
  [holding answer 23 June 1993]: I regret that figures for the years 1979 to 1991 are not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The provisional figures for the period 1 April 1992 to 31 March 1993 are as follows:

  Number

  Registered applications

  94

  Successful cases

  2

  Rejected cases

  32

  Settled withdrawn

  24

  Carried forward changed jurisdiction

  36

  302
  the development of termini serving the Caledonian MacBrayne network during the past 10 years is given in the following table:

PRIME MINISTER

  Political Parties (Funding)
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will introduce legislation to require political parties that have received moneys from a source that has been shown to be criminal to return such funds to the appropriate body.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 21 June 1993 ]: I have no plans to do so.

EMPLOYMENT

  Vocational Training Schemes
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps should be taken by individuals wishing to claim unemployment benefit while undertaking a nationally recognised vocational training scheme following the announcement in the Budget statement of 16 March.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service Agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Mr. M. Fogden to Mr. Tim Devlin, dated 25 June 1993:

  As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to write to you direct to respond to your Parliamentary Question to him about what steps should be taken by individuals wishing to claim unemployment benefit whilse undertaking a nationally recognised vocational training scheme following the announcement in the Budget statement of 16th March. This is something that falls within the responsibilities he has delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency.

  For Training for Work (TFW) participants, allowances are paid at the benefit level previously in payment but with an addition of £10 Premium. In cases where there is no entitlement to benefit or benefit has ceased, the £10 Premium only is payable. Information on joining TFW is available from all Employment Service local offices.
  303
  For clients on Learning For Work (LfW), the situation will be slightly different with allowances at the benefit level previously in payment but with no Premium being payable. Where there is no entitlement to benefit or benefit has ceased, no allowance will be payable. The programme will be starting on 1 September 1993 in England and Wales and on 16 August 1993 in Scotland. Information on joining LfW will be available from Employment Service local offices.

  Unemployment benefit offers support whilst a person is unemployed and seeking work; it is not intended as support for courses of vocational training or study. In order to receive unemployment benefit, people undertaking any type of training must remain available for and be actively seeking work, and be willing to rearrange their study, if necessary to evenings and weekends, to enable them to take up an opportunity of employment. Should this not be possible they would have to abandon the course in favour of employment. They must also continue to take reasonable steps to seek work. Participating in a course of vocational training may be regarded as one reasonable step but they would also be expected to take additional steps.

  I hope this is helpful.

  As decided by the Administration Committee of the House of Commons, Chief Executive replies to written Parliamentary Questions will now be published in the Official Report. I will also place a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Environmental Policy
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his Department's policy on the purchase and use of(a) recycled paper, (b) low-energy light bulbs, (c) tropical hardwoods, (d) peat and (e) cars with catalytic converters.

  Mr. Goodlad
  Within the overall objective of obtaining value for money, the policy of both diplomatic and aid wings of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the purchase of the items listed is:

  (a) to purchase recycled paper wherever cost-effective and where it meets operational requirements;

  (b) to replace standard light bulbs with high-efficiency, low-energy alternatives throughout all office accommodation and to ensure that all new and refurbished buildings are provided with such lighting;

  (c) to ensure that, as far as possible, all timber purchased is from sustainable sources, particularly in relation to teak and mahogany. No rosewood is used;

  (d) no peat or peat-based products are purchased. Advice for missions overseas is that loam-based composts should be used for containered plants;

  (e) to provide overseas posts and aid projects with petrol engined vehicles fitted with catalytic converters wherever unleaded fuel is readily available. The small UK fleet is exclusively diesel-engined.

  Royal Family
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 7 June,Official Report, columns 82–83, what was the cost to the Department of each of the overseas visits by members of the royal family other than the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh during the financial year 1992–93.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave on 24 June at col.239.
  304

  Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which officials of his Department attended the meeting on THORP, held at 1 Parliament street, London on 15 June.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  None.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the names, occupations and current employers of those who currently hold positions in each public body to which he makes appointments; if he will make a statement on the considerations taken into account when making such appointments; and if he will list details of the posts and salaries or allowances payable which have changed since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992".

  Mr. Goodlad
  The information requested is as follows:

  Public Appointments

    CHANGES IN SALARY OR ALLOWANCES SINCE PUBLICATION OF PUBLIC BODIES 1992
    PUBLIC BODY OR NAME
    Britain-Russia Centre

    Sir Curtis Keeble

    Mr. Peter Temple-Morris, MP

    Sir Russell Johnston, MP

    Rt. hon. John Smith QC, MP

    British Association for Central and Eastern Europe

    Rt. hon. Paul Channon

    Professor George Cushing

    Mr. Giles Radice, MP

    Mr. Alex Carlisle, QC, MP

    British Council

    Sir Martin Jacomb—£9,500

    Lord Chorley

    Rt. hon. T. Renton, MP

    Mr. George Robertson, MP

    Commonwealth Institute

    Mr. R. A. Fyjis-Walker

    Mr. D. A. Thompson

    Mr. C. Shepherd

    Mr. G. Oakes

    Hon. David Douglas-Home

    Sir Victor Garland

    Miss Diana Warwick

    Mr. J. S. Maclure

    Sir Mark Russell

    Mr. Cy Grant

    Dr. Ann Robinson

    Baroness Flather

    Sir Michael Caine

    Great Britain-China Centre

    Mr. Graham Greene

    Mr. Gerard Mansell

    Sir John Swire

    Lady Youde

    Marshall and Commemoration Commission

    Sir D. Tebbit

    Sir James Ball

    Sir Roger Bannister

    Professor Christine Bolt

    Sir Arthur Bryan

    Professor Lord Desai

    Professor H. T. Dickinson

    Dr. K. J. R. Edwards

    Ms. Sue McGregor

    Westminster Foundation for Democracy

    Sir James Spicer, MP

    Mr. George Robertson, MP

    Sir Russell Johnston, MP

    Mr. Tony Clarke

    Mrs. Margaret Ewing, MP

    Professor Peter Frank

    Mr. Timothy Garton Ash

    Lady Howe, JP

    Mr. Gavin Laird

    Mr. Ralph Land

    Mr. Patrick Nicholls, MP

    Mr. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky

    Mr. Ian Taylor, MP

    Ms Carole Tongue, MEP

    Commonwealth Development Corporation

    Sir Peter E. Leslie—£25,7301

    Sir Michael Caine—£8,856

    Mrs. A. E. Wright, JP—£4,821

    Professor M. L. O. Faber—£4,821

    Mr. M. McWilliam—£4,821

    Mr. E. B. Waide—£4,821

    Professor I. D. Carruthers—£4,821

    Mr. J. B. Zochonis—£4,821

    1 This appointment, which was for one day a week at the time of the publication of Public Bodies 1992, is now for two days a week.
    Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

    Sir Michael Caine

    Dr. A. Sloman

    Professor R. A. Howie

    Professor B. Clayton

    Professor J. G. G. Ledingham

    Mrs. D. L. Wedderburn

    Professor S. Marks

    Professor Gillian Beer

    Dr. C. Booth

    Dr. R. O. Iredale

    Dr. P. Parsloe

    Professor A. Little

    Professor D. Jennings

    Mr. R. Francis

    Professor A. Diplock

    Crown Agents1

    Mr. D. H. Probert

    Dr. A. I. Lenton

    Mr. P. F. Berry

    Mrs. D. Miller JP

    Miss K. Mortimer

    Mr. A. K. Stewart-Roberts

    Mr. F. Cassell CB

    Mr. J. D. Andrewes

    Mr. F. I. Sumner

    1 When members are appointed to this board they are also appointed to the Crown Agents Holding and Realisation Board.
    Diplomatic Service Appeals Board

    Sir Derek Day

    Mrs. Juliet Campbell

    Mr. Frank Trew

    Sir David Calcutt QC

    Sir Mark Russell

    Mr. Rodney Bedford

    Miss Sally Bull

    Mrs. Jacqueline Dyson

    Government Hospitality Fund Advisory Committee for the Purchase of Wine

    Sir Ewen Fergusson

    Major John Surtees

    Mr. Anthony Hanson

    Mr. Mark Savage

    Mr. Sebastian Payne

    Wilton Park Academic Council

    Mrs. Liliana Archibald

    Mr. Anthony Bruce

    Sir Julian Bullard

    306

    Mrs. Juliet Campbell

    Miss Brenda Dean

    Mr. John Drew

    Mr. Bruce George MP

    Mr. John Hanson

    Mr. Nicholas Harvey MP

    Mr. Michael Kaser

    Mr. John Lyons

    Dr. Connie Martin

    Dr. Janet Morgan

    Mr. Edward Mortimer

    Mr. John Scates

    Professor Jack Spence

    Mr. Peter Temple-Morris MP

    Professor Helen Wallace

    Mrs. Ruth Watts Davies

    Miss Valerie Le Moignan

    ODA Advisory Committee on Economic and Social Research Overseas

    Mr. J. B. Wilmshurst

    Mr. A. Williams

    Dr. S. Conlin

    Dr. R. Thomas

    Ms C. Coppard

    Mr. A. Hall

    Professor the Reverend Roland Moss

    Dr. C. O. N. Moser

    Professor A. W. Rew

    Dr. F. Stewart

    Professor J. F. J. Toye

    Dr. H. Afshar

    Professor P. Blaikie

    Professor K. Davey

    Ms D. Elson

    Dr. J. Heyer

    Professor N. Stern

    Indian Family Pension Funds Body of Commissioners

    Mr. D. S. Fish

    Major General D. L. T. Horsford

    Major R. J. Henderson

    Lt Col P. Kemmis-Betty

    Major R. Mottram

    Mr. R. V. Fenton

    Mr. J. M. Phelps

    Mr. J. P. C. Coventry

    Mr. G. E. D. Walker

    Mrs. P. Lamarque

    Mrs. H. Ramsay-Brown

    Overseas Service Pensions Scheme Advisory Board

    Mr. J. V. Kerby

    Mr. D. S. Fish

    Mr. C. D. Stenton

    Miss D. R. Phillips

    Mr. D. H. Loades

    Appointments are made on the basis of the skills and experience that the individual will bring to the post, with due regard to equality of opportunity and, where appropriate, statutory requirements.
    Information on the current occupations and employers of all holders of public appointments is not held centrally.

  St. Helena
  Dr. Marek
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what electrical services undertaken by the Public Works and Services Department of St. Helena have been privatised.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  [holding answer 18 June 1993]: From 1 June 1993, the provision and maintenance of electrical installations in private properties has been undertaken by the private sector.

  Dr. Marek
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the present scale of
  307
  fees and charges payable for medical attention by citizens of St. Helena; and what were the comparable figures in real terms 10 and 20 years ago.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  [holding answer 18 June 1993]: The table gives the fees arid charges payable by citizens of St. Helena in respect of medical attention, in-patient and

  Attention/Treatment

  1993

  1983

  1977

  £

  £

  £

  1. Consultation by appointment

  3.00

  2.00

  1.00

  2. Home visits

  3.00

  2.00

  0.50

  3. Hospital charges

  (a) General ward1

  3.00

  1.00

  1.00

  (b) Single ward2 3(all charges per day)

  7.50

  5.00

  3.00

  4. Operation fees inclusive of Assistant and anaesthetists fees

  2.00–100

  0.75–50

  0.75–50

  5. Maternity fees4

  7.50

  5.00

  2.00

  6. Prescriptions (per item)

  0.40

  0.30

  0.20

  7. Miscellaneous x-rays (per plate)

  2.00

  1.00–5.00

  1.00–5.00

  Laboratory investigations

  1.00–7.50

  0.25–5.00

  0.25–1.00

  8. Use of ambulance (charged per mile; discretionary charge only—waived in emergency cases

  0.35

  —

  —

  9. Medical examination

  5.00

  —

  —

  10. Vaccination

  1.50

  —

  —

  Free treatment for children up to 15 years of age and to all persons in receipt of social services payments and to proven cases of hardship

  same

  same

  Free ante-natal and post-natal care for islanders

  same

  same

  A medical officer may reduce fees at his discretion for treatment of diabetes and any similar chronic illnesses or conditions

  same

  same

  No charge will be made for family planning services

  same

  same

  Dental charges

  1. Dentures

  10.00

  2.50–7.50

  —

  2. Extractions (each)

  1.00

  free

  —

  3. Prescriptions

  0.40

  —

  —

  Notes:

  1 Includes all other fees except operation fees. Maternity is charged under item 5 and not under this item.

  2 Includes all other fees except operation and maternity fees.

  3When a patient is accommodated in a single ward at the discretion of a medical officer, this fee may be reduced to the level of the general ward fee.

  4 Single ward charge additional (if applicable).

DEFENCE

  Aldermaston
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list all toxic chemicals discharged into the environment or disposed of off-site by the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston.

  Mr. Aitken
  To identify and list individually the wide and varied range of over 1,000 toxic chemicals used by the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston, those which may ultimately be discharged into the environment, or disposed of off-site, would involve disproportionate cost. Nevertheless, in all cases where toxic materials are discharged or disposed of, the statutory requirements and the need for authorisations, consents or licences are observed.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his policy on decommissioning and radioactive waste management at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston; how that policy has changed since the unpublished 1990 memorandum by the Comptroller and Auditor General on "Ministry of Defence: Nuclear Research and Support Services", paragraphs 4.17 to 4.28; and what further policy changes he plans to make.
  308
  out-patient treatment, etc. for the years 1993, 1983, and 1977. 1973 fees were set in 1967 and were given in old currency.

  This information has been provided by the St. Helena Government, who are unable to give comparable figures in real terms over the period.

  Mr. Aitken
  My Department's policies on decommissioning, and radioactive waste management at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston, are in accordance with the International Atomic Energy Authority guidelines, and have not changed since the unpublished 1990 memorandum by the Comptroller and Auditor General on Ministry of Defence nuclear research and support services. However, the programmes of work for decommissioning and radioactive waste management have since been revised, and will continue to be revised on an annual basis.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 25 June 1992,Official Report, column 299, how much of the 1,800 cu m of low-level waste stored at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston at December 1991 is estimated to be plutonium-contaminated material.

  Mr. Aitken
  Approximately 90 per cent. of low-level radioactive waste is plutonium contaminated.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) of 19 November 1992,Official Report, column 294, what was the average annual increase in the volume of intermediate-level waste stored at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston, as at December for 1983 to 1992.
  309
  Mr. Aitken
  The information requested may be calculated from my earlier answer by dividing the difference in intermediate-level waste holdings for the two years by nine.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the role and powers of the Health and Safety Executive concerning the company Hunting BRAE, while it is managing the Atomic Weapons Establishment.

  Mr. Aitken
  The role and powers of the Health and Safety Executive in respect of the management of the atomic weapons establishment have not changed since my answer of 4 March 1993,Official Report, column 227.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what account he has taken of the current estimated date of readiness of the Nirex national repository for radioactive waste in his policy on managing radioactive waste management at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston.

  Mr. Aitken
  The latest available readiness date of the repository is taken into consideration by AWE Aldermaston in formulating its radioactive waste management policy and strategy.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 20 January,Official Report, column 303, how much plutonium-contaminated liquid waste is stored in closed steel tanks located in bitumen-lined pits at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston; and what is its total activity.

  Mr. Aitken
  The amount of plutonium contaminated liquid waste stored in closed steel tanks at AWE Aldermaston is some 720 cubic metres. Its total activity is 925 Gigabecquerels (alpha), and 2.38 Terabecquerels (beta).

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 25 June 1992,Official Report, column 299, what is the expected average annual change in the volume of intermediate-level waste to be stored at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston, over the next 10 years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  The average rate of increase of intermediate level waste arising at the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston, over the next 10 years will be approximately 240 cubic metres per annum.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list all toxic chemicals in use by the atomic weapons establishment, Aldermaston.

  Mr. Aitken
  As with all major industrial sites AWE Aldermaston uses a wide and varied range of materials, exceeding 1,000 in total, which have toxic properties; it would therefore, be impractical to list them all without incurring disproportionate cost and effort.

  Nuclear Waste Storage
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 13 May,Official Report, column 569, which branches of his Department currently make use of the storage and disposal facilities available at Harwell and Dounreay.
  310
  Mr. Aitken
  The atomic weapons establishment and the naval reactor test establishment.

  Waste Management
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 13 May,Official Report, column 571, if he will list the research programmes currently in hand; who is conducting each research programme; by what date he expects each research programme to be completed; what is the cost of each research programme: and if he will place copies of the report of each research programme in the Library.

  Mr. Aitken
  Research is being directed towards methods of destroying organic materials such as ion exchange resin which are associated with the decontamination of the reactor plant of nuclear-propelled submarines. This work is being carried out under the contract by AEA Technology at Harwell and Rolls-Royce and Associates at Derby. The atomic weapons establishment is pursuing a number of in-house initiatives towards minimising the volumes of wastes by improved segregation at source and improved monitoring. These are ongoing research programmes with no fixed end date. Details of costs and the reports of the programmes cannot be released for reasons of security and commercial confidentiality.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what account he has taken of the observations made in the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee's 13 annual report, paragraph 3.14; and if he will formally invite the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee to carry out a review of his Department's standards for radioactive waste management.

  Mr. Aitken
  My Department welcomes the reviews carried out previously by RWMAC and we have been in discussion with RWMAC in relation to a review to be carried out in 1994. My officials are already preparing a letter of invitation.

  Equipment (Repairs)
  Mr. Stephen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the systems to ensure that design and manufacturing faults discovered in military equipment while in service are notified to the manufacturers and that due account is taken of them before further equipment of the same type is supplied to Her Majesty's forces.

  Mr. Aitken
  The three armed services each operate systems for the reporting of defects in equipment and for the rectification of any faults. The continuing efficiency of these systems is currently under review. Where appropriate, action is taken with the supplier to remedy, at his expense, the reliability of equipment that in the light of in-service experience does not meet the contractual requirement. It has been, and continues to be, my Department's policy and practice to take any unsatisfactory performance by a contractor into account when making a decision regarding repeat orders or the placement of new contracts.

  Mr. Stephen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps are taken to ensure that sufficient account is taken in the equipment procurement process of the advice
  311
  of warrant officers and non-commissioned officers whose duty it will be to repair and maintain the equipment once in service.

  Mr. Aitken
  Representatives of the services' in-service support organisations play key roles both in project and integrated logistic support management, and especially in the specification, review and validation of maintenance proposals.

  Joint Forces Headquarters
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were the operating costs of the joint Forces Headquarters for each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Hanley
  A joint force headquarters (JFHQ) is constituted only during a crisis to provide an in-theatre headquarters for major United Kingdom deployments. There is no peacetime requirement for such a headquarters although there is a small number of staff who have been identified to form an initial core of any potential JFHQ and who are tasked in peacetime with planning and exercises. The cost of these staff is not separately identifiable and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  The only occasion a JFHQ was required in the last 10 years was when a JFHQ was created in October 1990, based in Riyadh, for in-theatre planning, preparation and execution of Operation Granby. It was stood down on completion of the operation. The operating costs of the headquarters were not identified separately and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Military Exercises
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list separately the joint military exercises carried out over the last five years by the United Kingdom with non-North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries overseas.

  Mr. Hanley
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Over the past three years, however, United Kingdom forces have exercised overseas with forces from: Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belize, Botswana, Brunei, Curacao, Egypt, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Martinique, New Zealand, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand and Trinidad. In addition, the Navy carries out a number of short ad hoc exercises with friendly navies on an opportunity basis.

  Science and Technology
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how the science and technology in his Department will be affected by the White Paper on science engineering and technology; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  The recent White Paper "Realising Our Potential—A Strategy for Science, Engineering and Technology" makes clear that my Department is making increased efforts to ensure that the technologies its research generates are more widely available for civil use; to exploit the commercial potential of its research; and to encourage collaboration with the civil sector wherever possible so as to enhance the contribution to the economy as a whole.
  312

  Llanishen AWE
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what criteria were used in the selection of the consortium chosen to run the Llanishen atomic weapons establishment.

  Mr. Aitken
  Tenders for the contract to operate the atomic weapons establishment (which includes the site at Llanishen, Cardiff) were evaluated against a range of stringent criteria for operating the establishment. These included health and safety factors, which were particularly important in judging the competition.

  Lung Diseases (Naval Service)
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has for the number of(a) men and (b) women, suffering from lung diseases contracted during, and as a result of, service in the Royal Navy in the period 1939 to 1945.

  Mr. Hanley
  My Department has no statistical evidence upon which a meaningful estimate of ex-service personnel suffering from general lung conditions contracted during, and as a result of, service in the second world war could be based.

  Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) part-time and (b) full-time members there were in the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1988; and how many (i) part-time and (ii) full-time members there are in the Royal Irish Regiment currently serving in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Hanley
  As at 1 June 1988 there were 3,440 part-time and 2,830 full-time members in the Ulster Defence Regiment; as at 1 June 1993, there were 2,671 part-time and 2,894 full-time members of the home service element of the Royal Irish Regiment.

  Trooping of the Colour
  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many, by category, of the commissioned, warrant and non-commissioned officers, and other ranks marching on Horseguards parade during Trooping of the Colour were from the(a) African, (b) Afro-Caribbean and (c) Indian or other non-white communities; what proportion in each case they represented of the total number of troops taking part; what steps are being taken to ensure that the recruitment of officers and other ranks to these regiments becomes representative of the ethnic structure of the population generally; and what targets there are to set the regiments concerned towards achieving this.

  Mr. Hanley
  No records are currently held of the ethnic origins of any Army personnel. We are, however, planning to introduce in-service ethnic monitoring which will provide a breakdown of the ethnic origins of serving personnel of all ranks. A number of measures are in place to encourage the recruitment of ethnic minorities into the Army. Targets for recruitment from ethnic minority communities are set for the Army as a whole, not for individual regiments and corps, and for 1993–94 the target is set at 1.5 per cent., as it is for the other two services.
  313

  Public Appointments
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the names, occupations and current employers of those who currently hold positions in each public body to which he makes appointments; if he will make a statement on the considerations taken into account when making such appointments; and if he will list details of the posts and salaries or allowances payable which have changed since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992".

  Mr. Hanley
  I refer the hon. Member to "Public Bodies" and "Public Appointments: A Handbook for Women's Organisations", both of which are in the Library of the House and which show available details for each Ministry of Defence public body. Appointments are made on the basis of an individual's aptitude and merit.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table showing for each council area or for each travel-to-work area in Northern Ireland the number of(a) males and (b) females in employment; and what were the figures five years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years ago or as much of such information as is available.

  Mr. Atkins
  Information on the total number of employees in employment (excluding agriculture) by travel-to-work area is available from censuses of employment held in 1978, 1981, 1984, 1987 and 1991 and is set out in the table. Information prior to 1978 is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

  NI employees in employment (excluding agriculture) by travel-to-work area

  Travel-to-work area

  Males

  Females

  Total

  1978

  Armagh

  5,383

  5,242

  10,625

  Ballymena

  23,265

  17,790

  41,055

  Belfast

  158,955

  118,362

  277,3176

  Coleraine

  12,100

  9,423

  21,523

  Cookstown

  2,808

  1,813

  4,621

  Craigavon

  20,244

  16,632

  36,876

  Downpatrick

  7,651

  6,979

  14,630

  Dungannon

  4,994

  3,315

  8,309

  Enniskillen

  7,527

  5,383

  12,910

  Londonderry

  19,450

  14,955

  34,405

  Newry

  8,183

  6,071

  14,254

  Omagh

  6,208

  4,515

  10,723

  Strabane

  3,330

  3,063

  6,393

  Total

  280,098

  213,543

  493,641

  Trave-to-work area

  Males

  Females

  Total

  1981

  Balleymena

  10,879

  9,181

  20,060

  Belfast

  167,436

  133,313

  300,749

  Coleraine

  11,365

  9,973

  21,338

  Cookstown

  3,049

  1,959

  5,008

  Craigavon

  23,334

  22,301

  45,635

  Dungannon

  5,429

  4,073

  9,502

  Fermanagh

  6,709

  5,292

  12,001

  Londonderry

  17,234

  15,560

  32,794

  Magherafelt

  3,335

  3,783

  7,118

  314

  Trave-to-work area

  Males

  Females

  Total

  Newry

  8,713

  7,749

  16,462

  Omagh

  6,332

  5,523

  11,655

  Strabane

  3,071

  3,117

  6,118

  Total

  266,886

  221,624

  488,510

  Travel-to-work area

  Males

  Females

  Total

  1984

  Ballymena

  10,732

  10,162

  20,894

  Belfast

  154,805

  132,119

  286,924

  Coleraine

  11,962

  11,658

  23,620

  Cookstown

  3,097

  2,158

  5,255

  Craigavon

  23,932

  24,039

  47,971

  Dungannon

  5,666

  4,320

  9,986

  Fermanagh

  6,685

  5,575

  12,260

  Londonderry

  16,624

  15,597

  32,581

  Magherafelt

  3,397

  3,213

  6,610

  Newry

  8,958

  7,856

  16,814

  Omagh

  6,367

  5,456

  11,823

  Strabane

  3,315

  3,317

  6,632

  Total

  255,540

  225,830

  481,370

  Travel-to-work area

  Males

  Females

  Total

  1987

  Ballymena

  9,798

  9,357

  19,155

  Belfast

  153,171

  136,875

  290,046

  Coleraine

  11,387

  11,946

  23,333

  Cookstown

  3,095

  2,524

  5,619

  Craigavon

  23,430

  23,688

  47,118

  Dungannon

  5,707

  5,298

  11,005

  Fermanagh

  6,288

  6,129

  12,417

  Londonderry

  16,556

  17,488

  34,044

  Magherafelt

  4,121

  4,445

  8,566

  Newry

  9,123

  9,274

  18,397

  Omagh

  6,263

  5,827

  12,090

  Strabane

  3,360

  3,512

  6,872

  Total

  252,299

  236,363

  488,662

  Travel-to-work area

  Males

  Females

  Total

  1991

  Ballymena

  10,239

  11,023

  21,262

  Belfast

  156,301

  150,166

  306,467

  Coleraine

  12,318

  13,344

  25,662

  Cookstown

  3,331

  2,960

  6,291

  Craigavon

  24,629

  25,701

  50,330

  Dungannon

  6,323

  5,916

  12,239

  Fermanagh

  6,728

  6,995

  13,723

  Londonderry

  18,045

  19,178

  37,223

  Magherafelt

  4,830

  5,434

  10,264

  Newry

  9,967

  10,360

  20,327

  Omagh

  6,331

  6,509

  12,840

  Strabane

  3,620

  3,884

  7,504

  Total

  262,662

  261,470

  524,132

  1. Figures relate to employees in employment and exclude agriculture. Figures for 1978 also exclude forestry and fishing (1,823) which cannot readily be allocated to travel-to-work area.

  2. Travel-to-work areas were changed for 1981 in the light of more up to date information on travel-to-work patterns obtained from the1981 census of population.

  Source: Northern Ireland Census of Employment.
  315

  Housing Executive Grants
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the cost of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive replacement grant scheme in each year since it was introduced; how many applications were received and how many were approved in each year since the scheme was introduced; and how many grants have been paid in respect of those approvals in each year.

  Mr. Atkins
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive but the chief executive has advised me that, because it would have limited value in the initial stages of the grant application process, an analysis by grant type is not maintained. However, he confirmed that 24 formal applications were approved in respect of replacement grant in the year 1992–93, the first year, following the introduction of the scheme in mid-1991, in which such applications were eligible. Between 1 April and 22 June 1993 a further five applications were approved. While to date no grants have been paid because none of the proposals have been processed to a payment stage, the estimated cost of this commitment amounts to some £373,000.

  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the cost of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive improvement grant scheme in each of the last five years; how many applications for the scheme were received; and how many were approved in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Atkins
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive but the chief executive had advised me that, because it would have limited value in the initial stages of the grant application process, an analysis by grant type is not maintained. However, he confirmed that the number of formal applications for improvement grants approved and the relevant costs in each of the years in question was:

  Approved

  Cost £ million

  1988–89

  3,260

  27.3

  1989–90

  2,801

  22.6

  1990–91

  2,864

  21.3

  1991–92

  2,762

  22.3

  1992–93

  5,569

  21.3

  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the cost of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive repair grant scheme in each of the last five years; how many applications for the scheme were received; and how many were approved in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Atkins
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive but the chief executive has advised me that, because it would have limited value in the initial stages of the grant application process, an analysis by grant type is not maintained. However, he confirmed that the number of formal applications for repair grants approved and the relevant costs in each of the years in question was:

  Approved

  Cost £ million

  1988–89

  6,975

  12.2

  1989–90

  6,492

  10.7

  1990–91

  5,039

  9.4

  316

  Approved

  Cost £ million

  1991–92

  3,637

  7.2

  1992–93

  4,410

  8.3

  Limavady Bypass
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he expects the construction work on the Limavady bypass to begin.

  Mr. Atkins
  The construction of the first stage of Limavady bypass is expected to start in 1997–98, subject to the availability of finance.

  Traffic, Limavady
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the volume of traffic now using Linenhall street, Limavady over each 24-hour period in each day of the week; what are the maximum and minimum hourly rates; what is his estimate of the hourly maximum capacity of the street; and what forecast he has made of when this figure will be reached.

  Mr. Atkins
  The information is not available in the form requested. In the last survey undertaken, the maximum hourly rate of traffic using Linenhall street, Limavady, was found to be approximately 950 vehicles. The estimated hourly capacity of this street is 1,500 vehicles, a figure which may be reached in the period 1998 to 2004, depending on the continuing rate of traffic growth.

  Community Psychiatric Nurses
  Mr. Trimble
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many community psychiatric nurses are employed by each health and social services board; what are the minimum qualifications for community psychiatric nurses employed by health and social services board; and what relevant qualifications are required for social workers approved for the purposes of article 5 of the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986.

  Mr. Ancram
  The number of community psychiatric nurses employed by each health and social services board at 31 December 1992 was as follows:

  Number

  Whole-time equivalents

  Eastern

  107

  104.03

  Northern

  20

  20.00

  Southern

  39

  39.00

  Western

  28

  28.00

  The minimum qualifications for community psychiatric nurses employed by health and social services boards are registered mental nurse (RMN) with community psychiatric nursing (CPN) diploma or certificate.

  The relevant qualifications required for social workers approved for the purposes of article 5 of the Mental Health (NI) Order 1986 are the certificate of qualification in social work (CQSW), the certificate in social services (CSS) or the diploma in social work (DSW). In addition to be approved under the Mental Health (NI) Order 1986 a

  317
  social worker undergoes a training course approved by the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work and, if successful, is assessed as competent to practice. The appropriate health and social services board then issues a letter stating that the person is qualified to operate under the order.

  Community Regeneration
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish the criteria for aid under the CRISP—community regeneration initiative special projects—programme with a list of the towns and villages and other locations where CRISP schemes have been(a) approved and (b) completed; and how much public money has been committed to each such scheme, with an indication of the nature of the scheme.

  Mr. Atkins
  The criteria for aid under the International Fund for Ireland's community regeneration and improvement special programme (CRISP) programme which is jointly funded by DOE(NI) and IFI are as follows:

  1. A CRISP application must be for a town or village with a population less than approximately 10,000 in an area which has been designated as disadvantaged by the International Fund for Ireland.

  Approved community regeneration and improvement special programme (CRISP) projects

  Total committed

  Total DOE

  Total IFI

  Location

  Project

  £ million

  £

  £

  Coalisland

  1. Weaving factory—Workspace units and industrial museum

  2.700

  1,000,000

  1,700,000

  2. Fireclay works—Industrial and commercial area

  3. Cornmill—Heritage centre, library. UDP and EI

  Castlederg

  Castle amenity scheme. EI and UDP

  1.180

  466,750

  716,750

  Carrickmore

  Milestone centre—Workspace, office facilities, library and conference facilities. EI and UDP

  2.030

  860,000

  1,170,000

  Belleek

  1. Gateway Centre—visitor and community business centre

  1.776

  635,500

  1,140,500

  2. Ceramics and craft institute. EI and UDP

  Keady

  Refurbishment of old mill—Retail units, heritage centre, office accommodation. ET and UDP

  1.500

  500,000

  1,000,000

  Dromore

  Creation of five small workspace units. EI and UDP

  0.668

  223,000

  445,000

  Belcoo

  EI and UDP

  0.314

  127,000

  187,000

  Newtownhamilton

  EI and UDP

  0.600

  125,000

  475,000

  Pettigo/Tullyhommon

  EI and UDP

  0.190

  50,000

  140,900

  Draperstown

  Plantation centre—Tourism and heritage. EI and UDP

  1.100

  345,500

  747,500

  Garrison

  Gillaroo centre—Heritage centre, shops and restaurant. Ei, UDP and project worker

  1.051

  479,605

  571,605

  Downpatrick

  1. Ballymote community project—Retail and service centre

  1.500

  750,000

  750,000

  2. Refurbishment at Irish street—Office/retail units

  Derrygonnelly

  Refurbish derelict creamery to provide workshops and offices. EI, UDP and project worker

  0.880

  389,000

  491,000

  Portaferry

  Workspace units at Brewery yard, hostel accommodation at Bar Holm. Landing and mooring facilities. EI and UDP

  2.060

  552,425

  1,510,425

  Cullyhanna

  Heritage centre, workspace, retail units, tourist accommodation

  0.575

  237,500

  337,500

  Hilltown

  Refurbishment of Downshire Arms to provide accommodation and restaurant. EI and UDP

  1.000

  446,500

  551,500

  Plumbridge

  Refurbishment of derelict building to provide workspace, retail units. El and UDP

  0.345

  132,500

  212,500

  318
  2. The CRISP application should be from a soundly-based local group which is broadly representative of the local community and should have the capacity to become registered as a company limited by guarantee.

  3. A CRISP application generally comprises three elements—a core economic project, environmental improvement and urban development programme. The core economic project is generally funded on the basis of a grant of 80 per cent. and a 20 per cent. loan repayable with interest over 10 years. A project must demonstrate its viability on this basis and be related to local economic needs. The extent of environmental improvements is generally related to the scope within the centre of the settlement for improving publicly owned areas which are run down. The amount of urban development grant approved reflects a judgment about the extent to which the private sector will claim grants for improving its property.

  4. Another consideration in deciding on a CRISP application is whether it is part of a wider regeneration strategy and the level of commitment of other agencies to other regeneration measures in that strategy.

  A list of the towns where CRISP schemes have been approved with details of the financial commitment to each scheme and the nature of the scheme is given in the tables. As yet, none of the schemes has been completed, although a number of individual core projects are complete.
  319

  Total committed

  Total DOE

  Total IFI

  Location

  Project

  £ million

  £

  £

  Stewartstown

  Workspace, office and shop units. EI and UDP

  0.860

  294,000

  565,000

  Cushendall

  Retail units, offices, workshops. EI and UDP

  0.560

  150,500

  406,500

  Drumquin

  Renovation of derelict mill to provide workspace and commercial units. El and UDP

  0.326

  131,000

  195,000

  Castlewellan

  Residential centre with retail units and language school. EI, UDP and project worker

  1.000

  362,750

  637,250

  Crossmaglen

  Development of two derelict sites to provide retail units, office accommodation. EI, UDP and project worker

  1.000

  333,000

  667,000

  Strabane

  Town centre development on site of former canal basin

  2.000

  1,000,000

  1,000,000

  Newtownstewart

  Self-catering units, museum. EI and UDP

  0.737

  303,350

  433,350

  Irvinestown

  Business enterprise centre. EI and UDP

  0.817

  355,000

  462,000

  Potatoes
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is his estimate of the unsold tonnage of last year's crop of potatoes in Northern Ireland; and what estimates he has been given of this figure by the Ulster Farmers Union.

  Mr. Ancram
  The Government estimated surplus production from the 1992 potato crop to be between 40,000 tonnes and 60,000 tonnes. The Ulster Farmers Union estimated the surplus at approximately 55,000 tonnes.

  Fishing
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland arising from the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1992(a) how many fishermen have now been allocated their number of fishing days, (b) how many fishermen have challenged the number of fishing days allocated to them and (c) how many fishermen have lodged appeals against the number of fishing clays allocated to them.

  Mr. Ancram
  Provisional days at sea allocations have been issued to 253 fishermen in Northern Ireland. As at 21 June 1993, 55 of these fishermen have applied for adjustment of their provisional allocations. No appeals have been lodged as the appeal stage of the days at sea arrangements does not commence until formal days at sea allocations are issued to fishermen later in the year.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Invalidity Benefit
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many and what proportion of people in receipt of invalidity benefit are over pension age, giving figures separately for men and women; and how many of each sex would be entitled to a full basic pension.

  Mr. Scott
  The available information is in the table. Information about the number of invalidity benefit recipients over pension age who would be entitled to a full basic rate of retirement pension is not available, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
  320

  Numbers receiving invalidity benefit on 30 March 1991

  Men

  Women

  per cent.

  per cent.

  All recipients

  976,000

  100

  330,000

  100

  Recipients over pension age

  201,000

  21

  37,000

  11

  Notes: Based on a 1 per cent. sample of claimants, rounded to the nearest thousand; the latest date for which information is available is 30 March 1991.

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people in receipt of invalidity benefit receive dependency additions for(a) a male adult dependant, (b) a female adult dependant, (c) one child, (d) two children, (e) three children, (f) four children and (g) five or more children.

  Mr. Scott
  The information is not available in the form requested. Such information as is available is in the table.

  Invalidity benefit recipients as at 30 March 1991 with dependency increases for:

  Number

  An adult dependant

  418,000

  One child dependant

  50,000

  Two child dependants

  30,000

  Three child dependants

  13,000

  Four child dependants

  3,000

  Five or more child dependants

  3,000

  Notes: Based on a 1 per cent. sample of claimants, rounded to the nearest thousand; the latest date for which information is available is 30 March 1991.

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the distribution of invalidity benefit recipients by(a) age, (b) sex and (c) marital status.

  Mr. Scott
  The available information is in the table. Information about the marital status of male invalidity benefit recipients is not available.

  Invalidity Benefit recipients as at 30 March 1991

  Age

  Men

  Married Women

  Other Women

  Under 20

  1

  1

  1

  20–24

  6,000

  3,000

  4,000

  25–29

  18,000

  14,000

  7,000

  30–34

  27,000

  14,000

  9,000

  321

  Age

  Men

  Married Women

  Other Women

  35–39

  33,000

  19,000

  7,000

  40–44

  57,000

  26,000

  9,000

  45–49

  69,000

  27,000

  12,000

  50–54

  115,000

  44,000

  17,000

  55–59

  176,000

  56,000

  23,000

  60–64

  273,000

  22,000

  15,000

  65 and over

  201,000

  (see note iii)

  (see note iii)

  Notes:

  i. Based on 1 per cent. sample of claimants, rounded to the nearest thousand; the latest date for which information is available is 30 March 1991.

  ii. 1equals a sample of less than 500.

  iii. Women over age 65 are not entitled to invalidity benefit.

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish figures for the relative frequency of medical examinations by disability for those people who have applied for or been granted disability living allowance.

  Mr. Scott
  I am informed by Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency, that the information is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement of his Department's policy in determining which applicants for disability living allowance are to undergo medical examinations.

  Mr. Scott
  Disability living allowance claimants may be medically examined, where either the disabled person requests an examination or the adjudication officer responsible for determining entitlement considers that this is the best method of obtaining the information necessary to make a decision. In addition, a representative sample of applicants are examined as part of the evaluation of the claims and adjudication systems.

  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security in what circumstances it is the policy of his

  Appointments and Renumeration

  Chair

  Deputy

  Members

  Sex

  Appointment

  Remuneration

  Sex

  Appointment

  Remuneration

  Sex

  Appointment

  Remuneration

  Occupational Pensions Board

  1 male

  1 September 1992

  £35,580

  1 male

  1 April 1992

  £11,775

  7 male,

  1 April 1992

  £138 per

  1 April 93

  £36,645

  1 Apr 93

  £12,130

  2 female

  session

  Disability Living Allowance Board1

  Medical:

  5 male,

  £217.40

  2 female

  per day

  Lay:

  2 male,

  £110.00

  8 female

  per day

  Industrial Injuries Advisory Committee

  1 male

  1 April 1993

  £125

  10 male,

  £100

  per day

  5 female

  per day

  Social Security Advisory Committee

  1 male

  1 August 1992

  £178

  9 male,

  £114

  per day

  4 female

  per day

  Independent Tribunal Service

  1 male, President

  1 male, National

  £70,374

  5 male,

  1 female, Regional

  £70,374

  15 male,

  9 female, Full-time

  £60,105

  322
  Department to rely on a single medical examination rather than a report by the general practitioner for the continuation of the disability living allowance.

  Mr. Scott
  Entitlement to disability living allowance is determined by independent adjudication officers. It is for the adjudication officer in each individual case to decide what is the best source of the information that he needs to enable him to make a decision on the claim.

  Quarry House
  Ms. Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to move staff from Quarry house to London in each of the next five years; and in what grades.

  Mr. Hague
  We have no such plans.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the names, occupations and current employers of those who currently hold positions in each public body to which he makes appointments; if he will make a statement on the considerations taken into account when making such appointments; and if he will list details of the posts and salaries or allowances payable which have changed since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992".

  Mr. Burt:
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is responsible for a large number of public'appointments. The information requested for each of these could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, some information is available from the Cabinet Office publications, "Public Bodies" and "Public Appointments: A Handbook for Womens Organisations", copies of which are in the Library.

  When making appointments account is taken of the relevant background and experience of the individuals concerned.

  Changes in posts, salaries and allowances since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992" are detailed in the following table:
  323

  Chair

  Deputy

  Members

  Sex

  Appointment

  Remuneration

  Sex

  Appointment

  Remuneration

  Sex

  Appointment

  Remuneration

  Disability Appeal Tribunals

  479 male,

  £119.50

  2,269 male,

  122 female

  per session

  1,252 female

  Social Security Appeals Tribunals

  88 male,

  £119.50

  464 male,

  £108.70

  8 female

  per session

  9 female

  per session

  Vaccine Damage Tribunals

  325 male,

  £119.50

  908 male,

  Medical 2£88.40

  79 female

  per session

  677 female

  Non-medical 2£55.00

  Child Support Appeal Tribunal

  79 male,

  £119.50

  408 male,

  71 female

  per session

  398 female

  Central Adjudication Services

  1 male

  £48,471

  1 Formerly Attendance Allowance Board.

  2 Per session.

  Invalidity Benefit
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many pensioners were claiming invalidity benefit for each year since the benefit's inception; and what percentage these figures are of the total number of claimants in those years.

  Mr. Scott
  The available information is in the table.

  Date

  Invalidity benefit claimants over pension age

  Percentage of total invalidity benefit claimants

  3 June 1972

  14,000

  3.4

  2 June 1973

  17,000

  3.9

  1 June1974

  20,000

  4.5

  31 May 1975

  24,000

  5.3

  6 June1976

  21,000

  4.4

  4 June 1977

  28,000

  5.5

  3 Jun 1978

  36,000

  6.4

  2 June 1979

  43,000

  7.0

  31 May 1980

  52,000

  8.5

  30 May 1981

  52,000

  8.2

  29 May 1982

  57,000

  8.3

  2 April 1983

  62,000

  8.4

  31 March 1984

  68,000

  8.5

  30 March 1985

  84,000

  9.9

  5 April 1986

  101,000

  11.2

  4 April 1987

  127,000

  13.1

  2 April 1988

  150,000

  14.3

  1 April 1989

  174,000

  15.5

  31 March 1990

  206,000

  17.0

  30 March 1991

  238,000

  18.2

  Notes:

  1. Figures for 1972 to 1976 based on a 2 per cent. sample of claimants; 1977 to 1978 on a 2.5 per cent. sample; 1979 to 1991 on a 1 per cent. sample.

  2. All figures are rounded to the nearest thousand.

  Liable Relatives
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many liable relatives were paying maintenance contributions to claimants on supplementary benefit and income support for each year since 1972; and what percentage these figures are of the number of claimants with children for whom liable relative payments could be made in those years.

  Mr. Burt
  The information is not available in the form requested for years prior to 1991, when the statistics collected related to the number of cases where a maintenance liability was established rather than those where payment was actually made.
  324
  The information for 1991 and 1992 is in the table. The figures represent the number of cases receiving payments. It is possible that some cases may receive payments from more than one liable relative.

  1991

  1992

  Number of total LR cases with dependent children

  680,000

  948,000

  Number of cases where maintenance was paid

  194,000

  207,000

  Percentage of cases where payment was made

  28.5

  21.9

  The higher number of total cases in 1992 is likely to be due mainly to new procedures which enabled more reliable identification of cases in which there might be a liability to maintain. The figure of 680,000 for 1991 may therefore be an underestimate of the real number.

  Source: Annual Statistical Inquiry.

  National Insurance
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 8 June,Official Report, columns 209–10, how many cases of national insurance contributions evasion have been uncovered, resulting in action short of legal prosecution; and how much revenue has been recovered in each year since 1984–85.

  Mr. Hague
  The administration of national insurance is a matter for Miss Ann Chant, the chief executive of the Contributions Agency. She will write to the hon. Member and a copy will be placed in the Library.

  Letter from Miss A. Chant to Mr. Alan Milburn, dated 23 June 1993:

  As Chief Executive of the Contributions Agency I am responsible for answering questions about relevant operational matters. I have been asked to reply to your question about the number of cases of National Insurance Contributions evasion which have resulted in action short of legal prosecution and the amount of revenue recovered.

  The Agency considers investigation of all cases of apparent non-compliance with National Insurance law. However, it does not attempt to differentiate between cases which involve genuine mistakes made by employers and those which involve suspected evasion of liability as it is often difficult to draw a clear dividing line between these two extremes of non-compliance. The Agency's main objective is to collect arrears and ensure current and future compliance. It does, of course, keep a particularly close eye on any employers it thinks may be involved in deliberate evasion.

  In his reply to your earlier questions my Deputy, Mr. Bertram, supplied details of the number of cases that had been authorised for prosecution but pointed out that we had no specific details about evasion. He also explained that the

  325
  Agency uncovers cases of many types of non-compliance in a variety of ways, including survey visits made to employers by inspectors, examination and processing of employers' End of Year Returns and enquiries made by individual contributors. Throughout the whole range of our activities the Agency has not encountered any evidence that evasion of National Insurance liability by employers is a significant problem. But it always investigates thoroughly any instances of suspected or alleged evasion.

  Figures for the numbers of cases of evasion which result in action short of prosecution are not kept. Indeed they would be virtually impossible to categorise with any degree of robustness. But an effective monitoring and control system ensures that appropriate action is taken in all cases where non-compliance is uncovered whatever the cause.

  I regret that I am unable to give you the precise information that you requested but I hope that my reply will prove helpful. If you have any further queries on the matter I would be only too pleased to discuss them with you.

  Market Testing
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the cost to date and the expected future cost of his Department's market-testing programme; which firms of consultants have been used in connection with the market testing programme; and how they were selected.

  Mr. Hague:
  [pursuant to his reply. 7 June 1993, c. 143–44]: The information given contained a typographical error. The correct information is that the expected cost of the market testing programme for 1993–94 is broadly estimated at £13.5 million.

  Income Support
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many claimants of income support in each Benefit Agency Office having claimants in Derbyshire, have arrangements for(a) direct payment of housing costs, (b) attachment of community charge, (c) direct re-payments to the social fund, (d) direct payments to the electricity companies and (e) direct payments to British Gas; and what are the total counts for (a) to (e) for customers who are residents of Derbyshire.

  Mr. Burt
  [pursuant to his answer 10 May 1993, c. 342–43]: Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency, has written further to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Mr. M. Bichard to Mrs. Margaret Beckett dated 21 June 1993:

  I am writing to you further to my letter of 7 May 1993 in response to your earlier Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security asking about persons in each Benefits Agency office in Derbyshire who had arrangements for direct payments to be made from their income support.

  At that time I said that I would write to you at a later date giving figures for the number of persons in each Benefits Agency office in Derbyshire who had their mortgage payments paid direct to their mortgage lender.

  I am pleased to say that these figures are now available and are as detailed below as at 31 May 1993.

  Number

  Derby (London Road)

  1,431

  Derby (Becket Street)

  3,269

  Ilkeston

  1,818

  Buxton

  189

  Chesterfield

  1,279

  326
  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.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Legal Action (Ministers)
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Attorney-General what is his usual practice in allowing individuals to take legal action against Ministers or Government Departments; and how many times he has done so since 1979.

  The Attorney-General
  As a general rule, I do not have any role to play in decisions by individuals to take legal action against Ministers or Government Departments.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will list the names, occupations and current employers of those who currently hold positions in each public body to which he makes appointments; if he will make a statement on the considerations taken into account when making such appointments; and if he will list details of the posts and salaries or allowances payable which have changed since the publication of "Public Bodies 1992".

  The Attorney-General
  I do not make any appointments to public bodies.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Duty-free Sales
  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total value of duty-free sales on(a) surface and (b) air routes between Britain and the continent in (i) the first quarter of 1993 and (ii) the first quarter of 1992; and how much additional revenue would have been received by the Exchequer if these sales had been made through retail outlets in the United Kingdom.

  Sir John Cope
  Information on duty-free sales is available only from infrequent surveys which cannot be used to provide reliable estimates of sales in particular quarters.

  National Lottery
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer it' he will publish the written guidance he has issued to the chief officers of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Arts Council and the Sports Council concerning the distribution of proceeds from the national lottery.

  Mr. Nelson
  No such guidance has been issued. It would be for the Secretary of State for National Heritage to decide whether any guidance would be appropriate or necessary.

  Tax Relief (Shore Option Schemes)
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost to the Exchequer in each of the years 1991–92 and 1992–93 of tax relief on(a) approved discretionary share option schemes and (b) approved all-employee savings-ralated share option schemes.
  327
  Mr. Dorrell
  The latest estimates are as follows:

  £ million

  1991–92

  1992–93

  Approved discretionary share option schemes

  45

  45

  Approved savings-related share option schemes

  55

  75

  Corporation Tax
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 9 June,Official Report, column 258, what was the total turnover and the total profits of the largest 25 United Kingdom firms of which corporation tax was due in each year from 1987; and if he will provide the turnover and corporation tax figures in both (a) current prices and (b) 1987 prices.

  Mr. Dorrell
  [holding answer 22 June 1993.]: Latest readily available figures covering five years for turnover, profit before tax, and corporation tax liability of the 25 largest profitable United Kingdom companies and company groups, based on turnover in their latest accounts, are as follows:

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  Criminal cases

  12

  14

  14

  11

  14

  Civil cases

  64,926

  70,548

  74,974

  74,414

  68,563

  Revenue recovered (£ million)

  706

  933

  1,091

  1,324

  1,361

  Numbers of cases are for successful Inland Revenue investigations only.

AGRICULTURAL, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Equine Viral Arteritis
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to her answer of 15 June,Official Report, column 482, what steps she is taking to stop the spread of equine viral arteritis by casual contact including aerial transmission; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Equine viral arteritis is not a notifiable disease in Great Britain and statutory disease control measures and movement restrictions do not apply. The United Kingdom equine industry operates a voluntary code of practice for the prevention and control of EVA which includes guidance on the appropriate measures to prevent the introduction and spread of the disease. It is considered to be an effective means for stud owners to protect their animal health status and its use is commended to all sectors of the equine industry. Those organising shows and equine sporting events have been additionally advised to take normal disease prevention measures and not to allow horses which exhibit signs of infectious disease, especially respiratory infections, to enter the showground or event.
  328

  Turnover

  Profit before tax1

  Corporation tax liability2

  £ billion

  £ billion

  £ billion

  At current prices

  1987

  3

  3

  3.1

  1988

  190

  19

  3.0

  1989

  230

  23

  3.5

  1990

  270

  25

  3.5

  1991

  275

  20

  3.3

  1992

  275

  21

  4

  At constant 1987 prices

  1987

  3

  3

  3.1

  1988

  180

  18

  2.8

  1989

  200

  21

  3.1

  1990

  220

  20

  2.9

  1991

  210

  15

  2.5

  1992

  200

  16

  4

  1 World-wide activity reported in published accounts.

  2 After relief for foreign tax.

  3 Not readily available.

  4 Not yet available.

  Tax Evasion
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many criminal and civil cases relating to tax evasion have been pursued in each of the last five years; and what revenue has been recovered.

  Mr. Dorrell
  [holding answer 24 June 1993]: The information requested is as follows:

  We fully support the measures taken by the United Kingdom equine industry, including the application of voluntary movement restrictions to affected premises.

  The VPC considered the application for an inactivated EVA vaccine at its meeting yesterday. It advised that subject to the satisfactory resolution of outstanding quality points, an animal test certificate could be granted, allowing use of the product under veterinary supervision and subject to the normal conditions associated with such certificates. Officials at the Veterinary Medicines Directorate are discussing these points urgently with the company concerned, together with arrangements for making the product available as speedily as possible.

  Tuberculosis
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations she has received regarding the need for carcasses of dead badgers to be checked for tuberculosis; and what is her assessment of the dangers to cattle of unchecked tuberculosis in the badger population.

  Mr. Soames
  I have received no representations regarding the need for carcasses of dead badgers to be checked for tuberculosis. Badgers infected with tuberculosis do not pose a significant threat to the national cattle herd. In the south-west of England, where the majority of cattle breakdowns occur, some 0.5 per cent. of
  329
  herds had a new confirmed breakdown in 1992. Almost all of these were considered by the Department's veterinary staff to be due to badger infection.

  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many incidents of tuberculosis in cattle have been reported in each quarter since 1 January 1990.

  1st Quarter

  2nd Quarter

  3rd Quarter

  4thQuarter

  1990

  New confirmed breakdowns

  37

  31

  49

  26

  1991

  New confirmed breakdowns

  17

  28

  42

  38

  1992

  New confirmed breakdowns

  26

  34

  52

  43

  1993

  New confirmed breakdowns

  58

  —

  —

  —

  Crassula Lelmsii
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action she is taking to counter the spread of Crassula Lelmsii, the Australian swamp stone-crop weed.

  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 24 June 1993]: I have been asked to reply. Research about the effect of this species is at present being carried out by English Nature and the Institute of Freshwater Ecology. They have also produced a public information leaflet giving guidance on the identification and control of the plant.

ENVIRONMENT

  Rivers
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress the National Rivers Authority is making(a) nationally and (b) in the north west in regulating the use of rivers and controlling pollution.

  Mr. Yeo
  The NRA's 1990 river quality survey reported around 90 per cent. of waterways as of "good" or "fair" quality. The next survey, expected in 1995, should reflect the benefits from the NRA's tighter pollution controls and increased enforcement activity throughout England and Wales, the reduction in numbers of major water pollution incidents, and the accelerated investment by the water industry on sewerage and sewage treatment.

  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of pollution entering the North sea comes from rivers; and what proportion comes from British rivers.

  Mr. Yeo
  Since different countries use different methods of estimating inputs of contaminants, the available statistics do not permit reliable international comparisons. The available date is set out in the periodical "Monitoring and Assessement" reports of the Oslo and Paris Commissions.
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  Mr. Soames
  The number of new cattle herd breakdowns due to tuberculosis, confirmed in each of the quarters in question was:

  Affordable Accommodation
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what further plans he has to increase the supply of affordable accommodation for rent and sale.

  Sir George Young
  We are pursuing a number of policies, both through the provision of new accommodation and measures to maximise the use of existing property, to ensure that a decent home is within reach of every family. Nearly £50 million additional resources were made available last year in the housing market package to enable housing associations to purchase over 18,000 empty and repossessed properties to use for families in housing need; and some £50 million in grants which enabled 3,300 housing association and local authority tenants to buy new homes, releasing their current homes for reletting to those in housing need. These special measures, announced in the Autumn Statement, brought my Department's total spending on housing to £8.5 billion.

  Over the three years from 1992–93, the Housing Corporation estimates that housing associations will be able to provide 170,000 new social homes for rent and shared ownership. In addition, measures taken to encourage the private rented sector, such as our flats over shops and housing associations as managing agents initiatives,and to make better use of the existing public sector stock, will increase the supply of homes for rent still further.

  Compulsory Competitive Tendering
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will extend the range of local services put out to compulsory competitive tendering.

  Mr. Baldry
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that the then Under-Secretary of State for Local Government gave to the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Duncan-Smith) on 24 May 1993 at column 366.

  Burning Plastic
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what reports he has had on the effect of burning plastic on the spread of dioxins and similar compounds into the air; and if he will make a statement on the main sources of dioxins in the atmosphere.
  331
  Mr. Yeo
  I have not received any such report. However, it is accepted that the burning of some plastics, in common with the burning of many other materials, can lead to the formation of dioxins. For incinerators, I am advised that the operating conditions of the incineration process are paramount in controlling the quantities formed. This is why incinerators are subject to stringent controls under part I of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

  For the main sources of dioxins in the atmosphere, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply given to the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) on 24 February 1992 at column 406.

  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to promote the burning of plastics.

  Mr. Yeo
  None.

  Water Resources
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how, and to what extent, the National Rivers Authority has jurisdiction over the management of water resources controlled by the British Waterways Board; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  The Water Resources Act 1991 exempts all navigation authorities, including British Waterways Board (BWB), from the requirement to apply to NRA for abstraction licences in connection with their own operations but obliges BWB to apply to NRA for licences in respect of abstractions from BWB waters by others.

  "Health Effects of Sea Bathing"
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he plans to publish the results of the study, "Health Effects of Sea Bathing", EH9021.

  Mr. Yeo
  The report referred to is the interim report on the health effects of sea bathing covering the period April 1991 to March 1992. Copies were placed in the Library in September 1992. I intend to publish a report on the whole four-year research project later this year.

  Sewage-based Fertilisers
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to encourage water authorities to sell sewage-based fertilisers.

  Mr. Yeo
  About half the sewage sludge produced by water companies is already used as a fertiliser. The potential market for sludge-based products has been assessed in research undertaken for the Department by the Water Research Centre. The final report will be made available to the water industry shortly.

  Packaging (Recycling)
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to require firms to recycle their packaging.

  Mr. Yeo
  The Government take the view that companies involved in placing packaging on the market should take a share of the responsibility for dealing with it after it has served its original purpose. We have therefore 332
  been conducting intensive discussions with a range of industries on how they might contribute to improved recycling rates. We are still considering how best to achieve this.

  Fly Tipping
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures he is proposing to tackle the problem of fly tipping.

  Mr. Yeo
  Measures to reduce fly tipping are included in the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Under provisions which came into force on 1 April 1992, there is a duty of care on all holders of waste (except private households) to prevent the illegal disposal of their waste. Under the duty, waste may only be handed to an authorised person and transfers of waste must be documented. Carriers of waste must be registered with their waste disposal authority and authorities have powers to seize identified vehicles used in fly tipping. The Environmental Protection Act also includes a provision placing responsibility on the person controlling a vehicle for fly-tipping offences using that vehicle. This latter measure is to be implemented this year; the Government have no plans for further measures at present.

  House Condition Survey
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he now expects to publish the results of the house condition survey.

  Sir George Young
  The first results were published on Monday 21 June in "English House Condition Survey 1991: A Preliminary Report on Unfit Dwellings".

  Environmental Policy
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his Department's policy on the purchase and use of(a) recycled paper, (b) low-energy light bulbs, (c) tropical hardwoods, (d) peat and (e) cars with catalytic converters.

  Mr. Yeo
  My Department's policy is set out in our Policy Statement on Green Housekeeping, published in March 1993. Specifically, our policy is: to extend the amount of recycled paper bought from the present 40 per cent. to the current practicable limit of 70–75 per cent. as soon as possible; to reduce energy consumption by 15 per cent. over the five years to 1995–96 by, among other things, installing energy efficient lighting wherever it is practicable to do so; to encourage sustainable forestry practices by purchasing office furnishings which, as far as possible, do not contain hardwoods from virgin areas; to minimise the use of slow renewables such as peat by using soil improvers derived from the processing or reuse of organic wastes such as coir, manure, leaf mould and bark chippings; to fit all official vehicles with catalytic converters by May 1994.

  Publicity
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many(a) paid and (b) unpaid publicity projects hav been organised by his Department's information directorate since April 1992; what evaluation has been made of the effectiveness of the publicity projects; and if he will make a statement.
  333
  Mr. Baldry
  From April 1992 to the present, my Department's information directorate has carried out 717 paid publicity projects. For the most part, unpaid publicity activities are undertaken to support paid publicity activities. During the same period, 1,016 press notices were issued on matters of public interest.

  Information is always gathered on the takeup of all publicity materials by the public—particularly of publications—as part of the overall communications strategy for every publicity project. Research is carried out regularly to monitor the effectiveness of paid publicity initiatives, particularly in the case of large, long-term projects.

  Standard Spending Assessments
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what account he will take in setting the aggregate for standard spending assessments for 1994–95 of the savings in energy costs open to local authorities taking advantage of increased competition in the supply of fuels.

  Mr. Baldry
  In setting the total of standard spending for 1994–95 Ministers will consider a wide range of factors. These will include the pressures on local authority services arising from increases in pay and prices, demographic changes and the scope for securing savings and improved value for money.

  Tower Hamlets (Appeal)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to reconsider the decision to withdraw the application for a petition to appeal in the case of R.v. Secretary of State for the Environment ex parte Tower Hamlets; and if he will state the reasons for his decision.

  Mr. Baldry
  We have no plans to reconsider our decision. The time limit for seeking leave to appeal to the House of Lords has now passed.

  North Hull Housing Action Trust
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment ( 1 ) if he will make a statement about the timetable for formulating the exit strategy for the tenants whose home improvements have been completed by the North Hull housing action trust;

  (2) when tenants in South close within the North Hull housing action trust, who have indicated their wish to return to Hull city council, will have the opportunity to exercise this right; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) when the exit strategy for First avenue tenants will be ready; and if the tenants will be allowed to exercise their right to return to Hull city council in October;

  (4) what plans he has to use the Hull exit strategy as a model for all other housing action trusts.

  Sir George Young
  It is for the North Hull housing action trust to formulate its own exit strategy, and agree it with Ministers as part of the corporate planning process. The strategy needs to be consistent with the statutory objectives of housing action trusts as set out in Section 63 of the Housing Act 1988, and also with the guidelines issued by my Department to all housing action trusts on the disposal of tenanted properties. These require, among 334
  other things, that tenants should be consulted about a range of alternative landlords and ownership options before they are required to make final decisions about their future tenure. This is entirely consistent with the declaration of intention between Ministers, the leader of Hull city council and the chairman of the North Hull housing action trust in December 1991. As the North Hull housing action trust was the first housing action trust to be established, its exit strategy will inform those for subsequent housing action trusts. But each housing action trust will need to prepare and agree an exit strategy which fully reflects local circumstances.

  I have agreed the proposal put to me by the North housing action trust that those tenants in South close who had indicated a clear preference to return to Hull city council before my Department's guidelines were issued should be enabled to do so as soon as the necessary procedures are completed. As for the tenants in First avenue, discussions are currently taking place between the North Hull housing action trust and my Department about the range of options that will be put to tenants before they are required to choose their future landlord. It is too early to say whether the formal consultation process will be completed in time for any tenants to change their landlords by October. But all tenants who wish to do so will be able to return to Hull city council, as agreed between Ministers, the city council and the chairman of the HAT in December 1991. The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Bill, currently before Parliament, will strengthen this commitment by providing a statutory right for all HAT tenants to return to the council in the area in which their house is situated if they elect to do so.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will now fix a firm date to meet a delegation from Hull city council and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North to discuss the affairs of the North Hull housing action trust.

  Sir George Young
  I have already told the leader of Hull city council that it is my intention to visit the North Hull housing action trust in the near future, at which time I would expect to meet representatives of the council. But in the meantime I should be happy to meet a delegation from the city council led by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara).

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the relationship between the North Hull housing action trust and his Department's regional office at Leeds.

  Sir George Young
  I am satisfied that my Department's regional office is able to give the North Hull housing action trust the advice, guidance and support it needs to fulfil its statutory objectives and secure value for money.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make it his policy, in his consultations with Hull city council for the replacement of the chairman of the North Hull housing action trust, that the appointee is independent and not directly connected with any political party.

  Sir George Young
  In looking for a successor to Mr. Liggins as chairman of the North Hull housing action trust, I shall be seeking to appoint someone who can secure the objectives of the housing action trust and gain the
  335
  confidence of the residents and of Hull city council. I would not wish to rule out someone who had held local government or ministerial experience provided they were prepared to accept that their relevant political activities would be in strict accordance with the code of conduct issued to all prospective board members.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what provision will be made for the division of responsibility for legal costs when the houses currently owned by the North Hull housing action trust are returned to the ownership of Hull city council.

  Sir George Young
  It is not necessarily the case that houses currently owned by the North Hull housing action trust will return to the ownership of Hull city council. It will be for individual tenants to decide on their future landlord. However, as I have agreed that those houses 336
  which return to the council after having been improved by the housing action trust should do so at nil cost to the council, I think it would be reasonable for the city council to meet all the legal costs.

  Jewel Tower
  Dr. Marek
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the purpose of the works and repositioning of the storm gutters on the footpath adjacent to the Jewel tower next to the Houses of Parliament; and what further work is to be done so that rain water does not collect across the pavement.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 21 June 1993]: The provision and the subsequent maintenance of storm water drainage is a matter for the local authority. I suggest that this matter should be addressed to the city of Westminster.