Sitting of 23 November 1993

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

    Export Orders
    Mrs. Browning: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will announce the latest defence export orders won by British defence companies this year.
    The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Jonathan Aitken): The most recent major export order was the sale of Warrior armoured vehicles by GKN to Kuwait. With this and other major orders, it is now clear that this year's defence export performance will exceed even last year's record-breaking figure of £5·2 billion.
    Mrs. Browning: I welcome my hon. Friend's reply. He will be aware of the importance of the defence industry to the west country. Will the Government give whatever support they can to Westland Helicopters, which was recently disappointed by the loss of the order for the EH101 helicopter from the new Liberal Government in Canada? It is an important industry, so will my hon. Friend do all that he can to sell these helicopters, both abroad and at home?
    Mr. Aitken: I am well aware from the persuasive advocacy of my hon. Friend and many other Members on both sides of the House that Westland is extremely well regarded, and rightly so. As for future orders, at home we are making some progress internally on this matter, but all that I can say to my hon. Friend is watch this space.
    Mr. David Clark: Bearing in mind the fact that any contract gained by fraud is itself fraudulent, and following the conviction of Gordon Foxley, will the Minister terminate the contract of the three foreign companies named in that court case—Fratelli, Raufoss and Junghans—and award the work to the royal ordnance factories, which would have won the original order if it had not been for fraud in his Department?
    Mr. Aitken: I share the hon. Gentleman's sense of concern and outrage about the events to which he referred. They are deplorable. They happened some years ago—Mr. Foxley having retired in 1984—but there are still some current issues. We will not be placing new contracts with the firms concerned until all the facts have been fully investigated in the light of the current appeal. We are reviewing what scope there is to recover the money paid by those firms to Mr. Foxley and are urgently examining the
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    legal position on that and a number of other related matters. We are at one with the Opposition that it is a deplorable matter and we will take steps to remedy it as far as we can.
    Mr. Burns: Does my hon. Friend accept that areas such as Chelmsford are heavily reliant on defence orders and have an excellent record of exporting first-class products and services? Does he agree that there would be substantial job losses if we were to adopt the policy of a 50 per cent. cut in the defence budget between now and the end of the century, as advocated by the Liberal Democrats? [Interruption.]
    Mr. Aitken: My hon. Friend has hit the bull's eye, judging by the indignation coming from the Opposition Front Bench. He is right to stress the importance of the defence industry to many towns, including Chelmsford, which he so ably represents. I concur with his view that the policy of massive defence cuts advocated by both Opposition parties would result in severe job losses throughout the realm.

    Independent Nuclear Deterrent
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the future of the independent nuclear deterrent.
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): The Government remain committed to maintaining the minimum independent nuclear capability required for our security needs.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: The right hon. and learned Gentleman's announcement last week—taken together with the decision to cancel the tactical air-to-surface missile, which he announced in the defence estimates debate—marks a welcome change in the Government's policy. Will he go further, without prejudicing the security of the United Kingdom—if the policy is truly one of minimum nuclear deterrence—and say why it is necessary to deploy Trident with more warheads than are deployed with Polaris, which it is to replace? Trident has nearly twice the range of Polaris and is accurate to within 250m and, unlike Polaris, its warheads are capable of being independently targeted.
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. and learned Gentleman has forgotten two important factors. First, the total explosive yield that will be carried by Trident will be approximately the same as that carried by Polaris; secondly, I have said that Trident will have a sub-strategic as well as a strategic role. The comparison that the hon. and learned Gentleman has made is therefore even less valid than it would be otherwise.
    Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the fact that non-proliferation is, sadly, breaking down in the world—and the fact that there are likely to be another six nuclear powers by the end of the century—make it even more vital for us to maintain our independent nuclear capability? Is not it about time that Opposition Members woke up to those facts?
    Mr. Rifkind: It is indeed important for nonproliferation to be encouraged by every available means. We shall soon be entering detailed negotiations on the continuation of the non-proliferation treaty.

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    My hon. Friend is right to point out that, sadly, we remain in a nuclear world which contains major nuclear powers. There will be thousands of strategic nuclear warheads for the foreseeable future. In those circumstances, the arguments that were used to explain the existence of the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent in past years remain equally valid now.
    Mr. Frank Cook: The Secretary of State said that non-proliferation is a move to be supported and encouraged throughout the world. If that is so, can he explain why we continue to manufacture new warheads when we already have stockpiles?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that the warheads required for the Trident system are not the same as those that were required for Polaris. That factor should convince him, as it has convinced everyone else.
    Mr. Donald Anderson: In what way is the decision to base the sub-strategic nuclear capability on Trident related to the decision, announced last week, to increase the number of warheads? What would be the additional cost of the decision relating to the sub-strategic nuclear capability?
    Mr. Rifkind: First, let me welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities.
    One of the attractions of using the Trident system for sub-strategic nuclear purposes is the fact that it will involve very little extra cost. Trident clearly has a capacity that we can use in both sub-strategic and strategic roles. Our decision was based on a careful and cool assessment of our overall needs.

    Infantry Regiments
    Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to amalgamate or disband any midlands infantry regiments.
    The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Jeremy Hanley): We have no plans to amalgamate or disband any infantry battalions beyond those already announced.
    Mr. Fabricant: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. He will know that the Staffordshire Regiment was only recently reprieved from amalgamation with the Cheshires. Can he give an unequivocable assurance to the people of Lichfield and Staffordshire as a whole that there are no plans to amalgamate or disband that important regiment, now or in the future?
    Mr. Hanley: I can give both an unequivocable and an unequivocal reply. As my hon. Friend said, the amalgamation of the Staffordshire Regiment with the Cheshire Regiment was cancelled in February, when my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State decided to revise his plans for the future size of the Army because of extra commitments in Northern Ireland and for the United Nations.

    Armed Services
    Rev. Martin Smyth: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the capacity of the armed services to meet their current commitments, including UN peace keeping and peace making roles.
    Mr. Rifkind: The Government's plans for force restructuring recognised that new peacetime commitments, including United Nations operations, could arise in the changed strategic setting. Britain's armed forces are currently engaged in a number of commitments, which they are fulfilling in a very satisfactory manner.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I welcome the Secretary of State's answer. Will he tell us what evidence was used to decide on the instructions to troops to remove their protective headgear and patrol in berets, in the face of continuing sniping in Northern Ireland? Does he believe that he would be able to redeploy troops in the light of the GOC's 60-point de-escalation plan?
    Mr. Rifkind: The matters to which the hon. Gentleman refers were considered very carefully by the General Officer Commanding, Northern Ireland. He was clearly anxious to bring about a gradual return to normalcy, wherever possible and wherever sensible. If in his judgment it is appropriate to move in that direction, I am sure that we shall all welcome it; no doubt he will examine these matters in a very careful and considered fashion.
    Mr. Wilkinson: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the crucial ingredient for effective support of United Nations operations on the part of the United Kingdom around the world is a modern air transport force and is he conscious of the bravery of the Royal Air Force crews who fly airlifts into Sarajevo in winter weather? Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that the Royal Air Force will obtain at an early date the C130J version of the Hercules, which offers greater economy, payload and range and has the important benefit of substantial British industrial participation?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to the remarkable and courageous work of the RAF pilots and their crews landing in Sarajevo under some of the most difficult circumstances to arise for many years. We are actively considering the future of the transport fleet and the points to which my hon. Friend has rightly referred.
    Mr. Jim Marshall: In the light of the Belgian Government's decision to join the Euro-corps and the likely possibility of a similar Spanish decision, does the Secretary of State have any intention of changing his view that Britain should not be an active member of the Euro-corps?
    Mr. Rifkind: Many of our criticisms of the original proposals were shared by a number of other NATO countries and were made as a result of valuable negotiations that took place between the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and the French and German Governments, which made it clear that the Franco-German corps would be able to assist NATO in any operations that may be required. We have no intention of joining the Franco-German corps. We have an important commitment to the rapid reaction corps, which is central to NATO's strategy and we see the useful contribution that the Franco-German corps may make to NATO's overall requirements.
    Mr. Elletson: Since the Bosnian Muslims now appear to be so grateful for Britain's role in the peacekeeping force in former Yugoslavia that they are threatening to sue us for genocide, since the Croats are now blocking the delivery of essential supplies to the Coldstream Guards and since the

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    Serbs appear to be the only people in former Yugoslavia who want us to deliver humanitarian aid, is not it time that we stopped wasting taxpayers' money in Bosnia and brought the troops home by Christmas?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is certainly correct to imply that the humanitarian operation of providing food, medical aid and shelter can proceed only it it receives the co-operation of those for whom it is intended. I deplore, as I am sure does the House, some of reported remarks of representatives of the Bosnian Government. Clearly, it would be intolerable for forces to continue to provide humanitarian aid if those whom it was meant to benefit were proving so obstructive to troops doing that valuable work.

    National Parks
    Ms Quin: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his Department's policy towards military activity in national parks.
    Mr. Hanley: Use of national parks remains vital to our defence. They provide essential facilities that cannot be dispensed with and could not easily be replicated elsewhere.
    Ms Quin: Is not it the case that only about 3 per cent. of national parks are in use for military activities at any one time, yet for the Northumberland national park the figure is 20 per cent? Does the Minister agree that that percentage should not be increased because if it were the character of the park would be greatly damaged?
    Mr. Hanley: The hon. Lady is absolutely right that over 97 per cent. of national parks are not used by the Ministry of Defence. The 3 per cent. that we use is used efficiently and in an environmentally conscious manner. It is important that our troops are properly trained. About two thirds of the land that we use is used for live firing from time to time. I am conscious of the hon. Lady's interest, especially in the Otterburn range, and I can assure her that we will not increase our acquisition of national park land or use it more than is absolutely necessary.
    Mr. Jenkin: Will my hon. Friend confirm that we are increasingly short of space in which to exercise our troops? May I especially draw his attention to the plight of the 24 Air Mobile Brigade, whose headquarters is based in my constituency, and whose airborne attack capability requires a large area in which to exercise? There is nowhere, not even Salisbury plain, where they can effectively exercise.
    Mr. Hanley: I agree with my hon. Friend. The problem arises not just because of the shortage of land in Britain that is available for the training of our troops, but because the drawdown in Germany has resulted in the loss of valuable training grounds there. That has put additional pressure on the use of land within the United Kingdom. We continually look for appropriate sites for training because it is vital that our forces are properly trained to fulfil the roles for which almost the whole world is grateful.
    Dr. Marek: Is the Minister aware that it is commonly perceived that military low flying is heavily concentrated in certain parts of the country? Are not some of the heaviest concentrations in our national parks? If that is the case, will the Minister publish information about how much military
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    low flying, in excess of the average, occurs in national parks? If that is not the case, will he publish information to show that?
    Mr. Hanley: It is clearly more suitable that low flying occurs over areas of low population. During the six months that I have been in my post, I have answered almost 100 questions about low flying tabled by two of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are careful to take into account the disturbance caused by low flying. However, it is natural that areas of low population are used the most. The information on where low flying occurs is published on a map that I recently placed in the Library.

    Trident
    Mr. Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what effect he expects from the reduction in the Trident submarine firepower; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Rifkind: The announcement of a revised ceiling of 96 warheads per Trident submarine is based on our current assessment of our minimum deterrent needs.
    Mr. Hendry: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Can he confirm that when Trident is fully deployed, the total nuclear firepower held by the United Kingdom will be 25 per cent. lower than it was in 1990? Does not that show that the Government continue to have a coherent nuclear defence policy? Is not that in sharp contrast to the Labour party, whose spokesman—the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark)—has told the world at large, or at least that portion of it which reads the New Statesman, that even if a Labour Government kept Trident they would not use it?
    Mr. Rifkind: It is certainly correct that the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) has a curious understanding of the meaning of deterrent. He said clearly and unequivocally that a Labour Government would never use a deterrent, but would keep it simply so that it would be available.
    My hon. Friend is correct to say that there has been a 25 per cent. reduction in nuclear firepower compared with 1990. In addition to the measures that we have proposed for Trident, there has been a 50 per cent. reduction in the number of Tornados carrying sub-strategic weapons. We have also abolished the nuclear artillery facility as well as nuclear tactical weapons carried on surface ships. The United Kingdom has made a substantial contribution to the reduction of nuclear weapons throughout the world.
    Mr. Flynn: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman list the circumstances in which Britain is likely to use its nuclear weapons?
    Mr. Rifkind: The circumstances are precisely the same as those that existed when we first acquired nuclear weapons. If this country were faced with an attack by a nuclear power or by a country that had nuclear weapons and was threatening to overwhelm us, the United Kingdom, either by itself or as part of NATO, would be determined to use the power at our disposal to protect our citizens and our territory.

    Yugoslavia
    Mr. Viggers: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many United Kingdom troops are currently engaged in support of United Nations operations in the former Yugoslavia.
    Mr. Hanley: On 15 November, there were 2,267 British troops in Bosnia. In addition to those on the ground, Royal Navy ships and RAF squadrons are providing support to United Nations operations, including the humanitarian airlift into Sarajevo.
    Mr. Viggers: Although the whole House admires the courage and skill that our troops bring to their role in Bosnia, does my hon. Friend agree that they are effectively tasked with mission impossible because they are spectators in a civil war? Has my hon. Friend noted the recent comments by Lord Owen that intervention can, in some circumstances, make the position worse? Will my hon. Friend undertake actively to keep open the option of withdrawal?
    Mr. Hanley: One of the things about a mission impossible is that so often we look with admiration at those who are able to achieve what others might think is a mission impossible. Our forces have been achieving the impossible for the last few months. They have been delivering aid and keeping alive hundreds of thousands who would otherwise now be dead. I believe that what they are doing is not only in the highest order of humanitarian tasks but something of which we should be proud. They will continue to do that task until either they have an unacceptable risk put on them or there is peace. That will be a different situation.
    Dr. David Clark: Does the Minister recall receiving a letter a couple of months ago from the Secretary-General of NATO asking how many troops Britain could contribute towards a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Bosnia following a permanent ceasefire signed by all three sides? Why has he not bothered to reply to that letter?
    Mr. Hanley: We have not yet got a peace. I hope that soon there will be one. In the meantime, we are preparing what our reaction would be if there were peace. Therefore, the time will come when those figures will be announced.
    Mr. Cormack: Does my hon. Friend accept that no one would not wish to pay tribute to the British troops for what they are doing? Will he remind the House that, while those troops have been there, more than 100,000 of the 200,000 killed have died in Bosnia? Will he further remind the House that the thrust of the blame should still be directed at Serbia? Will he do what he can to ensure that the mandate of our troops is increased so that they can help to make Sarajevo a truly safe city?
    Mr. Hanley: I do not believe that it is desirable to try to apportion blame in an area where horrendous acts are carried out by all sides. It is a most distressing set of circumstances that has brought us to the present position. As part of the United Nations Protection Force, British troops are carrying out a role that is greatly desirable in the interests of those who cannot fight for themselves.
    As to Sarajevo, we continue to work with the other nations which provide troops for UNPROFOR to try to ensure that humanitarian aid is distributed. If it is difficult to distribute that aid, it is merely because of those who try
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    to be unpleasant, not only to innocent people, but to the people who are trying to provide that humanitarian aid. We will use whatever force is necessary, but it must be kept to a minimum.

    Nuclear Weapons
    Mr. Gapes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what consideration his Department is giving to the implications for (a) the United Kingdom and (b) NATO of the declaration of a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons by the United States of America; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Rifkind: A declaration of no first use plays no part in the United Kingdom's or NATO's nuclear deterrent policy. We are giving no consideration to a revision of that position.
    Mr. Gapes: That is an amazing answer. Is not the Secretary of State aware that last year the United States Secretary of Defence, Les Aspin, wrote a book calling for a move from deterrence to denuking and at the same time called for a policy of no first use, and that the United States has introduced a comprehensive review of its defence strategy, including its nuclear strategy? That will have huge implications for NATO and this country, yet our Government complacently are doing nothing. When will the Secretary of State consider that issue seriously?
    Mr. Rifkind: I have had several meetings with Mr. Aspin since he became Secretary of Defence. There is no question but that the United States continues to support current NATO strategy with regard to no first use. The hon. Gentleman appears to be totally unaware that, in their recently published new military doctrine, the Russian Government, for the first time, have stopped applying a policy of no first use. Their policy is now the same as that of NATO.
    Mr. John Marshall: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the essence of the nuclear deterrent is that any potential aggressor must remain uncertain as to our intentions and whether we would use it? Would not it be quite wrong for him to be tied down by Opposition Members, who still do not realise that peace has been kept through the deterrent rather than through their hot air?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. The simple reality is that a no first use declaration would take us out of the realms of war prevention and into the realms of war limitation. That is not a policy which should appeal to Opposition Members any more than it should to anyone who wishes to serve the cause of peace.
    Mr. Cohen: Will the Secretary of State give an absolute commitment that Britain will never use nuclear weapons or even threaten to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state?
    Mr. Rifkind: We have already given such assurances with regard to any non-nuclear state unless it is in alliance with a nuclear state and is party to aggression by such an alliance.

    Eurofighter
    Mr. Mark Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he next plans to meet the Spanish Defence Minister to discuss the progress of the Eurofighter 2000.
    Mr. Aitken: My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has no immediate plans to meet the Spanish Defence Minister to discuss the progress of the Eurofighter 2000.
    Mr. Robinson: As my hon. Friend will be aware of the employment implications of Eurofighter 2000, particularly for subcontractors such as Normalair Garrett in the west country, will he undertake to do all in his power, with our partners in that important project, to ensure that it moves forward and to remove some of the uncertainty that surrounds it?
    Mr. Aitken: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the employment implications of this important project. Normalair Garrett, that excellent company in my hon. Friend's constituency, is one of 300 companies in the United Kingdom that have won contracts for the development of the Eurofighter project, thus securing some 9,000 jobs. In the production phase, that work would expand and secure some 30,000 jobs. I share my hon. Friend's wish that, if value-for-money contracts can be placed and all other things are correct, we should be able to move to that production phase.
    Mr. Martlew: The Labour party has always supported Eurofighter 2000, even when it was known as the European fighter aircraft, but it is concerned about the current drift in the project. The aircraft should have flown two years ago, but it has not yet done so, and I understand that it is considerably over budget, perhaps by up to 25 per cent. As Britain's future defence depends on that aircraft—as do our aircraft industry and 40,000 jobs—when will the Government get to grips with the project and stop the drift, and when will the aircraft fly?
    Mr. Aitken: The hon. Gentleman's rhetoric about drift is unfair and misplaced. Of course, I share his and everyone else's concern about the delay in the aircraft's first flight. The industry's leaders told the German State Secretary and me last week that the first flight was now scheduled for April next year. However, the delays are understandable, not only because this is a highly complex project operating at the limits of new technology but because a certain amount of double checking has been necessary as a result of problems with the flight control software, which caused a Gripen aircraft to crash earlier this year. We must be doubly sure that no such flaws or snags occur in the project. There is no sign that they will, but it is understandable that the industry should be doubly cautious. That is the only reason for the delay, so the hon. Gentleman's criticisms are unjustified.
    Mr. Hawkins: As my hon. Friend will be aware that many of my constituents are employed building the Eurofighter 2000, will he say whether he has recently had discussions with other of our European partners' Defence Ministers on their commitment to, and the progress of, this crucial project, which shows every sign of producing an aircraft that is even more effective than the Tornado and which will earn even more in export pounds in the future?
    Mr. Aitken: Yes. I met my opposite number, State Secretary Schönbohm, in Munich last week, and there was complete unity between the British and German Governments on the various pressures that we are placing on industry at this time and the questions that we were asking it. We are all determined to give the project a fair wind, not least because we are aware of its enormous positive implications for aerospace technology and employment in Britain and throughout Europe.

    Commitments (Review)
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to initiate a full-scale review of the United Kingdom's defence commitments; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Olner: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he has had with his North Atlantic Treaty Organisation counterparts concerning a British defence review.
    Mr. Rifkind: I have no plans to initiate a defence review and therefore have not discussed the matter with our allies.
    Mr. Hughes: None the less, will the Secretary of State review that part of Britain's security that would be affected if we were to go ahead with the nuclear waste reprocessing plant at Sellafield in the light of a recent Pentagon report that said that, if we were to go ahead, it would put other countries within days of acquiring the nuclear bomb? Will the Secretary of State consider whether a British decision to go ahead is compatible with the statement in the Queen's Speech that we are against nuclear proliferation and increasing the risks of it occurring?
    Mr. Rifkind: The report to which the hon. Gentleman refers was not a Pentagon report, but a report by a private company that was presented to the Pentagon.
    The hon. Gentleman also refers to the matter of plutonium processing by the thermal oxide reprocessing plant, if that were approved. It is our intention that any plutonium that is processed will be made available only to countries that are signatories to the non-proliferation treaty and meet the International Atomic Energy Agency's guidelines. I believe that the plutonium in question could not in practice be adapted to nuclear use without considerable expense and difficulty.
    Mr. Olner: Surely the Secretary of State will recognise that it is gross negligence on the part of the Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]—not to match the resources and capabilities of our armed forces—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]—with their commitments? Perhaps if Conservative Members would listen instead of chanting, "Reading", they would understand that the defence of this nation is most important.
    It is grossly incompetent of the Government not to recognise that a full defence review of the capabilities of our armed forces is needed. When will the Government recognise that America is now turning towards the Pacific rim as its sphere of influence, and that that will leave a gaping vacuum within the Atlantic area? When will the Secretary of State look at our commitments, introduce a defence review and do something for defence of this country?
    Mr. Rifkind: I have always understood that whenever the Labour party calls for a defence review it is because it does not have the faintest idea what defence policy it would like to propose. Whenever the Labour party is asked to state what it believes should be the ingredients of a Labour Government's defence policy, it simply parrots the phrase, "We must have a defence review." That proposal is simply an attempt to mask the nakedness of the party's own thought, and should therefore be treated with derision.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: May I reduce the temperature in the House, Madam Speaker? Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the military band is one of the successes of this country's armed services' tradition? Does he further accept that the cut in military bands by some 56 per cent. and in the number of bandsmen by 43 per cent. is causing concern? Will he review the decision, which has apparently been taken, to do away with regimental military bands? Do not those bands bring tremendous benefits, not only to individual regiments but to the morale of the people of this country?
    Mr. Rifkind: I share with my hon. Friend the view that regimental bands can make an important contribution to the morale and the motivation of our armed forces. He will be aware that the background to the review that was announced some time ago was that the vast majority of such bands were greatly under strength because of their inability to recruit to their ranks. We have therefore proposed an alternative system of regimental bands which, while reducing the number of bands, will enable their links with regiments to be maintained in a credible and effective fashion.
    Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Will my right hon. and learned Friend remind the Opposition that, of the hundreds of millions of people who died in war in his and my lifetime, almost all were killed by conventional, and not nuclear, weapons?
    Will my right hon. and learned Friend also please save the Gordon Highlanders—founded by my ancestors—from amalgamation?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. and learned Friend is undoubtedly correct to emphasise and to remind the House that conventional weapons can cause many millions of deaths, as we have seen to our cost throughout the centuries.
    With regard to the latter part of my hon. and learned Friend's question, I believe that the Gordon Highlanders is a fine regiment. I believe that it will continue to have a proud identiy when it merges with the Queen's Own Highlanders. The process of amalgamation can be taken forward in a way that will enable both regiments to preserve much of their identities, as has occurred with previous amalgamations in previous years.
    Dr. Reid: The irony of the Secretary of State accusing anyone of lacking planning, forethought and strategy in defence will not be lost on the people who serve in the British armed forces. Does not the MOD now have three sets of statistics—one to deceive the public, one to deceive Parliament and one to deceive itself? When will the Secretary of State accept that he cannot keep increasing our forces' commitments while reducing their resources at the same time?
    Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman tells us that we have got it wrong, does he recall that we told him that
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    he would cancel the tactical air-to-surface missile? He said no, but he has done so. Does he recall that we told him that he had too few regiments? He said no, but then reinstated them. We told him that he could do without nuclear testing. Although he said no, he has now admitted that we could. We told him to back a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. He said no, but has now done so. We told him that we needed more infantry. He said no, but we now have them.
    Today we are telling him that he needs a defence review. Why does he not stop wasting everyone's time and accept that we and the British armed forces are right and that we need a full comprehensive defence review?
    Mr. Rifkind: If the hon. Gentleman wants to carry credibility with his expostulations, he should remember that when the Labour Government left office they left our armed forces with their poorest morale at any time since 1945. Recruitment to our armed forces was in a parlous state and, as usual, it required a Conservative Government to restore the armed forces' confidence in the Government.

    Aircraft
    Mr. Bill Walker: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will give details of aircraft allocated by his Department for strike duty.
    Mr. Hanley: The RAF currently has eight squadrons of nuclear-capable Tornado aircraft and one squadron of nuclear-capable Buccaneer aircraft. The Buccaneer squadron will disband on 31 March next year.
    Mr. Walker: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that, in the light of experience in the Gulf war-when strike crews of the Royal Air Force performed their operational tasks magnificently and with great courage—it would be naive, indeed irresponsible, for anyone to suggest that the Royal Air Force, especially its strike capability, should be compared with the Israeli air force, which has no worldwide capability?
    Mr. Hanley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right on both counts—first, to pay tribute to the role of the Royal Air Force in the Gulf conflict and, secondly, to differentiate between the Israeli air force and our Royal Air Force in that, as he says, the former patrols its borders, whereas we have a worldwide responsibility.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Does the Minister accept that simulated strikes against golf courses for the entertainment of pilots' families are not tolerable? Following the embarrassing failure of his Department's attempts to cover up such an incident over Gullane in my constituency on 16 September 1992, will he institute proper disciplinary proceedings to ensure that the tiny minority of pilots who indulge in such conduct are dealt with properly?
    Mr. Hanley: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The matter is being investigated.

    Drug Trafficking
    Mr. David Shaw: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assistance the Royal Navy and Royal Marines are now giving to tackling the threat from drug trafficking.
    Mr. Hanley: The Ministry of Defence does not provide dedicated resources for anti-drugs operations, but we are prepared to give the armed forces assistance when asked to do so by other Government Departments and where operational commitments and resources allow.
    Mr. Shaw: Does my hon. Friend accept that we welcome the role of the Royal Navy in trying to defeat drug smugglers at sea and congratulate the Royal Navy on the way in which it has recently apprehended a number of ships on the high seas? Does he also accept that we hope that the Royal Navy will be given all possible support to ensure that the south American drug dealers are dealt a nasty lesson and told that they cannot import drugs into this country, as they have been doing, and that we should show them that we mean business?
    Mr. Hanley: I thank my hon. Friend for that tribute to the Royal Navy, which is richly deserved. The House may be interested to know that in the past month the Royal Navy has helped to recovery more than £120 million-worth of drugs. Not only was nearly 1 tonne of cocaine recovered earlier this month by HMS Active, the West Indies guard ship, but, in a most remarkable episode, to which my hon. Friend referred, HMS Avenger, Royal Fleet Auxiliary Olna and HMS Guernsey helped to recover almost £20 million of cannabis off our shores. That is a most useful role for the Royal Navy, but it is not one of our dedicated commitments. We shall, however, continue to help the Home Office and Customs and Excise whenever possible.
    Mr. Morgan: Does the Minister agree that the way in which British armed forces can help to deter drugs smuggling is by retaining the British garrison in Belize? Does he agree that he and his Home Office colleagues must carry out a full evaluation of the impact of the arrival of cocaine and crack in our inner cities and north American inner cities if the British garrison is withdrawn from Belize, as the Government intend? I am sure that he will accept that the withdrawal of the British garrison from such a poor country as Belize will leave it wide open to the depredations of the Colombian cocaine cartel.
    Mr. Hanley: The reason for our defence presence in Belize is that, since its independence, Belize has needed us to take on its defence responsibilities. Belize has now grown and has agreed with us that it should take on its own defence responsibilities from next year. In the meantime, we have our West Indies guard ship which, as I explained, helped to recover £100 million-worth of cocaine earlier this month. We will continue to use our defence forces and the remaining forces that will be carrying out jungle training in Belize for whatever purposes they are best suited. I hope that that will include managing to slop the evil trade in drugs which flow through from south America.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Ward: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Ward: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming today's cut in interest rates, which will be a great help to industry? Does he agree that the most effective way of creating jobs is to have a flexible, deregulated work force and not to have artificial job sharing or 35-hour weeks? Will he continue to resist such proposals, whether they come from the socialists in Brussels or the socialists in Walworth road?
    The Prime Minister: I can join my hon. Friend in welcoming the latest reduction in interest rates. The last time interest rates were this low was in 1977—[HON. MEMBERS: "Under Labour."] Exactly so, but at that time inflation was 13 per cent. and pensioners and savers were robbed of 7 per cent. So I am happy to repeat it: the last time the base rate was 5·5 per cent., inflation under Labour was 13 per cent. and savers were being robbed. I entirely agree with the other aspects of my hon. Friend's question. The right way to create the new jobs we want is through the policies of deregulation, low inflation and making sure that British business is not overhampered with burdens. Telling people that they cannot work the hours they want and raising costs will simply destroy competitiveness and, with it, jobs.
    Mr. John Smith: Will the Prime Minister confirm that, as a result of the Bill announced in the Queen's Speech which will increase national insurance contributions from 9 to 10 per cent., most wage earners in Britain will pay an extra £3 to £4 a week?
    The Prime Minister: Self-evidently, with an increase in national insurance contributions, people will pay more. That is certainly the case, but it is necessary to make sure that we reduce the fiscal gap about which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has spoken in the past. He pays lip service to reducing the fiscal gap, proposes extra expenditure and gives no indication of how it would be met.
    Mr. Smith: Why does the Prime Minister find it difficult to admit that the figure is £3 to £4 a week for most wage earners? Does he not recollect that, before the last election, he promised unequivocally that he would not increase national insurance contributions? Is this not yet another shameless betrayal of tax promises?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has a very selective memory. He forgets, for example, his own plans to extend national insurance right through the scale at substantially greater losses for millions of people.
    Mr. Smith: The Prime Minister said in the House at Prime Minister's questions:
    "I have no plans to raise … the level of national insurance contributions."—[Official Report, 28 January 1992; Vol. 202, c. 808.]
    On top of national insurance contributions, there is also increased VAT on fuel, the freezing of income tax allowances and the cuts in mortgage tax relief. Does the Prime Minister not admit that all the tax increases will amount to another £8·50 a week for a typical family in Britain from next April? What on earth has this to do with the Tory promises on tax?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. and learned Gentleman came back from Brussels last week, having signed up to a range of extra environmental taxes, which

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    means—if they mean anything—value added tax on fuel. Week after week, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has criticised the Government over VAT on fuel. It is no good his sitting smugly there when he goes to Brussels and signs up to the same thing.
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Thurnham: Will my right hon. Friend carry out an inquiry into why the infant mortality rate in Bolton in the past five years has risen to twice the national rate, when infant deaths elsewhere have been falling? Will he reassure parents and publish an action plan to discourage expectant mothers from smoking?
    The Prime Minister: I understand my hon. Friend's concern about the problem that he raises. Infant mortality is particularly heart-breaking. In the past 10 years, the number of children dying under the age of one has, thankfully, fallen by some 40 per cent. I understand that Bolton health authority agreed last Friday to appoint an additional consultant obstetrician and to provide additional neo-natal nursing staff. My hon. Friend will also be pleased to know that the health authority has just agreed to fund a study into the prevention of smoking in pregnancy, which will be carried out in Bolton. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will publish an action plan setting out measures being taken by the Government to improve health targets.
    Mrs. Ewing: Does the Prime Minister remember that, as a junior social security Minister in 1986, speaking on the issue of fuel poverty, he argued that there should be clear rules for help, and a certainty and immediacy of response to people in those circumstances? Not only because we have a cold snap now, but because the Government plan to introduce VAT on domestic fuel, does he recognise that there is now a clear need to have automatic and continual payments to the most vulnerable in society throughout the winter months to eradicate the fear faced by many people?
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Lady will know, we introduced the current cold weather payment scheme. It was a vast improvement on its predecessor, which we inherited from the previous Government. We also introduced automatic, quicker and more generous payments. In 1991, we made more than 6·5 million payments worth more than £39 million. That is a record of quick and efficient help given by the Government, on which we propose to build. We shall, of course, enhance the present cold weather payment scheme and the House will hear the details next week.
    Mr. Alexander: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Alexander: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, despite the knowledge that it is about to be privatised, British Coal is continuing with proposed colliery closures? Would any other industry about to be sold dispose of, give away or close a significant proportion of that industry
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    before a buyer could be found? Will my right hon. Friend intervene to prevent the further desecration of a fine industry and the coalfield communities involved?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, we all wish to keep pits open wherever practicable—[Interruption.] The Opposition, who have perhaps closed more pits than anyone else, may not accept that, but it happens to be the case. Under current legislation, the future of individual pits is a matter for British Coal, which has a commitment to offer to the private sector pits that it does not intend to keep in production. I expect it to do that.
    Mr. Hain: Is the Prime Minister aware that thousands of decent couples feel nearly suicidal because of oppressive and arbitrary claims for maintenance payments on second marriages by the Child Support Agency, often in defiance of court orders? My constituent, Mrs. Diane Eynon, is considering divorce in order to escape plunging her family into poverty because of a claim on her income through her husband. Surely the Prime Minister should intervene immediately, order a freeze on such maintenance payments and have a proper debate in the House of Commons on the future of the Child Support Agency.
    The Prime Minister: As the Opposition spokesman said when we introduced the regulations, the Opposition very much support the principle behind the Child Support Agency, which is that parents should contribute to the cost of bringing up their children. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State told the Select Committee a day or so ago that we are looking at the comments and criticisms that have been made and testing them against the basic structure and principles that are in place. We intend to ensure that what was previously a very poor system becomes better. If, after examination, we think that we can make the scheme better, then we will do so. We are examining it at the moment.
    Mr. Ian Taylor: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Taylor: My right hon. Friend should be aware of the widespread support for his efforts to achieve an end to violence in Northern Ireland and to obtain a political settlement. He is absolutely right to explore new opportunities. Will he assure the House that it is not the Government's intention to undermine the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom?
    The Prime Minister: I am happy to repeat that assurance, yet again, to my hon. Friend. The Union is important to us. We are not in any way in the business of securing the break-up of the United Kingdom. As I made clear to the House a day or so ago, we are looking for peace if it is available, but we are not looking for peace at any price. I wish to know whether the IRA is prepared to end its violence for good and enter the political arena using only democratic means. It is right for us to put that question when there seems to be some suggestion that the IRA may be thinking of an end to violence. We need a clear and unqualified answer from the IRA which respects the vital principle that there can be no change in Northern Ireland's status without the freely expressed will of its people.
    Mr. Alton: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Alton: Is the Prime Minister aware that, by the age of five, the average child in the United States will have seen 20,000 homicides broadcast on television? Does he not agree that in this country, too, the culture of violence involving television violence and videos showing horrific and graphic scenes is far too easily available? Does he feel that stringent measures should be taken by the broadcasters and those who make available these videos to stop young children having their minds infected by them? If there is not such a correlation between violence and videos and television violence, why does he think that advertisers spent £1·7 billion last year trying to promote their wares on television?
    The Prime Minister: I have considerable sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has said. There are some responsibilities that rest with broadcasters—they accept some, but we may not always agree with their judgments. However, we must recognise that the principal responsibility lies with parents in the home to ensure that, first, the videos are not available to children and, secondly, that children are not in a position to watch them freely, as they frequently are at present. I accept some responsibilities for broadcasters and the hon. Gentleman was right to make that point.
    Mrs. Lait: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave some moments ago.
    Mrs. Lait: Does my right hon. Friend welcome the decision by the United States Congress on the North American Free Trade Agreement? Will that lead to an agreement on the general agreement on tariffs and trade? Can my right hon. Friend see the way forward for France on those negotiations?
    The Prime Minister: I warmly welcome the vote in the United States Congress in favour of the North American Free Trade Agreement. We have constantly stated our support for free trade agreements and I think that NAFTA will contribute to the liberalisation of trade. It will, of course, have to contribute to GATT rules. I trust that that vote will add to the impetus in the United States and elsewhere to ensure that we get an agreement in the Uruguay round by 15 December. There will be a number of important meetings in the next three weeks and I hope that they will lead to a satisfactory outcome in time for 15 December.
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Prentice: Does the Prime Minister recall writing to me in July of this year, wishing Cleveland Guest Engineering well? Is he aware that today that firm, employing more than 100 highly skilled engineers in aerospace, called in the receiver? Is it not the case that every time the Prime Minister wishes a manufacturing company well, it is the kiss of death for that company?
    The Prime Minister: I am very sorry to hear of the difficulties faced by that company. Although the hon. Gentleman may have concern for that company in his constituency, might he just once forget the point-scoring and welcome the good news about employment? Unemployment in this country has fallen by 137,000 this year, and last month's fall of 49,000 was the largest monthly fall for four years. Long-term unemployment fell in every region, among men and among women, and last year nearly half a million people left the unemployment register and found themselves work. Why does not the hon. Gentleman consider what is really happening to unemployment?

Points of Order
3.30 pm
Ms Glenda Jackson: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for the Environment launched a consultation document about the future of London, entitled "Making the Best Better". As a London Member whose constituents have suffered, and continue to suffer, from the Government's inability to create a present for this capital city, with rates of unemployment higher than the national and European average, 9,000 small businesses failing last year and crime and homelessness rates increasing, I awaited my copy of the document with no small interest. I have not received such a copy.
Is it not disgraceful that, yet again, the Executive announce their decision to the press but fail to inform the House?
Mr. Graham Riddick: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: Does it relate to this point of order?
Mr. Riddick: No.
Madam Speaker: In that case, let me answer the hon. Lady's point of order. So far as I am aware, no new policy has been announced to the public. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Order. The hon. Lady has asked me for a response to this. No new policy has been announced. It is, I believe, as she says herself, a consultation document. Perhaps the hon. Lady would ask the Secretary of State—it will no doubt be relayed to him—for copies of his document, or perhaps he could make it available in the Library so that we might all see what he has to say.
Mr. Riddick: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I imagine that you will be aware that, last night, the Liberal Democrats used a device in the House to stop my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales from making his speech at the end of the debate on local government in Wales and Scotland. That follows hard on the heels of similar—indeed, worse—tactics of disruption that were perpetrated by the official Labour Opposition three weeks ago, at the tail end of the last Session of Parliament.
Is there anything that you can do to put a stop to those tactics of disruption? Are you able to tell us the outcome of the inquiry that you carried out into those tactics of three weeks ago?
Madam Speaker: I was certainly aware of what happened last night. Indeed, I have gone through Hansard, ad I found that yesterday, a number of Members who
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wished to speak were disappointed because speeches took so long. Therefore, I was not able to call a number of Members who had a right to speak. The tactic, as the hon. Gentleman calls it, of last night, of saying, "I spy strangers," is perfectly legitimate. The hon. Gentleman may not like it—some other Members may not like it—but it is a perfectly legitimate procedure. I must say that I was disappointed myself, because I know that the House had been waiting for the Secretary of State's statement, and he had, in one minute, to rush it through very rapidly—a statement for which the House had been waiting for quite some time.
Mr. David Shaw: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It has been suggested that the House survives on a degree of hot air. Can you use your good offices to discover why there is no hot air wafting its way to the Norman Shaw buildings, where our staff are suffering considerable cold? In September, the heating system is not turned on and it is extremely cold; in October, the heating is turned on and it is too hot; now, in November, our staff are suffering from inadequate heating in the building.
Madam Speaker: I take my job very seriously, but the hon. Gentleman need not have wasted time on the Floor of the House with such a matter; he could have gone directly to the relevant committee. However, I take my job as porter, caretaker, or whatever it may be, seriously, and I shall make the inquiries for which the hon. Gentleman asks.
Mr. Charles Hendry: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In connection with your inquiry into disturbances in the House, will you tell us whether you are considering the appointment of lady Serjeants at Arms, who would be able to root out the Opposition lady Members who hide in the gentlemen's lavatories in order to disrupt the proceedings of the Chamber?
Madam Speaker: So far as I am aware, there are no vacancies in the Serjeant at Arms' Department at the moment.
Mr. Nigel Evans: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. Can you tell us when we are likely to learn the outcome of your inquiry into the tactics used by the Opposition in the House three weeks ago?
Madam Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman reads carefully the Hansard report of that day, he will see that I said that I was making my own inquiries. I have done that, and I have received the necessary assurances for which I asked at the time. I shall take matters into my own hands in future.

Orders of the Day
  Debate on the Address

    FOURTH DAY
    Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question,
    That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows—
    Most Gracious Sovereign,
    We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.—[Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith.]
    Question again proposed.

  Home Affairs and Education
  3.36 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard): The Gracious Speech includes three Home Office Bills. Two—the Police Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill—will play a key role in our fight against crime. The third measure—the Sunday Trading Bill—is intended to clear up once and for all the question of Sunday opening. I hope that the House will have an early opportunity to debate that measure in full and to reach a decision that will put the law on a satisfactory basis.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman>: Has my right hon. and learned Friend had an opportunity to see the item in today's Financial Times, in which it is made clear that Sainsbury's link promotion to the willingness of staff to work on Sundays? Does that not negate the Government's promise to shop workers that working on Sundays will continue to be voluntary for all staff, both those already employed and those who will be employed in the future?
  Mr. Howard rose—
  Madam Speaker: If the Secretary of State will forgive me, I should like to make a short announcement that I had forgotten to make. So many Members seek to speak today that I have had to limit speeches between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock to 10 minutes. I hope that those speaking outside those limits will also consider the other hon. Members who wish to speak and will make short speeches if possible. That did not happen yesterday.
  Mr. Howard: If my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman) studies schedule 4 to the Bill with great care, as I know she will, she will find that it provides the answer to the question that she asked on the basis of the report.
  When I became Home Secretary, I said that we must reject the view that we are helpless in the face of rising crime. In October, I set out the most comprehensive law and order package ever announced by a Home Secretary. Today, I want to explain how the measures that I propose fit into our overall strategy to fight crime.
  I have always said that we need to take action right across the board. It is no good simply concentrating on one area alone. We must do all we can to prevent crime, to
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  catch criminals, to ensure fair justice and to give courts the power they need to pass appropriate sentences. The measures in the Police Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill will help us in all four respects.
  The police response to my proposals has been very encouraging. The Association of Chief Police Officers has said that the proposals would
  "help to redress the balance in favour of justice for victims, witnesses and the mass of law-abiding citizens".
  The Police Federation said unequivocally that my proposals would
  "help tremendously in the fight against crime".
  What a contrast is the reaction of the Opposition. 'The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has, characteristically, uttered a torrent of words but, equally characteristically, his words are totally hollow. The hon. Gentleman is prepared to pronounce on everything except my proposals, ducking and weaving as he attempts to avoid committing himself to being in favour or not in favour of any of my 27 points. Finding the Labour party's policies is as difficult as finding Michael Jackson, but I can say that it will take a good deal longer to detoxify Labour's policies when and if they are ever found.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield seems bent on squeezing every ounce of advantage from the right to silence before we finally deal with it, but I must caution him. Everything that he says will be used in evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming that the hon. Gentleman has not the faintest idea of what he would or would not do if he had any responsibility for these matters.
  The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown )—[Interruption.] One cannot expect the right hon. Gentleman to be present for a debate on a subject as unimportant as law and order. The right hon. Gentleman said that reforming the criminal justice system was irrelevant to tackling crime. What on earth does he mean-tackling offending on bail; ending cautions as a substitute for prosecution for serious offences; dealing with the so-called right to silence that is abused by terrorists and hardened criminals?
  The right hon. Gentleman may think that those matters are irrelevant, but I can tell him that the police and the victims of crime do not agree with him, and nor do we. Yet again, when it comes to the vital national debate about crime, the Liberal Democrats remain true to their long tradition of utter irrelevance.
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way so early in his speech. Does he agree that whether the reform of the criminal justice system is relevant depends upon the content of the reforms? The 64 Bills already passed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Government have shown them to be singularly inept.
  Mr. Howard: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will have to pay rather closer attention to the words of the leader of his party. The press release on 25 October by the right hon. Member for Yeovil made the point that any reform of the criminal justice system was irrelevant. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the press releases emanating from his party, he will see that my comments were entirely justified.
  Mr. Paul Flynn: We are all trying to understand the Home Secretary's thinking. Would he

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  regard it as a reasonable defence if some thug explained in court that his crime of violence was caused because his grandmother was lonely during the war?
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman seems determined to trivialise a serious debate. I do not propose to descend to his level of triviality: I propose to deal with the real issues as they arise.
  I shall take the main elements of my strategy in turn. The first of them is preventing crime, and this Government put crime prevention on the map. We set up and funded Crime Concern, which levers in private sector money for crime prevention schemes. We encouraged neighbourhood watch schemes, which now cover more than 5 million households. We are doubling the number of safer city projects, providing better security for housing estates, improved street lighting and more secure car parks.
  There are many things that can be done, and under the Government they are being done. We are spending £200 million across Whitehall on all aspects of crime prevention, and that figure excludes what the police spend. Crime prevention, is a natural and continuing ingredient in the work of almost every police officer, whatever else the police are engaged in. The patrolling officer who tests the lock on a door is engaged as much on crime prevention as on anything else, and let us not forget the money that the private sector invests in crime prevention. That runs to billions of pounds.
  We must also tackle the menace of drugs, which is a factor in a great deal of crime. That is why we have 20 drugs prevention teams across the country to prevent the spread of drugs misuse, and why we have legislated to seize the profits of the drugs barons.
  Mr. Michael Shersby: On the question of drugs, has my right hon. and learned Friend seen the report in today's issue of The Sun that yet another major prosecution for drugs offences has collapsed because the defence wished to know the names of the informants? What action does my right hon. and learned Friend propose to deal with that?
  Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend identifies a very serious problem, which was carefully considered by the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. The commission made certain proposals, and we are considering them very carefully. I assure my hon. Friend that I am entirely sympathetic to the point he raises, and I am determined to take action to deal with it.
  We will do everything we can to prevent crime, but no society has ever managed to eradicate it. That is why we need to do more to catch and punish criminals. The main responsibility for crime detention will always lie with the police.
  One of my recent critics had some interesting things to say about that. He said that the police should be weaned off the silly, old-fashioned idea that their main job was detecting crime and catching criminals—"the canteen culture", he called it derisively. Now, apparently, I have come along and ruined everything. The boys in blue are starting to go back to the bad old days, when they enjoyed nothing so much as feeling collars. To those coppers in their canteens who see their main job as clearing villains off the street, I have a simple message: "Carry on, constable: I will back you all the way."
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  My job is to sweep away the obstacles that stop the police getting on with the job of clearing up crimes and arresting criminals. That is why, under our Police Bill, I will set key objectives for the police service. I want to give the police a clearer focus for their work. That is why I have accepted all the proposals of the inquiry to cut police paperwork, which will free as many as 2,300 police officers for front-line work. That is why we must give the police the modern equipment and technology that they need to beat the modern criminal.
  Next year, the national collection of criminal records will be computerised, and the police national network will also be in place, saving up to £100 million over 10 years. Next year too, if Parliament approves, wider DNA profiling will be available to help the police to catch criminals.
  The police do a difficult and dangerous job, frequently putting their own lives at risk to help others. We need to make sure that they have all the protection that we can give them. When I became Home Secretary, the police asked to undertake trials of a new expandable side-handled baton, which could give police officers better protection. I said that they could go ahead, subject to scientific evaluation. I can announce today that that evaluation has now been successfully completed, and that trials of the side-handled baton will go ahead as soon as possible in many parts of the country, including London.
  We also need to make sure that the police service is managed efficiently, and that police officers are rewarded properly. That is why my predecessor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, set up the Sheehy inquiry. The reaction of the hon. Member for Sedgefield to the Sheehy report told us a lot about Labour Members. It would not be quite right to say they do not have a policy towards the Sheehy report; in fact, they have four.
  When the Sheehy inquiry was announced, the hon. Member for Sedgefield welcomed it, saying that it
  "may … come out with sensible reforms".
  When it was published, he said that it was entirely right for me to consult about its contents. No sooner had I started consulted and listening than he said we should scrap it altogether. Writing in the Daily Express, as he frequently does, he said that the slate should be
  "cleaned of these unnecessary matters".
  Then, when I announced my conclusions, he simply could not bring himself to say whether he agreed with them or not.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield's counterpart in another place had no such difficulty. At the very moment when the hon. Gentleman was engaging in one of his rambling responses in this House, the noble Lord McIntosh took quite a different line:
  "our fundamental reaction … it is in fact a very welcome basis for future discussion of the way forward for the police service."
  —[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 October 1993; Vol. 549, c. 943-4.]
  The hon. Gentleman could not bring himself to say that.
  We know what happened to one Labour spokesman —Lord Desai—when he disagreed with his party's policy on value added tax. When the Leader of the Opposition finally noticed what had happened, Lord Desai got the sack. On this occasion, if there were any justice in the world, it would not be Lord McIntosh who got the sack but the hon. Member for Sedgefield.

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  The fact is that Lord McIntosh was right to welcome my statement. It was good for the police, good for the taxpayer and good for the public. They want the most effective police force possible, and that is exactly what they will get.
  Mrs. Teresa Gorman: In the spirit of not adding to the burdens of the police, will my right hon. and learned Friend reconsider the proposal in the Queen's Speech to make ticket touting a crime? Does he agree that we are in danger of scapegoating touts for more serious crimes, such as ticket forgery or failing to manage football grounds properly, which are not rightly the responsibility of people who happen to be selling a few tickets outside the grounds?
  Mr. Howard: It pains me to disagree with my hon. Friend. Perhaps her disappointment will be lessened when I assure her that the police have supported the proposal to which she takes exception. I do not think that she need worry too much about additional police burdens in that context.
  The Police Bill will also help to build the close partnership between police and public that we need to fight crime effectively. It will give us strengthened police authorities, working with their local police to respond to local needs. All our police reforms are directed towards one goal: ensuring that we have the most professional and effective police service possible. The British police are the best in the world, and I want things to stay that way.
  Nothing saps police morale and public confidence more than breakdowns in the criminal justice system. The need for reform is widely accepted. Our approach to the report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice is to follow up its 352 recommendations as quickly and carefully as we can. We are looking at the report as a whole, but some proposals can be taken forward sooner than others. I intend to deal with those matters—including almost all the proposals that I announced in Blackpool on 6 October—in the legislation planned for the current Session.
  Some action does not need legislation—for instance, cautioning. At present, there is too much of it. A recent survey commissioned by General Accident found that 60 per cent. of those aged between 13 and 17 thought that offenders committed crime because they believed that they could get off with a caution. It take that very seriously; we need to put a stop to cautioning for serious offenders and repeat cautions, save in the most exceptional circumstances. That is what the new guidance will achieve.
  Of the 27 measures that I announced in Blackpool, 18 that require legislation will be dealt with in the Criminal Justice Bill. We will take action to crack down on the widespread abuse of bail. About 50,000 offences are committed by people on bail every year, and more than 40,000 people breach police bail. We will reform juries by banning those on bail from serving on them: no one wants someone on a jury one week and in the dock the next. We will introduce a new offence of witness intimidation, and allow retrials to take place if juries have been nobbled.
  We will also deal with the so-called right to silence. That does not mean that those cautioned by the police must answer questions, but it does mean that their refusal to do so can be taken into account in a court of law. When the commission's report was published, the hon. Member for Sedgefield said that he supported retaining the right to silence. Why? After all:
  "No one has anything to fear from being asked reasonable questions about where they were."
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  Those are not my words, but those of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), a shadow Cabinet colleague of the hon. Member for Sedgefield.
  Does the hon. Member for Sedgefield agree with his colleague? I think it is about time we were told. I shall be happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to lay any doubts to rest. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is continuing to take advantage of the right to silence; we will let him do so for as long as he can.
  Mr. Bruce Grocott rose—
  Mr. Howard: I see that there is a bolder spirit on the Opposition Back Benches.
  Mr. Grocott: Perhaps, during the few remaining minutes in which the Home Secretary's words are transmitted live on television, he will answer the question that the public outside are asking. It is not the question with which he has been dealing so far: as usual, his speech has simply been part of his leadership bid.
  Will the Home Secretary answer a very simple question? Why has crime rocketed under his Government, and why have all his attempts—and those of his predecessors—to reduce the level of crime been so hopelessly inadequate?
  Mr. Howard: The House will have noticed that even the prospect of television could not bring the hon. Member for Sedgefield to his feet to address the question of the right to silence.
  The hon. Member for the Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) asks about the measures that have been taken by the Government over the past 14 years. I shall tell the hon. Gentleman about the past 14 years. The Government have been passing measures to increase the powers of the courts and the police, and the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have voted against every one. We shall not take any cackle from Opposition Members, because during the past 14 years they have attempted to thwart every measure that we have taken to deal with those matters.
  Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: Has the Home Secretary considered getting rid of remission, rehabilitation and parole? If somebody is sentenced to ten years imprisonment, let them serve it. If they misbehave, give them extra years, and if there is no room in the prisons, why not open up the army camps to keep prisoners under lock and key so that they cannot burgle our homes and break into our cars? Then we shall begin getting to grips with law and order.
  Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend's point chimes perfectly with that of the hon. Member for the Wrekin. One of ihe provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which the Labour party voted against, was to increase the proportion of the prison sentence that the people detained there served. We wanted to increase the time spent by people in prison, and the Labour party voted against it and have voted against every measure that we have taken over the past 14 years.
  Mr. Clive Soley rose—
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman who rises to ask a question was present during the entire 14-year period and went into the division Lobby on every occasion to vote against those measures.
  Mr. Soley: That is precisely the point that I wanted to put to the Home Secretary. In answering my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin, he still has not told us why all the policies have failed, which is why we voted against them.
  More importantly, why is the Home Secretary now bringing forward legislation that asks us to overturn many of the Acts that the Government have introduced, such as parts of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which I and other Opposition Members warned him would be bad for police efficiency, without doing anything to improve the accountability of the police, as the Government said that they wanted to do? Why throw that Government Act out now?
  Mr. Howard: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not seeking to misrepresent matters by suggesting that he was in favour of any of the tough measures we took, or that he voted against any of the measures that we have again considered.
  The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. It does not amount to opposition to those measures, to say as the hon. Gentleman has consistently said, that the police should be under the control of local authorities. If he thinks that that would have produced more effective policing, he stands alone in the country on that issue.
  Mr. Don Foster rose—
  Mr. Howard: I am coming to the Liberal Democrats, and shall give way when I have said a word or two about them.
  We should be told about the attitude of the Liberal Democrats to the proposal to deal with the right to silence. Last week on Channel 4 news, the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) took the place of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who was not allowed out on that day. The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye affected outrage that I was not proposing to follow instantly and unquestioningly the majority recommendation of the royal commission. "What an outrageous way" for a Home Secretary to behave, he said.
  What a revealing comment. The Liberal Democrats have joined The Guardian in the anti-democratic league. How outrageous, they say, for democratically elected politicians to take decisions. They urge that the responsibility should be given to others such as the royal commissioners and civil servants—to anyone but those who stand directly accountabe to the people.
  We will have no truck with such drivel. We shall listen, but in the end it is for Ministers accountable to this House and to the people of this country to decide.
  Mr. Don Foster: A minute ago, the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to misrepresentation. Will he confirm that he referred earlier to a press release issued by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) and, in effect, claimed that my right hon. Friend had said that the reform of the criminal justice system was an irrelevance in the fight against crime? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirms that, will he tell the House to which press release he was referring?
  Will he now reflect on the words actually used by my right hon. Friend:
  "the criminal justice system is quite clearly not reducing crime—and it has not been reducing crime for the last twenty years"?
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  In particular, my right hon. Friend was referring to the rise of 120 per cent. in the level of crime during this Government's administration.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman should have turned over the page of his leader's press release. He would then have seen the words:
  "The extent of crime completely dwarfs the capacity of the criminal justice system to deal with it."
  If that is not saying that the criminal justice system is irrelevant in dealing with crime, I do not know what is. If the hon. Gentleman had looked at the whole of his right hon. Friend's press release, he would realise that it entirely supports my point.
  Mr. Foster: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it in order for the Home Secretary to mislead the House as he has just done?
  Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman should understand that the Secretary of State is not deliberately misleading the House. All hon. Members, Ministers and Secretaries of State are responsible for the comments they make. That is part of what robust debate is about. I hope that there will be an opportunity to call the hon. Gentleman or his party's spokesman, who can then rebut remarks as he wishes.
  Mr. Howard: I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) is sensitive about his leader. I dare say that it is not the first time, and I am sure that it will not be the last.
  It is not enough to catch criminals if the courts do not have the powers they need to punish them effectively. Many of my measures will help the police to catch more criminals. I hope that they will have the support of everyone in the House. Other measures will enable the courts to convict more criminals, and I hope that they, too, will have the support of every hon. Member.
  Some of those caught and convicted will be sent to prison—not by me, not by the Government, but by the judges and magistrates whose task it is to pass the appropriate sentence upon them. That is why I said in my speech at Blackpool that I am not prepared to judge the success of our policies by how much the prison population falls.
  Mr. James Couchman: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that for too long there has been a presumption that magistrates will not send people to prison. Will he assure the House that that presumption is now for the birds, and that in future magistrates will be allowed to use their powers rather than have them constrained?
  Mr. Howard: Magistrates and judges must use their discretion. One of my objectives is to remove as many as possible of the fetters on that discretion.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield has said that he wants to be tougher on crime, and that he wants to catch more criminals. However, at the same time he criticises my policy of building more prisons. Perhaps he can tell the House where the courts would put the extra criminals if they were caught and convicted through the hon. Gentleman's approach to being tough with crime. The fact is that he has not got a clue.
  Prison, of course, is only part of our strategy. I will review the national standards for punishment in the community, which will continue to play an important part

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  in our strategy. It must be effective and rigorous. Courts must always be free to send dangerous, violent and habitual offenders to prison. That is the protection that the public demand, and that is the protection that I am determined to provide. Prison sentences should be a real punishment. That is why I have said that conditions in our prisons should be decent but austere.
  Mr. David Shaw: My right hon. and learned Friend is getting a lot of silence from the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). Is he aware that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) recently made an important announcement—important from the point of view of the Opposition—of a major policy on how to deal with young criminals? The hon. Member for Brightside proposes that young criminals should be tracked, and that tracking should be the new Labour party policy on how to deal with young criminals.
  Can my right hon. and learned Friend say how tracking will reduce crime, because there is no evidence whatever that just keeping track of a criminal will reduce crime?
  Mr. Howard: I am not sure about that particular suggestion—[Interruption.]—but in answer to my hon. Friend, I have a good deal more respect for the views of the hon. Member for Brightside on matters of law and order than I have for the hon. Member for Sedgefield.
  I said at Blackpool that prison works—and it does. First, it deters many people from crime. If the sanction of prison were not available, who can possibly doubt that many more would be tempted to commit crimes? Secondly, while they are in prison, criminals cannot commit further crimes against the public. That can have a real and quantifiable effect. Our research into a sample of burglars given community service orders in 1987 suggested that, had they been in prison for a year, we could have prevented between three and 13 crimes per burglar.
  A recent survey in Watford showed that just 25 burglars admitted between them to committing 1,124 offences—more than 44 offences per burglar. Of course prison is expensive. Of course it does not prevent all criminals from offending again, any more than fining, cautioning or punishment in the community.
  What are those who oppose prison saying? Are they saying that society cannot afford to protect itself; that, to save money, dangerous criminals should be allowed to walk free; or that, because prison does not always stop offending behaviour, we should never send criminals to prison, irrespective of the rest of the public?
  Those questions are particularly relevant to the small group of persistent juvenile offenders with whom the law as it stands simply cannot deal effectively.
  Mr. John Greenway: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that those who say that, if persistent young juvenile offenders are locked up, they will learn how to be criminals completely ignore the fact that those youngsters have learnt everything there is to learn about crime, without ever having been in custody?
  Mr. Howard: I fear that there is a great deal of truth in what my hon. Friend says. We are all familiar with the problems caused by that group, who terrorise their local communities and offend again and again, in spite of all attempts to contain them. That is why we will introduce a
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  new secure training order for 12 to 14-year-olds, which will provide the education and discipline they need, while protecting the public from their criminal behaviour.
  We intend also to raise from 12 months to two years the maximum sentence for detention in a young offenders institution for 15, 16 and l7-year-olds, so that courts have the flexibility they need to deal with that age group.
  Mr. Geoffrey Hoon: Returning for a moment to adult offenders, is the Secretary of State criticising the judiciary for not sending enough people to prison for long enough? Is that the import of his remarks about sentencing?
  Mr. Howard: It is clearly necessary to use words of only one syllable to explain matters to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon). I have said—and will say again for the hon. Gentleman's benefit—that my measures are intended to increase the number of criminals caught and the number of criminals convicted. In such circumstances, the courts will want to send some of those criminals to prison. That is why it is necessary to provide additional prison accommodation. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.
  Mr. Mark Robinson: My right hon. and learned Friend has criticised the Opposition for attacking the six new prisons that he has announced, but are they not being only consistent? The last time that a Labour Government were in power in in 1979, they cut capital expenditure on prisons by 20 per cent.—at a time when the prison population was rising.
  Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is right. That is why we had to engage in a massive prison building programme, which we did shortly after we were returned to office.
  We have a packed agenda of measures to tackle crime. Contrast that with the Opposition. The hon. Member for Sedgefield has been shadow Home Secretary for 16 months, but we have not heard one policy from him. All we have heard is a single sound bite—tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. The hon. Gentleman resembles nothing so much as a cracked record, going endlessly round repeating a meaningless mantra.
  What proposals does the hon. Gentleman have for getting tough on crime? The nearest he has come to a reaction to my proposals is to describe them as gimmicks. Last week, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) described them as born of rhetoric.
  Gimmicks? Rhetoric? Are my proposals for the increased use of DNA gimmicks? Are they simply rhetoric? Is cutting down on cautioning a gimmick, or rhetoric? Are my proposals for longer sentences for young offenders or for secure training units gimmicks or rhetoric? Is my proposal to deal with the misnamed right to silence a gimmick or rhetoric?
  It is time that the hon. Member for Sedgefield faced up to his responsibilities. It is nearly two months since I announced my 27-point plan at Blackpool. It is time that we and the country knew where the Opposition parties stand on those important matters. Do they agree with them, or do they not? The time for prevaricating, evading and trivialising is over. We want answers from the hon. Gentleman, and we want them this afternoon.
  The Government stand four square behind the police. We give priority to the victims of crime. We want the criminals, not law-abiding members of the public, to live in

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  fear. We are putting more police officers on our streets. We are building a partnership between the police and local people to prevent crime. We are cracking down on bail bandits, squatters, trespassers and all those who break the law. We are protecting the public from juvenile offenders who blight their communities, and we are toughening up punishments to step up the war against crime.
  That is what the British people want. That is what the Government will provide. That is what the measures contained in the Gracious Speech will achieve, and I commend them to the House.
  4.12 pm
  Mr. Tony Blair: That was the speech that we expected of the Home Secretary. He never fails to disappoint us in these matters.
  Two things are clear. There is no greater public concern at present than rising crime. It is the elderly, the weak and the most vulnerable who suffer most, not just from the commission of criminal offences but in the daily round of intimidation, harassment and abuse that is the lot of many people, not only in the inner-city estates, but in towns and villages throughout Britain. It is the first right of any citizen to live free from fear in safe communities.
  However, the second thing that is clear is that up to now Government policy has singularly failed to deliver that right. We have had 14 years of Conservative promises of effective action and tough rhetoric, 14 years of the Government claiming that they will put the victim back at the heart of our concerns—14 years of new laws and talk, and 14 years of failure. That is the record on which the Government now stand.
  The Government are right to signal, as they have done in virtually every Queen's Speech since they have been in power, that fighting crime should be at the heart of any new legislative programme. The question is, however, whether the Government now have a strategy to fight crime that is any more effective than the strategies which have gone before.
  Mr. Graham Riddick: Will the hon. Gentleman respond to the question that was put to him by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary? The hon. Gentleman wants more criminals to be caught; yet he has criticised the fact that the Government intend to build more prisons. Where would the courts put the extra criminals who are caught?
  Mr. Blair: I have not criticised the notion that those who are a danger to the public should be sent to prison. What I have criticised and will adumbrate at length in my speech is the notion that prison works as the centrepiece of the Government's strategy. There is no evidence that prison works as the main element of a strategy to fight crime.
  Mr. Howard: Can the hon. Gentleman cite a single statement of mine in which I have said, implied, or hinted that prison is the centrepiece of my strategy? I have said repeatedly that prison is an important part of the strategy, along with all the other measures that I am proposing. Why must the hon. Gentleman rely on misrepresentation to make his point?
  Mr. Blair: It is pretty rich for the Home Secretary to accuse me of misrepresentation after what he did to the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown).
  I find it extraordinary that the right hon. and learned Gentleman tells us that prison is not the centrepiece of his strategy, and that it is just an element of it. That was not how the Home Secretary sold his speech at the Conservative party conference. That was not what his political advisers were telling the press on 6 October. That was not what he was saying night after night during the Conservative party conference. The Home Secretary said—it was the centrepiece of his speech—that prison works. The truth is that he is now running away from that statement, because he cannot sustain it.
  We believe that there should be four elements of a successful policy on crime. The first is a strong criminal justice system which protects the innocent and which convicts the guilty. The second is a comprehensive strategy to prevent crime and promote safer communities. That is vital, given that only one crime in 50 results in a conviction. Thirdly, we should develop local and accountable community policing. Fourthly, it must be recognised that there are underlying causes of crime which must be addressed and which require a co-ordinated policy across Government Departments, rather than the subject being left to the Home Office.
  Added to those elements should be a prison service regime which is, of course, disciplined and challenging but which is also humane and dedicated to the reform of those who are in prison. The average term of imprisonment on any basis, although it has risen during the past few years, is still around two to three years. Therefore, prisoners and how they conduct themselves after leaving prison will be a vital component of whether we are successful in fighting crime.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: During the hon. Gentleman"s earlier remarks, he said that it is the weak and the vulnerable who are often the victims of crime. In considering the causes of crime, does he at least accept that it is an unacceptable excuse for a criminal to say that poverty is the cause of crime when the victims are often poorer than the criminals?
  Mr. Blair: I accept that absolutely and unequivocally. There is no excuse for crime. We do not believe that poverty, unemployment or any of those matters is an excuse for the criminal. We do say—I will deal with this later in my speech—that any sensible strategy should take account of the influence of social conditions in the breeding ground for criminality. I will attempt to establish that, not by referring to what Labour people have said, but by referring to what policemen and Conservative politicians have said.
  Mr. Max Madden: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary's failure to mention the incidence of racial attacks and the resurgence of racism and fascism in Europe was a most startling omission? In that context, does my hon. Friend support the introduction of a new law to outlaw incitement to racial hatred?
  Mr. Blair: As we have already said, we believe that a new law would send the important signal from Parliament that racial attacks should not be tolerated and that those

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  responsible for them should be weeded out and brought to justice as soon as possible. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
  Let us be quite clear that we are not saying that all the measures advocated by the Home Secretary are wrong. We have not said that, nor have we criticised every measure that he has introduced.
  Mr. Michael Bates rose—
  Mr. Blair: May I continue for a moment?
  The Home Secretary will recall that we co-operated in getting the latest Criminal Justice Act, which dealt with drugs and drug trafficking, through the House so that it gained Royal Assent before the summer break. As and when he publishes the details of his proposals, we shall comment on them. Our criticism is that they focus on only one element of a successful strategy to fight crime—the criminal justice system. Whatever lip service the Home Secretary pays to crime prevention—since the conference, he has started to introduce it to a much greater extent than before—he effectively ignores it and has downgraded it. He ignores the causes of crime and, in relation to the police and the policing of our communities, his proposals would make matters worse, not better.
  Mr. Bates: Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of the abolition of the right to silence—yes or no?
  Mr. Blair: I did not intervene on that point when it was mentioned earlier, but the hon. Gentleman and the Home Secretary must show why the royal commission's conclusions, which abrogate the right to silence but retain it in the police station where there are no proper safeguards for the accused, were wrong. Everyone agrees that there should be a duty of co-operation. The question is at what point that duty arises and under what conditions. I support the royal commission's recommendations in this respect, which were to ensure that—[Interruption.] Would hon. Members please listen?
  The right to silence is used in two quite different respects. One is at trial and leading to the trial and the other is at the police station. At the present, the so-called right to silence applies throughout. The royal commission's proposals were that it should be abrogated, that one should be able to comment on silence once the charges are known and that there should not be an ability to have ambush defences. If people remain silent at trial, there should be an ability to comment on that fact.
  The royal commission found, however, that there was no evidence that if the right to silence at the police station were removed it would lead to more convictions of those who were guilty; and it did believe that it might lead to injustice for those who were innocent. The Home Secretary must show how the royal commission's proposals, which were worked out after detailed consideration, are wrong. I do not think that that is an unreasonable proposition.
  The right to silence is a complicated and difficult issue. It has formed the subject of previous royal commissions, and a working party from the Home Office was set up a few years ago to look into it. To deal with such issues with throwaway lines at a Tory party conference says something about the responsibility of the person who occupies the office concerned.
  Mr. Gyles Brandreth: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intrude on his
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  adumbration. While he is being specific, will he give us his views on the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993? He has also had time to study the proposed changes. Does he support them?
  Mr. Blair: We gave our answer when the Home Secretary announced the details of his proposals the week before last. We 'said that we support changes that would make it more difficult for people to offend on bail. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) co-operated in getting legislation through the House to toughen the measures relating to bail.
  While the Conservatives were telling us that juvenile offending was declining and that the Criminal Justice Act was a good Act, we were pointing out the problems. We have said throughout that any strategy to fight crime must deal not only with the criminal justice system but with prevention, causes and policing. While the Conservatives have a one-sided, one-club policy, it will not work for the reasons it did not work before.
  Let us reflect for a moment on the history of the Government's crime policy because that history is in the process of being rewritten fairly dramatically. It must be clear that the Government do not start from a position of any great credibility on crime. Their record is appalling by any standard.
  Apart from the period 1988–1990 when crime actually fell, it has risen by 124 per cent. since 1979. Violent crime has gone up by 113 per cent., burglary by 179 per cent. and car crime by more than 200 per cent. Since 1990, the so-called party of law and order has presided over a rise in crime of more than 50 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of offences leading to a conviction has fallen.
  After 14 years, the Government are clearly in bad need of an explanation. In the past few days, two have been tendered. The first, by the Prime Minister in opening the Queen's Speech debate, is that all western countries have experienced a similar rise in crime. That will not do. In fact, on any comparable basis, Britain is at top of the crime league in Europe and the western world, and has been throughout the 1980s.
  The other and most extraordinary claim is that somehow the party's previous leader, in the 1980s—the noble Baroness Thatcher—missed out on crime as an issue until the firm hand of the present Prime Minister was brought to bear upon it, and that she ignored crime as an important issue because she was too busy concentrating on other things.
  Let us leave aside the inherent implausibility of the notion of Baroness Thatcher as a weak-kneed liberal who was rather soft on crime. It is nonsense. In fact she put crime at the heart of what the Conservatives were talking about in the 1980s. Their rhetoric was on the same lines as "back to basics".
  Crime was a recurrent feature—one of the central planks of the 1979 Conservative manifesto. Eleven years ago, the noble Lord Whitelaw said:
  "For the past 20 years the courts have been dangerously hampered by the law … we are seeking to mobilise our whole society in the battle against crime … Criminal behaviour has been too readily excused."
  Sir Leon Brittan said:
  "There is today a great wave of anger against the wanton violence which disfigures our society. It is real, it is genuine and I share it to the full."
  The present Foreign Secretary said in 1986:
  "It's time to bring the victim back to centre stage".

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  A former Home Secretary, the noble Lord Waddington, said:
  "If you want the fight against crime to be pursued with all vigour … put your trust in the Prime Minister and the Government".
  Mr. Julian Brazier: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: In a moment.
  In the 1980s the prison population rose and there were no fewer than 60 pieces of Home Office legislation. The truth is not that the Conservatives have had no policy on crime in the past 14 years, but that their policy has failed despite the hype given to each succeeding initiative.
  Central to that myth is the Criminal Justice Act 1991. Contrary to what the Conservatives now say, it was not the culmination of the strategy pursued over 12 years; it represented a shift in policy due to recognition that the strategy of the 1980s had failed. That is why the present Education Secretary when he was at the Home Office put out in April 1990 a press release headlined,
  "Fewer young adult offenders imprisoned"
  which stated:
  "I am pleased to be able to announce that the number of"
  young people
  "given custodial sentences … has fallen … I feel very strongly that criminal prevention is often the key to dealing with young offenders. Time spent in prison sometimes only serves to reinforce the criminal tendencies of some young people … With punishment in the community young offenders can be confronted by their offending behaviour and taught to appreciate the consequences … I am hopeful that our new initiatives aimed at reducing further the adult prison population will enjoy similar success".
  That was, of course, why the Act represented a major change in policy.
  Mr. James Clappison: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: In a moment.
  The problem of the Criminal Justice Act was twofold. First, it went too far in certain key aspects, particularly the exclusion of previous convictions, and the desire to use it as a vehicle for cutting costs led to the wrong messages being given to the courts. In addition, the programmes of crime prevention that the hon. Gentleman rightly stressed, which are an integral part of the package, were not developed, so that the strategy also failed. The basic reason for the change in strategy was that, until then, there had been a huge rise in the prison population. But the crime rate had risen at the same time. What we have now under the new Home Secretary is not a new strategy but simply a reversion to the old one. It lunges from one extreme to the other and we never get a balance.
  Ten years ago the Home Secretary told us that we must make more use of prisons. Three years ago we were told in a White Paper that prisons were an expensive way of making all criminals worse. Now we are told that prisons work. That is why the Government's policy has failed over 14 years.
  Mr. Julian Brazier: In giving an historical account, the hon. Gentleman alluded earlier to the importance of breadth and co-ordination in policies to tackle those problems. Will he say whether Labour has any policies in this area?
  Mr. Blair: Had the hon. Gentleman been listening a moment ago, he would have heard me say that we put forward policies on many of those issues long before the Home Office had woken up to the importance of the difficulties.
  Mr. Clappison: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: No, I shall give way in a moment.
  The sensible, balanced policy is that prison is necessary but it does not work as a strategy to fight crime except in the limited sense that a criminal who is caught, convicted and imprisoned cannot commit a further crime while in prison. I do not understate the importance of that, but let us set it in context. In only one out of 750 offences, excluding motoring offences, will the criminal go to gaol. That does not mean that there should not continue to be prisons, but simply that we should not kid ourselves or the public that to cut crime all we need to do is force up the prison population.
  The Home Secretary seems desperate to deny that he ever laid emphasis on prison.
  Mr. Howard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: In just a moment. The Home Secretary was running around Blackpool telling people that he had discovered the new slogan of the 1990s, "Prison works". Now he wants to deny it. He did not deny the slogan when Jeremy Paxman questioned him on "Newsnight". The first question to him was, "You say that prison works; tell me a country in which it has worked." He did not say, "That is not my policy; I don't know where you got that idea from, Jeremy." He said, "The United States of America." And he was pleased with himself and repeated it a couple of days later.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is being absolutely absurd. Of course prison is an important part of our policy. That does not mean that it is the only part or the centrepiece of our policy, but it is an important part.
  Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of building new prisons? If so, would prison be the centrepiece of his strategy?
  Mr. Blair: I have made it clear that prison should not be the centrepiece of a strategy, for the very reason that I gave. The Home Secretary puts that question as though I had not already made the position clear, as I have on many occasions. Prison is necessary; those who ought to go to prison should be put there, and if that means more prisons, more prisons must be built. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] We have never said anything different from that. We have disagreed with the notion that prison works as a strategy for cutting crime, which is where the Home Secretary has fallen down.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Blair: I shall give way in a moment. I enjoy conducting a seminar.
  When the Home Secretary was asked on "Newsnight" to say where his policy has worked, he gave as an example the United States of America.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman simply must get his facts right. I was asked on "Newsnight" a specific factual question. Jeremy Paxman asked me, "Can you name one country where the prison population has gone up and the crime rate over the same period has gone down?" The

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  factual answer to that question is the United States of America. He did not ask the question which the hon. Gentleman suggests that he asked. It was a different question and I gave a specific and entirely accurate answer.
  Mr. Blair: The notion that the interview was merely an attempt to elicit various pieces of factual information that were unrelated to overall policy or strategy is an absurd bit of wriggling. The Home Secretary said that prison worked. If he reads his speech again, he will find that it contained barely a word about crime prevention: it was all prison, prison, prison.
  The Secretary of State and his political advisers briefed the press like mad with the new slogan, "Prison works". When he was asked for an example of where that occurred, he said the United States. Now he wants to run away from that because the notion that the United States should serve as an example of criminal justice strategy has been greeted with incredulity by everyone.
  I believe that I am right in saying that a couple of nights later the Secretary of State repeated the line that the United States was an example of where that policy worked. He did not tell Mr. Paxman that he was only giving pieces of factual information and that no policy conclusions should be drawn from them. That is absurd, and he knows it.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Blair: Conservative Members should wait until I have finished my argument because their education on this matter is important.
  The Home Secretary did not even get his facts right. Over the past 12 years, the prison population in the United States has risen threefold. In the US, there are now more than 1 million people in gaol. That is proportionately six times as many as in Britain. The cost is more than $22 billion per year, and some states now spend more on prisons than on education. Yet violent crime has carried on rising. That is why everybody in the United States, from the Attorney-General and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation downwards, is saying that we need to consider causes and prevention as well as dealing with the criminal.
  Mr. Clappison: The hon. Gentleman is coming to an interesting point in the debate. He must accept that there has been much improvement in community penalties and disposals in the past 14 years. However, for serious and persistent offenders, where other methods have been tried and have failed, there has to be a sentence of custody. Courts have to be free to protect the public by giving that sentence of custody where appropriate.
  Does the hon. Gentleman accept that courts should have the power to send 12, 13 and 14-year-olds to secure accommodation if they are persistent serious offenders? Courts do not have that power now. Does he support longer sentences for 15, 16 and 17-year-olds who commit serious offences? At present, the courts can only give them one year. What is his policy on those two matters?
  Mr. Blair: We have given our policies on juvenile offenders at length. I believe that it was the Oppositon who first said that it was important that there should be secure accommodation for persistent juvenile offenders who are out of control. Our disagreement with the Government is that we want that policy to be built into existing provision so that the range of provisions in local communities will include secure accommodation as well as other measures.
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  Three years ago, the then Minister of State, Home Department—now the Secretary of State for Education—promised a further 60 places of secure accommodation, but not one has yet been built. The idea that the Conservative party can talk about these matters with any credibility is utterly absurd.
  Mr. Shersby: On the matter of juvenile offenders, will the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to tell the House a little more about the alternative proposals on custody outlined by his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who said:
  "custodial sentences for young people should be replaced by a system of 'tracking' … 'Tracking' involves extremely close supervision of the individual at all times, accompanied by a positive programme of education, employment and social support."
  I am interested in that comment. Would the hon. Gentleman care to elucidate?
  Mr. Blair: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the problem with reading from Conservative party briefing papers is that they are usually rather less accurate than the briefs that he received from the Police Federation. I am surprised that when the hon. Gentleman intervenes he does not ask me about the continuing concern of many serving police officers about the way in which the Home Secretary is conducting consideration of what replaces the Sheehy proposals.
  In relation to my hon. Friend's statement, he was not saying that young people should not be put in secure accommodation, but that when young people are persistently in trouble there needs to be some multi-agency approach between social services and others so that the behaviour of those young people can be tracked to ensure that they do not re-offend. That seems entirely sensible.
  The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten): A few moments ago, the hon. Gentleman reminded me that I promised the House, three or four years ago, that we would make about 60 extra places available to deal with young offenders. He is right; that is exactly the promise that I made to the House. Is he aware, however, that I was too trusting and a bit naive? I put my faith in Labour-controlled local authorities up and down the land, which have persistently refused to give planning permission and to co-operate with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary's new plans for secure training units will not depend on local authorities, which have done nothing to help the drive against crime?
  Mr. Blair: That briefing is thoroughly out of date. It is completely untrue. When that allegation was first made by the previous Home Secretary it was rebutted in detail. Labour local authorities have been trying to ensure that secure accommodation is built—in Leeds, for example. I appreciate that truth has become a pretty scarce commodity in what is said from the Government Front Bench, but the allegation is absolute and utter rubbish. [Interruption.] Labour local authorities and indeed others, including some Conservative ones, have been desperate to obtain Government agreement to build secure accommodation, but they are being given neither the capital nor the revenue funding. I have seen correspondence between Ministers and local authorities which bears that out.
  Mr. John Gunnell rose—
  Mr. Blair: I am delighted that my hon. Friend wishes to intervene, because the Home Secretary should listen to what he says on the subject.
  Mr. Gunnell: When I was chair of social services, the Leeds local authority entered into an agreement with the Department of Health for the provision of an extra 10 secure places—there already being 27, which was the largest number of any local authority. We had an agreement for a further 10 places, but they were not delivered by the Department of Health, which had promised to honour that agreement.
  Mr. Blair: What my hon. Friend says is absolutely right.
  Mr. Howard rose—
  Mr. Blair: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman please have a little patience?
  What my hon. Friend says is right. Indeed, that experience is replicated around the country. I will give the House one example.
  There was a debate in which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland)—I am sorry that she is not in her place, but I did not realise that the subject would be mentioned—spoke about juvenile offending in relation to the Sutton and Cheam local authority. A debate ran in the newspapers for days about how that local authority had failed to take action against those kids. It did not have the secure accommodation available.
  If the right hon. Gentleman obtains the figures from the National Bed Bureau in Leeds, he will see that there is an excess of demand over supply for secure accommodation for young people every day of the week. The idea that that could be laid at the door of local authorities is therefore utter nonsense.
  I shall give way to the Home Secretary, but I will treat with a fair amount of caution any facts that he gives me.
  Mr. Howard: The facts are these. In the current year, nearly £4 million of capital funding has been made available by the Department of Health to local authorities. Next year, £6 million will be made available for the building of those units.
  If the hon. Gentleman wants some specific, factual examples, I draw his attention to what has happened in Leicestershire, which has been ruled by a Lib-Lab pact since about 1983. In 1983, when it first came to power, the administration refused to open a secure unit which had been built by the previous, Conservative, administration. It had to repay its grant because it would not open that secure unit. At a council meeting in Leicestershire on 25 March this year, that Lib-Lab council failed to endorse proposals to provide a new secure facility. As the Government wanted to act quickly, the capital grants that were available to Leicestershire county council were removed and allocated elsewhere. That is what is happening in this country, and it will not do for the hon. Gentleman to seek to deflect criticism elsewhere.
  Mr. Blair: I understand that that is not the position in Leicestershire. The subject was mentioned before by the previous Home Secretary and it was very well rebutted at the time by Leicestershire county council. However, we can go into the facts another time.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying that yes, this year capital allocations have been made, although, as
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  I understand it, there is still a dispute about the revenue funding, which is also important. That shows that many local authorities are willing to build secure accommodation. The problem is that they are not being given the resources to do so.
  Mr. Dickens: I think that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased because I happen to think that his speech is quite clever and entertaining, and it is the type of speech that I hope that I would make if I were in the Opposition. May I, however, present him with a scenario? If the sentence that the court gives to someone who is convicted is supposed to be retribution, punishment and deterrent, and if all those things have not worked, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the only solution is lock and key—prison—so that the person cannot re-offend and burgle people's homes and steal their cars? I think that he believes that because obviously he believes in a prison-building programme.
  Mr. Blair: I have made it clear that who the courts put in prison is a matter for them, and that I accept that those who require to go to prison should go to prison. The difference between us is the idea that one focuses all attention simply on "prison works" as the strategy in the criminal justice system.
  I will mention the Home Secretary's conference speech in a moment, but I can tell hon. Members that it bears out exactly what we have been saying. Indeed, it goes further. If we intend to increase the strength of the criminal justice system, one major part of that is surely the treatment of victims in it. The Government are about to undermine the position of victims in the criminal justice system in one crucial respect and I shall spend a moment discussing that.
  At present, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board assesses compensation on the same principles as common law damages-the actual loss to the victim. That is now to be replaced by a rigid tariff scheme, based solely on the type of injury suffered, without regard to loss of earnings. The minimum award will be increased to about £1,500.
  According to our calculations, thousands of people—perhaps as many as 20,000—will not receive an award if the minimum is raised in that way. The new tariff system will also cause manifest injustice, since the huge variations in individual circumstances will simply be lumped together. Indeed, as the chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board has said, the loss of an eye for, for example, an elderly man as a result of a criminal offence is plainly different from that for a youth of 18 with his working life ahead of him. There should surely be provision to take account of the distinction between those two sets of circumstances.
  Mr. Howard: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House his authority for the assertions that he has just made? Will he promise, here and now, to give a full and unreserved public apology if they turn out, when we publish our proposals in full, to be incorrect?
  Mr. Blair: The authority for those propositions is the letters between the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and Ministers. Whether the position has now changed may be another matter. If it has changed, no doubt the right hon. and learned Gentleman will tell us, but he will surely not tell us that the notion of a tariff scheme replacing the compensation on the basis of common law damages was never considered. He will not tell us that.
  Mr. Howard: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question that I asked him? We have not made an announcement yet. We shall make an announcement in due course. If the assertions that the hon. Gentleman has just made prove to be wrong in the light of that announcement, does he promise, here and now, to make a full and unqualified public apology?
  Mr. Blair: What I have just put forward is the basis of the proposals that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is at present advocating. If he is going to change those proposals, I am delighted at the change. But I note that he has not denied that those were the proposals at one stage, whether or not they have now been changed. If those proposals are to be changed, I am delighted.
  Mr. Michael Connarty: Is it not equally worrying that the consultation proposals also suggest withdrawing the concept of payment for trauma? Will trauma no longer be one of the factors to be taken into account? For example, people working in postal and security services are regularly attacked, yet now they may get no compensation if their lives are ruined in future. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Government if they will wake up, withdraw their stupid proposal and come up with something sensible?
  Mr. Blair: I entirely agree. If, by implication, the Home Secretary now suggests that he will not accept the Government's earlier position—he must mean that, or he would have not been silly enough to intervene in that way—I am delighted, and will give him the welcome now.
  There are no serious new initiatives on crime prevention. For example, although the Government again pay lip service to the crucial issue of crime and drugs, yet nothing is to be done. It is clear that what works is local agencies striving, in partnership with local people, to target and prevent crime in their areas. We could point to examples of that all over the country. It is always said, even by Government reports such as the Morgan report, which was published a few years ago, that there must be a lead body—the Morgan report advocated the local authority—to co-ordinate crime prevention in each area. The Audit Commission confirmed that opinion a few weeks ago.
  Not only are the Government failing to adhere to the proposals of their own committee, but—even worse—they are dismantling many of the programmes that have a key impact on crime prevention. Safer cities crime prevention projects are being cut; the urban programme is being run down; drug education officers' posts are being cut; two thirds of local authorities are cutting their youth services because of cuts in their funding. The Government are reneging on the promise to ringfence funding for residential care homes for alcohol and drug abusers; residential care places for disturbed young people are being closed. All those actions will have a dramatic adverse impact on crime further down the road.
  The proposals on policing will make all those factors even worse. There is not a scrap of support anywhere for the Government's policy of replacing those elected by local people to police authorities with Government appointees. In particular, the chairman will no longer be an accountable person elected by local people, but will simply be appointed by the Government. The proposals are bigoted, undemocratic and regressive, and they will take policing in the opposite direction from that in which it needs to go.
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  This country has had enough of basic local services being taken out of local people's hands and turned over to unelected bureaucracies, unaccountable to anyone but Conservative Ministers sitting in Whitehall. In policing, that is most important of all. Community policing is about much more than bobbies on the beat, although that is part of it. It is about integrating the police service into the local community so that the police are regarded no longer as experts coming in from outside to clear up the consequences of criminality, but as partners in the community, helping, with others, to prevent crime and to deal with its causes. Let no one be in any doubt that, taken together, the proposals on policing threaten much local policing and will move us away from local community policing, in precisely the opposite direction from that in which we need to go.
  I shall devote the last part of my speech to another fundamental difference of approach to crime. The Opposition believe that it is important to tackle the causes of crime, too. Let us be clear what we mean by that. No one excuses crime simply by talking of its causes, and we do not mean that people who are poor or unemployed simply rush out to commit criminal offences. That is not the concern. The concern is rather that we are developing within our society a subculture outside its mainstream and impervious to its rules of conduct, whose hallmarks are low educational opportunities, low job prospects, unstable families, drug abuse, truancy and crime. That is why any strategy to fight crime should tackle that subculture and its casues, especially in relation to young people.
  It is not only Opposition parties who say that. Sir John Woodcock, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said:
  "Police Officers in many inner city localities fear that a substantial number of young people in these areas are becoming detached from social norms".
  Sir Peter Imbert said:
  "The crime map fits all too closely over the map of disadvantage".
  Last week the chief constable of Avon and Somerset said:
  "It is only by tackling the root causes that we can make an impact."
  Even the Secretary of State for Employment, a week ago, said:
  "We have to … bring young people on board and give them motivation and the will be become fully paid up members of society … before they are blooded into the criminal fraternity".
  The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) and Lord Walker, like everyone else, say that we should also tackle the causes of crime.
  Even the Home Secretary implicitly accepted that there are causes of crime when he said that its roots could be traced back to the absent fathers in the second world war. As a piece of social analysis, that was unique…a rare feature in that area. Leaving aside the curious fact that there was no such effect after the first world war, and the equally curious idea that the children who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s whose fathers had been absent were apparently fine, yet stored up their psychological defect for onward transmission to their children, let us try to put the matter in a consensual way.
  Let us accept that poor parenting can lead to crime; it certainly can. However, if one factor can lead to crime why cannot other factors—such as poor education, poor employment opportunities and poverty—lead to crime? Once we accept that individuals are in part influenced by the world around them, why must we stop at the family?

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  Do families not live in broader communities? Will not the circumstances of those communities also affect the families?
  Is that not best expressed in the Cabinet Office papers presented to the Home Secretary and other Ministers before he made his speech at the party conference? Those papers said:
  "There is a temptation to make a connection between single-parent families and criminality, but the evidence from research suggests that it is factors which often accompany lone parenthood, such as poverty, rather than the absence per se of the second parent, which are associated with a propensity to offend."
  If that is true, surely policies on education, employment, housing and drugs also become central to the fight against crime. However, the Government will not accept that, because if they do, they must accept their responsibility for the state of our country today. For too long crime policy has swung between the twin polarities of punishment and prevention. We focus either on crime or on its causes. In reality any sensible strategy needs to do both.
  The Home Secretary should re-read his conference speech. Only one of his announcements had anything to do with crime prevention, and that was an old announcement. A few weeks ago on the "Today" programme, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that no one knew how to prevent crime. His is a one-club policy. The argument between him and others is not between those who want to be tough on crime, and penal or prison reformers; it is concerned with whether his strategy, relying on that one track, will work, to make our communities safer.
  We require a strategy that both deals with the criminal justice system and, with common sense and with our purpose as a community, creates a society in which rights and responsibilities, opportunities and obligations, go together. That is why social responsibility is not a substitute for individual responsibility, but is the best way of giving it a chance to be realised. That is the difference between the two parties. That is why our strategy has a chance of success, and why we believe that the Government's strategy has none.
  4.58 pm
  Mr. Nigel Forman: To be fair to the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), I must say that he made an impressive debating speech and handled a range of interventions most plausibly. However, I cannot extend my bouquet to him much further, for two reasons. The first is that as I listened to his speech and the way in which he dealt with interventions, I could not help feeling that the cause of law and order, and of improving the quality of life for the majority of law-abiding citizens, would be greatly advanced if politicians of all parties would forbear to misrepresent each other's positions on the subject. Although it may be uncomfortable to hear it in a debate such as this, there is much that unites us on the diagnosis of the problem, although some of the prescriptions have different emphases depending on the starting point.
  The approach of the hon. Member for Sedgefield hinges essentially on what is called the multi-agency approach, which envisages all the relevant parties taking a share of the responsibility for dealing with and preventing crime. That approach is admirable in political rhetoric, but it is
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  probably more expensive and certainly more ambitious than one that is narrowly focused on dealing with crime principally through detection and punishment.
  If the hon. Gentleman accepts that, he must talk long and hard to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) to find out whether the shadow Chancellor agrees with the considerable expenditure commitments that are implicit in what the hon. Gentleman has said. That might justify a future Labour Government raising taxation or borrowing more to pay for such worthy ends, but the hon. Member for Sedgefield should realise that his proposals have a big price tag.
  Mr. Blair: Many studies here an in the United States have shown that prevention is much more cost-effective than simply dealing with the consequences of criminality and embodying them in a strategy that says that prison works.
  Mr. Forman: I agree, but as long as the Treasury has to deal with expenditure annually—and the hon. Gentleman knows that that is how affairs are conducted—the saving, if that is the right word, often occurs well into the future, whereas the up-front cost is considerable.
  I welcome the fact that the Government have decided to make law and order central to the legislative programme in this Session. People expect us to respond by giving an even higher priority than we have been able to give over the past 14 years or so, first, to preventing crime—I agree that one must have a strategy for crime prevention—and, secondly, to catching criminals. It is sobering to note the tiny proportion of people who are convicted in relation to the total volume of crime.
  Thirdly, we must ensure that the courts have all the powers they need for appropriate sentences. Our next criminal justice Bill will address that. My proposals are especially relevant to the need to deal more effectively with the minority of recidivist young offenders, who cause our constituents a great deal of concern.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Sedgefield that effective action on law and order needs co-operation between all who have influence and responsibilty for such matters. In that context one can recite the usual litany of parents, teachers, the police, the courts, the probation service and the media—which has not been mentioned much in the debate—and politicians in local and national government. In that context I welcome and draw to the attention of the House the action plan for a safer Sutton. That plan has been introduced in the area covering my constituency and is but one example—I am sure that there are many more—of how these issues can be tackled effectively at local level.
  To some extent that plan is a microcosm of what could and should be replicated more widely. It involves positive co-operation between the police and the local authority and there is also a considerable input from the local Members of Parliament. It emphasises the action that the law-abiding majority can take to safeguard themselves and their property. As the House knows, a great deal can be done under the auspices of bodies such as insurance companies.
  I draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education the fact that the plan embodies a much greater effort to eliminate truancy in all its forms and to ensure that education welfare officers have adequate legislative powers to return truants to school. I have some information to the effect that those officers may

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  not have the full powers that they need for that purpose. All schools, whether they are in difficult areas or slightly easier areas, should give much higher priority to ensuring constant attendance during the school day. I welcome the recent tables published by my right hon. Friend which focus on that.
  It is also right to back efforts such as Sutton's Youth at Risk scheme which, through admirable voluntary action, is designed to divert susceptible youngsters from crime at a timely stage before they embark on what would otherwise be criminal careers. One method by which that thrust of policy can be bolstered would be the early introduction of statutory identity cards. Initially, they could be introduced for those under the age of 18 and that could have many applications to problems such as under-age drinking and the ability of the police to deal with potential juvenile offenders.
  However, the justification for identity cards is greater in the sphere of law and order than in social security, which is the one that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has mentioned as one of his justifications for such a scheme. If it proved to work well in the context of law and order and for those who are under 18—as I suspect it would—it could later be extended to everybody. There would be widespread acceptance of that. The Home Secretary should not be frightened of some rather noisy causes and interest groups such as the National Council for Civil Liberties and others who create disproportionate decibels but do not reflect majority public opinion on this issue.
  In dealing more effectively with crime and anti-social behaviour, there is a role for the media in avoiding sensationalising and fanning the fear of crime beyond all reasonable limits. There is an important distinction between the reality of crime, many categories of which have been declining rather than increasing—many people do not realise that—and the fear of crime, which has undoubtedly been increasing, fanned by sensationalism.
  For example, local papers, which have a considerable influence, should give at least as much prominence to sentences, even though some of them are passed months or even years after the offences, as they do to crimes, awful though some of them are. Any measures that we could take to increase the feel-safe factor as opposed to the feel-good factor among the law-abiding majority of our constituents would do more than almost anything to improve the quality of their lives. I have tried to be constructive because I think that the hon. Member for Sedgefield realises, if the truth be told, that there is much common ground between all parties on the vital issue of law and order.
  I shall deal briefly with education because it is the other subject of the debate and I have some experience of it. By all means let us try to reform teacher training in the way that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education intends by encouraging a great deal more emphasis on classroom skills and experience. That is at the heart of his policy. However, in doing that we must be careful not to reduce too far the role of higher education institutions. They have a great deal to contribute and are not all like the institute of education in London university. Many of them are quite sensible, and not all speak with the voice of Professor Wragg.
  Our established objective of raising the status of the teaching profession must continue apace. In that contect I hope that we shall press forward with our earlier drive to encourage graduate entry and participation in the profession as widely as possible. That should be backed by
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  frequent and timely in-service training and retraining which are vital in a world in which the needs of education change frequently.
  We must concentrate, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education intends, upon what I would describe as the long-term education agenda of implementing the national curriculum, broadening the subject range post-14 and not just post-16, and encouraging parity of esteem for vocational education. That can be done by boosting such excellent qualifications as GNVQs, which are now beginning to catch on. That will improve people's chances of getting and retaining good jobs.
  Against the background of the long-term agenda, it is worth mentioning that the reform of student unions, although set out in the Queen's Speech, is a relatively small measure that may well distract from the bigger issues. I should like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education to put it into its proper perspective. Now that he has decided, rightly, to legislate for the voluntary principle—something that I have supported, on the public record, from the Dispatch Box—let us at least try to make the new arrangements as simple and workable as possible. Otherwise, we may suffer from the law of unintended consequences which so often dogs all legislation.
  I should like to hear from my right hon. Friend—I shall be staying to listen closely to his winding-up speech—why his desirable objective of introducing the voluntary principle for student unions cannot be just as well met by the proposals put forward, for example, by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals.
  Dr. Keith Hampson: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Forman: No, if my hon. Friend will forgive me, I shall not, as I am about to conclude.
  I am glad to say that, in going back to basics—at any rate, in law and order and in education—Ministers are doing exactly the right thing. Even if, in the opinion of some of my constituents, some of the developments are overdue, they are nevertheless welcome to Conservative Members. Ministers should know that they will continue to have our strong support in their efforts under those two vital headings.
  5.11 pm
  Mr. John Morris: Many years ago, Aneurin Bevan used a vivid phrase, when he said that we live on an island made of coal and surrounded by fish and it would need an organising genius to create at the same time a shortage of both. That may still come to pass. Our problem now, which would do credit to the same organising genius, is an escalating crime wave and empty courts, particularly Crown courts.
  The Home Secretary said that the Government will do all that they can to catch and punish criminals. I should have hoped that, before coming to punishment, he would mention prosecution. That is what is wrong today. It is all very well for the Home Secretary to adopt the posture of being tough on crime. I invite him to walk around the criminal courts to see exactly what is happening, to talk to the Crown Prosecution Service and get it to explain its policies, and—I am sure that he does this anyway—talk to policemen.

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  The Home Secretary said that if there were too much use of the caution, he would issue new guidelines. We have been asking for that for a long time. There has been a mushrooming of cautioning over the years. It has a proper and important place in the treatment of young people. The statistics show that the overwhelming majority of those cautioned do not come back to the attention of the courts. However, its use has got out of hand and it is being used for serious offences, so there should be guidelines.
  Why has cautioning, over the years, come gradually to be used on a wide scale for repeated offences and against the background of the complete absence of a national register? A person can be cautioned in south Wales today and again a week later in Cumbria without anyone knowing about the first caution. Why has it taken so long for this great light to dawn on the Home Office? Every policeman to whom the Home Secretary deigns to speak will agree about the use of the caution. I am with the Home Secretary about new guidelines. I asked for them the other day and I shall look at them carefully when they are published.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): The guidelines were published about three weeks ago. We are now consulting on them. I should be happy to send another copy to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and equally happy to receive his comments.
  Mr. Morris: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. It must be less than three weeks, because I tabled a parliamentary question, which has obviously been forgotten about, the reply to which said that the guidelines would be coming soon. I look forward to examining them.
  I support the policy of less paperwork for the police which was ventilated earlier. However, a great deal of their paperwork has been given to them as a result of previous Government legislation—to begin with, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—making a substantial inroad on the time that a policeman can be on the beat. Why should a policeman have to spend so much time summarising what has been given during an interview that has been tape recorded? He is not the best man in the world for that job anyway. I have raised the matter with police officers throughout the country and I suspect that every one would agree that, if that chore were taken from the shoulders of police officers and given to the CPS, much time would be saved.
  My constituents want more policemen on the beat. When the chief constable of the South Wales constabulary asked for an increase of 40 in his establishment, the request was turned down. I suspect that he knows a great deal about the needs on the ground, but obviously someone knows better. I should like the Home Secretary to explain to me why the repeated request of my police force, and I suspect those of many others, for an increase in establishment is turned down time after time by the Home Office.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that when chief constables have more control over their budgets, they will be able to address that point in the way most suited to their area?
  Mr. Morris: I suspect that, even then, the establishment will have to be agreed by the Home Office. If that is not so,
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  I should be surprised. Total budgets will still be constrained and the process may give only an illusory freedom.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Morris: The hon. Gentleman knows that Madam Speaker enjoined us to make short speeches. I have already given way twice, and I must get on.
  We all know of the crime wave set out so clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). There has been a 50 per cent. increase in recorded crime since 1985, and a 124 per cent. increase since 1979. If we knew the way to solve the problem, no one would be more overjoyed than Labour Members and, I am sure, Conservative Members. Sadly, there is no complete answer. However, while the crime rate is escalating, the courts remain empty.
  How does the Home Secretary explain why it is that, when I checked at the end of September as to how many empty courts there were in the south-east circuit, I was told that it was not exceptional for 24 Crown courts to be empty in any one day? I asked again this morning; on average, each day this week on the south-east circuit, about 19 courts are empty. I suspect that the same goes in circuit after circuit throughout the country. That is why I invited the Home Secretary to include the words "to prosecute" between his desire to catch and his desire to punish criminals.
  Over the three financial years from 1990 to 1993, the number of cases received by the Crown courts has dropped, on average, by about 10 per cent. The number of offences committed to the Crown courts in the first five months of the last financial year fell by 14 per cent. compared with the same period in the previous year. On the south-east circuit, the number of cases received by the Crown court in the first five months of this financial year was 22 per cent. down on the number in the corresponding period last year. In the last month or so, there has been a slight resurgence and the figure is now down to 17 per cent. on the number in the corresponding period last year. That is the reality of the world of the Crown court against the background of an escalating crime wave. It is no wonder that the Home Secretary did not introduce the word "prosecute" into his vocabulary.
  To a lesser extent, the position is mirrored in the magistrates courts, where the CPS case load has fallen by about 2·5 per cent. each year from 1990 to 1993. Magistrates courts dealt with 15 per cent. fewer indictable offences in the first quarter of 1993 than in 1992. It is against that background that we note that the number of notifiable arrests by the Metropolitan police were down by 22 per cent. in the last quarter of 1992 compared with the year before.
  The combined effect of a smaller overall case load and a smaller proportion of cases ending in a hearing or a committal was to reduce the number of hearings and committals by nearly 6 per cent. over one year. That is an extraordinary state of affairs—an Alice-in-Wonderland situation. Against the background of an escalating crime wave, perhaps one day we will have a proper debate about what exactly is happening in our courts.
  The number of cases that the police are instructed to drop by the CPS has increased by 78 per cent. in five years. Some 32 per cent. of cases are dropped on public interest

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  grounds. When I asked the Attorney-General the reason for that, all he could say was that it was not in the public interest to prosecute the elderly, the frail or those suffering from injury, or to prosecute when there was insufficient evidence.
  No one disagrees with that principle, but the Attorney-General did not seem to understand that the cases dropped for lack of evidence are in addition to the public interest cases. A further 54 per cent. of cases were dropped on evidential grounds. That is not to be rejected—it is what the CPS was set up to do—but, when we look at the totality, how do we arrive at that substantial 78 per cent. increase? Are 32 per cent. of the people charged frail, elderly or injured? Against a background of escalating crime, we need to look at exactly what is happening in that regard.
  Are financial considerations becoming more and more important in deciding what cases are committed to court?
  Mr. Shersby: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Morris: No, I have given way already.
  Can we ignore the suggestion that there is a Treasury-led economy drive that may have an important effect on decision making? In addition, there are disquieting anecdotes about cases which can be tried either way, where the CPS is offering lesser charges in order that cases can be tried in a magistrates court rather than a Crown court. I fear that the financial considerations and the Treasury's hidden agenda are the reasons for that.
  The Home Secretary and the Attorney-General should conduct a proper inquiry and tell the House why, on the one hand, there is a huge crime wave, which goes up year by year, and, on the other, we have empty Crown courts and empty magistrates courts. It does not add up. Why is there not an increase of work in our courts to match the current escalation in crime?
  The escalation in crime is causing my constituents, and the constituents of every hon. Member, very grave concern. Something is very wrong indeed.
  5.23 pm
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I agree with much of what the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) has just said, and I will return to it in a moment. I do not agree with much of what the hon. Member for Sedgfield (Mr. Blair) had to say. He treated us to 50 minutes of hot air, however attractively it may have been presented.
  Of course we must tackle the sub-causes of crime, but there is nothing useful in saying so, because we are already doing that—in education, in speeding the end of the recession and in countless other ways. Of course we must tackle crime prevention through community policing, but there is nothing useful in the hon. Gentleman saying that, because we are already doing so.
  What we had hoped to hear from the hon. Member for Sedgefield—and what the public may have expected to hear—is what more the Labour party would do if it were in power. The most immediate question is whether Labour Members will support my right hon. and learned Friend's measures to reduce crime. It appears from the speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield that they will not. If they do
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  not, they will be the encouragers of crime, and their claim to be the party of law and order will be exposed as the utter nonsense it is.
  One of the basics that we must get back to is a society in which there is less crime—for everyone's sake: the old, the weak, all of us. Media coverage of serious crime is greater than ever, and more people read newspapers, watch television and listen to the radio. The fear of crime referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) is substantial and must be reduced.
  The fact that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, with the wholehearted support of the Prime Minister, has made the tackling of crime the top priority will be welcomed by everyone, except the criminals.
  In what must be one of my shorter speeches, I would like to make two points. First, I am fed up with hearing, as we have this afternoon, the quite unfair and absurd statement that the Conservatives have been in power for 14 years, that crime is worse than ever and that we have done nothing about it. The situation is not as simplistic as that.
  The world is not static, but in a constant state of flux and change. Despite the obvious fact that we are unfortunately part of a international crime wave, which has spared very few countries, Britain is one of the safest countries in the western world in which to walk the streets. The murder rate in Britain is half that of France; our violent assault rate is half that of Australia—to say nothing of the United States, where the murder rate of 24,000 is five times greater than Ours.
  We are now a far more prosperous society, with more colour television sets, videos, personal computers and mobile telephones to steal. There are more home owners, and 5 million more cars on the road—more houses and cars to burgle and to steal from—than there were a decade ago. The temptations are much greater today than they were 14 years ago.
  We have seen a disintegration in family life, with more single-parent families and fewer fathers at home to guide their children on the difference between right and wrong. We have had a disintegration of some education standards, because schools have lost the power to discipline children, to teach them respect for others in society and to teach them that bad consequences follow wrongdoing. We should not be surprised at the upsurge in unpunished juvenile crime, particularly in respect of the small band of hard-core persistent offenders.
  There has been a worldwide spread in the use of drugs, which has driven people to commit crime in order to pay for their craving. The worldwide spread of pornography has corrupted people and lowered respect for others in society, particularly women.
  During the past 14 years, there has been an undermining of the criminal justice system as a whole, particularly with the relevations of miscarriages of justice, in which legally innocent people have been convicted or many serious crimes. It must be said that this has happened mostly under the last Labour Government, not us.
  Mr. Chris Mullin: Would the hon. Gentleman explain to the House what he means by the "legally innocent"?
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: We all know.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I would rather not explain it. We all do know precisely what I mean.
  Few crimes seem to end in the offender being caught; if caught, the offender is too often cautioned, and no more; if charged, the offender is too often not proceeded against on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service, as the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon has just said. If proceeded against, the offender is too often acquitted if he pleads not guilty. Some 60 per cent. of magistrates court and Crown court appearances on not guilty pleas result in acquittals. If he is convicted, all too often little in the way of a deterrent sentence is passed on the offender.
  I suppose that the Government must take some responsibility for this state of affairs, although there has been an understandable reluctance to interfere in the sentencing process or in the judicial system generally—particularly when no other country seems to be doing it any better than we are, or achieving any better results. I think that the Government can be blamed to a much larger extent for allowing the sociologists to have a greater influence on the sentencing system than they ought to have had. As a result, a potential criminal rarely feels that the ultimate consequence of his criminal behaviour will be a long sentence of imprisonment.
  Although there is an area in which Government must accept more blame, this Conservative Government cannot be blamed for most of the reasons for the increase in crime that has taken place over the past 14 years. To go further, and imply that the Government have done absolutely nothing to improve matters over that period, is too absurd for words.
  We have increased the proportion of money spent on law and order more than we have increased spending on almost any other branch of the welfare state: it has risen by 87 per cent. in real terms. We have increased the number of police officers on active duty by approximately 30,000; we have paid, equipped, trained and led them better, to say nothing of giving them more powers in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Public Order Act 1986, the Criminal Justice Acts and the Prevention of Terrorism Acts.
  We have poured money and resources into crime prevention, with 115,000 neighbourhood watch schemes covering 5 million households, 20 safer city projects covering 3,300 schemes and funds for estates action, city challenge, urban programmes and crime concern—all of which have achieved substantial successes in Rochdale, Manchester north Wales, Dorset and London, including London Underground. The amount of crime being committed has been substantially reduced.
  We have also toughened sentences for violence, the carrying of weapons and child abuse. The average sentence for robbery has increased by about 25 per cent., and the average sentence for sexual crime by about 50 per cent.—to say nothing of the £1 billion that we have spent on the prison building programme, providing 18,500 extra places, and the change in the whole approach to victims and their support.
  It is beyond me how anyone can say, or imply, that we have done nothing. Without those measures, crime would be very much worse. I hope that the idiocy of alleging that we have presided over 14 years of inaction while crime has flourished will now stop; it is a nonsensical argument if ever there was one, and it is no surprise that it continues to be peddled by the Opposition.
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  My second point is this. If we are to prevent crime in future, we shall have to bring back the element of deterrence. The sociologists have had their day. It is no coincidence that the abolition of capital punishment has resulted in a tenfold increase in crime involving weapons, and a fivefold increase in the number of killings. It is no coincidence that, since the abolition of the cane, our schools have become unruly places with a high degree of truancy, where teachers are frightened to discipline or control the rowdy troublemakers who go on to become the hard-core juvenile offenders.
  It is also no coincidence that, since cautioning has blossomed and, in some areas, become the standard reaction of the system to wrongdoing, and since guilty pleas to lesser offences have begun to be accepted more and more by the Crown Prosecution Service in the magistrates court, so that cases do not go to the Crown court—another point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon—fewer offenders are frightened about what will happen to them if they are caught.
  It is because bail has been given so freely that 50,000 offences have been committed by people on bail over the past year. Those villains are not frightened by the courts. It is because prisoners have had to serve no more than a third of the sentences imposed by the courts—we have now improved that to half—and because of lax regimes in some prisons that prisoners have been released before their proper time to commit crimes again, an example being the murderer who was convicted last week.
  It is simply not correct for Ministers, judges or anyone else to say that the best deterrent is the likelihood of being caught. I was very pleased that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary did not repeat that canard today. No one is deterred from crime by the fear of being caught if they have no fear of being charged, convicted and punished. It is not enough for a Home Secretary to say, "We will get tough," and then to persist in the old attitude to deterrence. We must return to a policy of deterrence that will really deter criminals: crime was almost always much lower in the years when we had such a policy.
  Seen in that light, my right hon. and learned Friend's proposals for improving the situation even further are admirable, and should be warmly welcomed. Criminals will be deterred if more policemen are on active duty because we are increasing the number by reducing the paperwork, or because we are appointing more special and parish constables. They will be deterred if policemen are better managed and organised, so that they are even more efficient and effective. Terrorists will be deterred if the police have more powers to stop their activities, in the City of London or elsewhere.
  Criminals will be deterred if the process of criminal trial is improved so that they cannot get away with intimidating witnesses or nobbling juries; if they are charged more often and cautioned less; if they are brought to trial more often, and not proceeded against less. They will be deterred if they cannot get bail so easily, and are not free to commit more crimes. They will be deterred if they know that they are more likely to be convicted if they keep silent when asked about their offences than they are now, with the right to silence.
  Juvenile offenders and their parents—when those parents do little to control them—will be deterred if 12 to 14-year-olds can be taken out of circulation: taken away from the bad family background and the pressure of bad peers, and trained, educated, disciplined and given the

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  counselling that may stop them becoming persistent, hard-core adult offenders. Young offenders will be deterred if they can be made to serve two years in a young offenders' institution, giving the authorities some time in which to retrain and reprogramme them.
  Can Opposition Members seriously deny that these measures will play a part in deterring criminals? To do so would be nonsense; if they do, the speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield will be revealed as the hot air that we all suspected it to be.
  Let me add just one point to the proposals that we have heard so far from my right hon. and learned Friend about deterrence. We must deter pornographers by redefining obscenity and bringing more charges. We must also give the power of arrest in cases of computer pornography, so that the evidence can be gathered for prosecution. We must find some way of deterring those who provide the constant diet of television violence that appears on our screens. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington that we can deter more villains if we introduce identity cards.
  I have no doubt that the greatest single deterrent to violent crime that we could introduce is the return of capital punishment. With or without that penalty, however, there can be no doubt that a determined policy of deterrence through an even more effective policing policy, an even more effective policy of bringing people to trial, an even more effective and efficient trial system and even more effective punishment is the most likely way in which to reduce crime and make society safe again.
  If we did that, we should have the grateful support of the British public. If the Opposition do not support us in that policy, the public will know exactly what to think of their boast to be the party of law and order.
  5.38 pm
  Mr. James Molyneaux: My old friend, the hon. and learned member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), will be gratified to know that my party broadly supports what he has said, and what his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary said earlier. The Minister of State, Home Office—the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean)—will be aware of my oft repeated view that, over the years, hon. Members collectively have somehow allowed the pendulum to be pushed far too far against those who have the task of enforcing the laws that we make in the House. Far too much attention has been paid to the anarchist textbook, paragraph 1 of which decrees that a complaint be made against the police in all circumstances, even if it is only against the minor offence of a faulty rear light.
  We on this Bench broadly support the Home Secretary's measures. Those of us who represent Northern Ireland constituencies are able to offer advice on the basis of our unfortunate experience in the face of repeated chalenges to lawful authority in our part of the United Kingdom. I hope that the Minister will relay that expression of support to the Home Secretary. In turn, I hope that we will be supported by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who is present, and by one of his predecessors, the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), both of whom have been aware of all the difficulties and have rendered great service to the people of Northern Ireland, despite occasional criticism.
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  I hope that hon. Members will understand if I direct my words toward the plight of Northern Ireland. I am somewhat gratified to know that, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a former Minister for Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State for Education, shall reply. If, by any chance, the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) finds himself deserted by the teaching industry, he has a vast reservoir of good will and many good friends in Northern Ireland that he faithfully served, to which he can turn.
  On 20 March, I publicly invited non-paramilitary parties, groups and individuals to assist me in designing what I call a blueprint for stability. I have forwarded my conclusions to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, but I can tell the House that I found a widespread desire for the restoration of accountable democracy to the people of Northern Ireland.
  It should be noted that such an objective was shared by a large percentage of what is sometimes called the minority, which includes many people who normally vote for the SDLP, but who, like many SDLP councillors, are keen to see democratic structures in place in which they can participate to render a real service to Northern Ireland citizens—a praiseworthy aim for any elected representative.
  I reported my broad conclusions to my party executive at the end of September. Unfortunately, the following day, 25 September, saw an unsettling statement on what has become known as the Hume-Adams plan. In the intervening eight weeks, there has been a progressive hardening of attitudes in the professional and middle classes, and that is always a bad sign in Northern Ireland. Many of those groups have in the past taken no part whatever in politics, but they are now in such a state of anxiety that they disbelieve any assurance, and suspect betrayal in every sentence they hear or read.
  I have no means of knowing how long such simmering fears can be contained, but I know that something must be done to reduce the fever, and that the two governmental machines in London and Dublin must carefully weigh their words and actions if a crisis is to be avoided.
  Also on 20 March, I suggested that the British and Irish Governments should set about removing the standing reproach implicit in the Irish claim to the territory of a part of the United Kingdom. I have long held the view that that breach of international law could more easily be put right by the two sovereign Governments, but I- was mistaken, for, in the intervening eight months, they appear to have made no progress whatever.
  I had probably underestimated the strength of republican opinion in the south, which surfaced in the weeks preceding and during the annual conference of Fianna Fail, or the "soldiers of destiny" to use the English translation. That impossible barrier was described with great honesty by Prime Minister Reynolds when, in a television interview on Sunday, he patiently explained that, if he were to hold a referendum on the removal of articles 2 and 3, he would be defeated. We in this House have no right to question his judgment, nor should anyone assume that the approval of his electorate would be given in return for a British surrender to the demands of Mr. Adams—such a cave-in would merely transfer the force and meaning of articles 2 and 3 to Ulster shoulders.
  The disastrous juxtaposition of discussions on political progress with the price demanded by the IRA in return for a halt to murder means, in effect, that Her Majesty's

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  Government are being required to do a deal, not with Mr. Reynolds, but with Mr. Adams. No amount of diplomatic verbiage can conceal the uncomfortable fact that Dublin is merely the conduit.
  In the light of Mr. Reynolds's weekend revelation of that stark reality, there is now a large body of opinion in Ulster—I have detected signs in London, too—that is convinced of the impossibility of any Irish Government freeing themselves of the embarrassment of being the one European Union member that lays claim to the territory of another member state.
  It has been put to me that, rather than waste the opportunity for peace, many would prefer to use their energies and talents in drawing together the various strands of what, in the aftermath of the recent atrocities, has proved my contention that, in Northern Ireland, there is one community not two, as a result of them being drawn together by common suffering.
  That is the real message of the thousands of people who have marched for peace over recent weeks. They are not demanding a surrender to terrorist demands, any more than Londoners expected Churchill to surrender to Hitler so that our capital city would be spared daily slaughter on a massive scale. Like myself, some hon. Members present had first-hand experience of that suffering, and took part in the rescue operations during the blitz.
  By far the greater number—I have used that term before, and use it instead of "majority", lest anyone should imagine that I was referring to the Protestant or the Unionist majority—of Protestants and Roman Catholics want us to give a lead in rebuilding democratic structures. No right hon. and hon. Member can doubt the capacity of the Northern Ireland parties to co-operate and work together for the common good. We have frequently demonstrated our willingness to do just that in agriculture, health, industry, energy and the environment. How the news industry hates us for behaving in a way that puts our Great Britain counterparts to shame. We expect neither praise nor sympathy from those who prefer pictures of bloodletting and street violence.
  It is probably for that reason that there is now a conspiracy of silence on the steady advances made over the past three months in Northern Ireland by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and his hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), the Minister responsible for political development. It is their endeavours, which are supported by the Prime Minister, that will succeed where high drama will fail—as high drama always fails.
  With our co-operation, they can be successful in supplying the essential ingredient that will stabilise a dangerously volatile situation. Their low-key discussions during the past three months will have enabled them to identify the common ground between the parties in Northern Ireland and—perhaps just as important—that between the strands within that greater number in Northern Ireland. That ministerial team will not be at variance with their colleague the Foreign Secretary, who said during Friday's debate:
  "We must be able to deliver what we undertake and not to undertake what we cannot deliver.—[Official Report, 19 November 1993; Vol. 233, c.114.]
  It is patient, continuing well-doing rather than bursts of misplaced optimism and enthusiasm that must be a prerequisite for peace. I am confident that something
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  resembling the strand one model structure for a reinstatement of durable accountable democracy can be accepted, just as that concept was widely agreed during last year's talks. I am convinced that trust between the four main parties, thus achieved, would enable them to reach out the hand of friendship to the sovereign Irish nation on our southern frontier. Our ambition would be to develop co-operation on matters of mutual interest and common concern.
  I end with a sincere invitation to all citizens of the British islands to set their hands to the task of laying solid foundations for a real and enduring peace.
  5.52 pm
  Mr. John Whittingdale: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate. We all listened carefully to the speech of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux). I hope that he will forgive if I do not devote my remarks to Northern Ireland. I am sure that all in the House wish for peace in Northern Ireland and wish him and all the parties to the talks well.
  I also listened carefully to the speeches from both Front Benches. I was pleased to find at least one point of agreement between them—that the Government are absolutely right to make law and order the centrepiece of the Queen's Speech. However, although my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary spelled out a comprehensive package of measures to deal with crime, the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), whose speech I enjoyed, left me unclear whether his party intends to support those measures and how Labour Members intend to vote in the weeks ahead. We shall monitor that closely.
  The area that I represent is predominantly rural. It is not usually considered a crime blackspot. However, during the past few weeks, Colchester has suffered a wave of burglaries, a rising incidence of drug abuse and an attempt with a JCB to remove a cash dispenser in Maldon high street—which was prevented only because an alert police constable was on the beat. There have also been armed robberies in Burnham and Southminster. My constituents do not expect such incidents and they are rightly demanding action. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on responding to those concerns and on winning so much time in the legislative programme.
  I want to say a word about the police and immediately welcome the proposed police Bill. I am sure that reorganisation will improve police effectiveness. Like, I suspect, many hon. Members, I spent the summer visiting all the police stations in my constituency. Although I found a fair amount of concern about the proposals in the Sheehy report, I was encouraged to find that there was also a general willingness to contemplate change. Some of the proposals in the Sheehy report were strongly opposed by the officers to whom I spoke—in particular, fixed-term contracts and officers having to serve 40 years before qualifying for their pension.
  There was acceptance—certainly in principle—of other proposals in the report, in particular the reform of the rank structure and new arrangements for determining police officers' pay. I believe—and I think the police officers in my constituency believe—that my right hon. and learned Friend listened to the concerns expressed and that, in general, he has the package right.

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  I want to take this opportunity to urge one point on my right hon. and learned Friend. I think that I speak for every hon. Member in saying that we were shocked by the murder of PC Patrick Dunne during the summer recess. However, the sad truth is that police officers are assaulted every day. Recently, four police officers were attacked in one week in my constituency. The last of them, PC Bob Walsham, was set upon by eight youths when he went to question them, having spotted them hanging around a garage. He was subjected to a vicious assault and suffered serious cuts and bruises—yet within 24 hours he was back on the beat.
  I pay tribute to the courage and dedication that he showed, which I believe all our police officers show every day. The police need every protection that we can give them and they will be immensely encouraged by my right hon. and learned Friend's announcement this afternoon that he is to authorise trials of side-handled batons. It is something for which they have been asking for a long time.
  I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will also continue to make clear to the courts the seriousness of any assault on a police officer. Assaulting a police officer is a most serious crime and it should carry a very heavy penalty. I hope that that message will continue to go out from the House and from the Government.
  I want to say a few words about the proposed criminal justice Bill. Many of the measures that have been outlined are desperately needed, in particular those to deal with the problems of juvenile offenders and with the right to silence. There is a desperate need to be able to draw to the attention of a jury the fact that the person accused of a crime has refused to answer perfectly legitimate questions asked by police officers. There is also a need to impose some restriction on the availability of bail. Those are just three of the measures in the package announced by my right hon. and learned Friend and I strongly support them all.
  I want to suggest two further measures that I believe would make a difference. The first relates to replica weapons. In 1991, almost 500 offences involved the use of imitation firearms. During recent years, there has been a steady increase in the use of imitation weapons in the pursuit of crime, but some of those incidents have not been recorded as offences.
  In Colchester earlier this year, two people were spotted in a car in the high street, one of whom appeared to be loading a pistol. The police rightly reacted with a full-scale armed response. My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that Colchester is a garrison town and security is important. The police discovered that the pistol was not a genuine firearm, just an imitation. One of the two people concerned said that he had an interest in imitation firearms and was showing the pistol to his colleague. The police could do nothing because it is not an offence to carry an imitation firearm in a public place. I believe that imitation firearms are increasingly being used in committing crimes, and that is a matter that we need to examine.
  At the moment, imitation firearms can be bought simply by picking up a telephone. There is no need to have a licence to possess them. It is easy to go out and buy an Exchange & Mart in which one will see plenty of advertisements for those weapons.
  I accept that there are genuine collectors who have an interest in collecting firearms, or imitation firearms, and perhaps displaying them privately, but I do not see why people should be able to carry such firearms in public, with
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  the police being unable to do anything when it is quite clear to them that in fact those firearms may be used to commit a crime.
  Secondly, I should like my right hon. and learned Friend to examine the issue of car crime, which remains one of the biggest law and order problems. Although we have had considerable success over the past year in reducing the steady rise in car crime—a tribute to the success of Car Crime Year 1992, which has made considerable progress—car crime is still increasing.
  Considerable progress has been made in fitting improved locks and immobilisers, and technology is developing that will enable devices to be installed, such as the new tracker system and trackback, which will allow the electronic tracing of stolen vehicles. All those things are bound to make an impact on car crime.
  One simple change to legislation could also make a difference. Recently, a change was made to the procedure for MOT tests. It is now a requirement that a vehicle's identification number be checked when an MOT test is carried out. That is clearly a step forward. But it is not a criminal offence to tamper with a VIN, erase it or interfere with it. The police cannot touch people who do that.
  The story is told of a warehouse in the north of England that was found to contain the stripped-down parts of 35 motor cycles, not one of which had a chassis or identification number that had not been filed down. Apparently the warehouse owner explained that he thought that those parts looked prettier if one removed that rather unsightly piece of identification. The police were unable to do anything because they could not trace the owners of those parts—the identification marks had been filed away. As a result, they were unable to take any action.
  The case for making it an offence to erase, tamper or interfere with a VIN is absolutely overwhelming. If we were to do that, it would make a difference to the amount of car crime. Both the measures which I have mentioned are minor when compared with the essential measures that are contained within the package that my right hon. and learned Friend has announced.
  In each case, I think that the measures would make a small but noticeable difference. They would make life for the police a bit easier in catching criminals, and make the life of the criminal a bit more difficult. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will give them consideration in the weeks to come.
  6.3 pm
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: The hon. Member for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Whittingdale) has made a constructive and practical speech. I hope that the points that he made at the end will be noted by the Home Office.
  I note that although the Home Secretary chided my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) for being absent for his speech, the Home Secretary has chosen to be absent during mine.
  The Home Secretary is the seventh Conservative holder of that office since 1979. No one can be more aware than he that the criminal justice system, which is his legacy, is not delivering what the country requires. For too many people, crime and the fear of crime adds an unnecessary dimension of misery to their lives.
  The Prime Minister stated, in opening the debate on the Gracious Speech, that the centrepiece of his programme for

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  this Session is the criminal justice Bill. That is an acknowledgement that crime is a central concern in Britain today. But as the Home Secretary must know, where crime is concerned, to legislate is not to eliminate.
  The measure of a successful criminal justice policy is that it enables the police, courts and prisons to work together within an adequate framework of law and with sufficient resources to reduce the level of crime. But crime in Britain has risen at unprecedented levels in the past 20 years. There were 5·7 million offences recorded by the police in the past year. The rise in crime now threatens to overwhelm all those charged by society with the duty to detect, try, punish and reform criminals.
  The police clear up 25 per cent. more crimes than they did 10 years ago, but in that period the number of offences recorded annually has grown by 91 per cent. Our gaols are full, but the prison population is expected to rise. Indeed, a rise is now demanded by the Home Secretary. I understand that once more plans are being laid to float prison hulks on the River Thames. It is perhaps no wonder that, faced with such a daunting prospect, the Home Secretary appears at times to succumb to the sin of defeatism.
  Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Can the hon. Gentleman say which of the Home Secretary's proposals he will accept and which of them he will not?
  Mr. Maclennan: I shall deliver my response in detail to each of the Home Secretary's Bills as they are published.
  The Home Secretary can wring his hands and remind us that crime is a worldwide problem. We heard that from the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). But the Home Secretary, rather wistfully, complained on the "Today" programme that no one knows how to prevent crime. Yet at other times he casts off such careworn thoughts. He says, like King Lear,
  "I will do such things,
  What they are yet I know not,—but they shall be
  The terrors of the earth."
  Perhaps in his heart of hearts the Home Secretary knows that his measures will not deliver. His gloominess just keeps breaking through. We have, however, a duty to confront the problem of crime, not to wallow in it as Conservative Secretaries of State are wont to do. Lower levels of offending are achievable, but we need a different agenda if they are to be achieved. Our approach must be hard-nosed and practical.
  The problem of young offenders is a prime concern. One young man in four now has a criminal record by the age of 21. The Government's narrow focus is on incarcerating the tiny proportion who are hard-bitten repeating offenders. We need to discourage all young people from turning to crime. We do not need to reinvent borstal.
  We need to tackle the increased use of drugs, for addicts often feed their addiction from the proceeds of crime. Liverpool is not yet New York, where a study linked 90 per cent. of addicts with crime.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I should be most grateful if the hon. Gentleman would give way.
  Mr. Maclennan: I am sure, but I have had a clear sign from the Chair that short speeches would be welcome.
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  The Home Secretary, rightly, is tough on traffickers and he has had our support in doing so, but he is not concerned enough about their customers. It is, for example, time to research the consequences for crime of the policy over the past decade of reducing the prescription of substitutes for heroin addicts.
  We must have effective crime prevention measures across the country. Imitation is certainly the sincerest form of flattery and it is good to hear the Labour party spokesman today so trenchantly supporting the case that the Liberal Democrats and our predecessor parties have been arguing as the front line attack on crime since 1985.
  The Home Secretary also did us the honour of coming quickly to the subject of crime prevention in his speech and highlighted a few successful pump-primed projects. But he has neglected to spread the best practice throughout the country, properly researched and properly funded.
  We also need to increase the detection rate. For that we require police forces not only locally managed but determining their own key objectives and attuned to local needs. We need to increase the proportion of offenders who are tried and convicted in court. Last year the Crown Prosecution Service discontinued 193,000 cases. We must back the CPS not only with adequate funds but with laws that are clear and enforceable.
  We also need to speed up process in the courts. The average period of time from charge to completion for an indictable offence in the magistrates courts has risen to 86 days—almost two weeks longer on bail or in custody than five years ago. That fact is rather more important than some of the measures to which the Home Secretary alluded in his short discussion of the problems of bail. Shortening the period between charge and completion would reduce the number of bail bandits.
  We need to secure care and support for victims of crime and adequate compensation for the harm that they have suffered. I deplore the Home Secretary's suggestion that he contemplates standardised token payments to victims which disregard the actual impact of the crime suffered.
  But if we must care for the victim, we must seek to correct the criminal. That requires a different approach to sentencing. The Home Office has calculated that a 25 per cent. increase in the prison population would be required to reduce the crime rate by 1 per cent. Yet in Germany, a fall in the prison population throughout the 1980s led to a fall in crime rates. Increased use of prison will not, by itself, reduce offending. Only the improved use of prison for correction will do so. In short, we need real solutions to the real problems.
  That agenda seems far removed from the agenda proposed by the Home Secretary in his contribution to the debate on the Gracious Speech. He would have done well to avoid the trap into which his six predecessors stumbled. We have had streams of impulsive legislation in response to outbursts of public anger. Many Home Office Bills have arrived with built-in obsolescence. For example, Parliament passed the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 in record time, as it was asked to do by the then Home Secretary. Yet just this weekend a child was killed by a dog which did not even qualify under the law as a dangerous dog.
  The same failure is true of the legislation to ban joyriders. Only two weeks ago, another child was killed on a zebra crossing by a joyrider travelling at 70 mph outside his school in Tyne and Wear.
  Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Maclennan: I shall give way when I have completed the point.
  Evidently, the boy racers are not impressed with the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Act 1992. However, they do respond to programmes such as crime concern motor projects, for which the Government are less ready to offer nationwide support.
  Mr. Nicholls: What extra specific law would the hon. Gentleman's party propose to stop joyriding?
  Mr. Maclennan: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I was saying instead of bouncing to his feet before I had completed my remarks, he would have heard the answer to his question. We could have backed the motor projects throughout the country that are designed by a partnership of local authorities, the police and the voluntary agencies to divert the energies and interests of the young into more constructive projects, which the police themselves believe are the most effective way of avoiding the horrors of joyriding.
  Mr. Roy Beggs: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Maclennan: No, I have already given way.
  Mr. Beggs: I have a helpful intervention to make on this issue.
  Mr. Maclennan: I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Beggs: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree that the use of the term "joyrider" should be avoided by every hon. Member and that those involved in stealing cars should be referred to as car thieves?
  Mr. Maclennan: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. That was a helpful intervention which I strongly support.
  Frenetic law-making by the Government in the area of criminal justice has included a succession of U-turns of policy, the most recent being the disowning of the core of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. We have seen borstals built, filled and dismantled as failures. Prisons have been employed as a routine punishment and then, under new Home Secretaries, as punishment of last resort. Now, under the rule of the present Home Secretary, who believes that prisons work, they are again to be used as a routine punishment.
  Unit fines have been introduced and abolished within months. A responsible Government would have retained the principle but reformed the practice. But after one or two misreported cases, the then Home Secretary announced that he was the only Justice Minister in Europe who believed that no such system could ever work.
  Hon. Members may not have spotted that the man who was fined £1,200 allegedly for dropping the famous crisp packet was in fact convicted of assaulting a police officer who had asked him to pick up the crisp packet.
  The Government's record of tacking from one direction to another is among the reasons why they cannot expect to be believed when they claim that now at last they are on the right course.
  By bringing crime to centre stage, as the Government have done in this debate, the Home Secretary invites us to look at their proposed treatment of the police, the CPS, the courts and the prisons—the four great pillars of the criminal justice system. If any of those is shaky, the edifice
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  could fall. But at this time many are alarmed by the evidence that the foundations of all four are being shaken by the Government.
  The police are caught up in uncertainty, false economies and centralised meddling. Chief constables asked for an extra 2,167 officers for this year. They received none. They have requested 2,475 more officers for next year. When the Home Secretary answers that call, I hope that he will remember his words to the Basingstoke Conservative Association earlier this month:
  "we must never forget that our overriding priority is to protect the public."
  The Home Secretary is also apparently hell bent upon the dangerous course of imposing his paid creatures on our local police authorities and requiring those authorities to implement his key objectives. Under the thin pretext of local management, the Home Secretary's Bill will go two thirds of the way to creating a national police force under political control. That is anathema to the police service and it is a million miles from being back to basics.
  The problems of the CPS are being swept under the carpet by the Government. Barbara Mills, as The Daily Telegraph commented in a recent editorial, is the wrong target. The article argued that she is not to blame for her organisation being
  "bureaucratic, under-resourced and poorly staffed."
  But if she is not to blame, the Government certainly are.
  We shall have to wait for the publication of the criminal justice Bill to judge whether the Government have the measure of the problems in the trial courts. Certainly their proposal to bureaucratise and centralise the magistrates clerks service appears as a dangerous derogation of judicial independence, unlikely to reduce court delays or the length of trials.
  With regard to the substantive law, the Home Secretary has ducked a response to the Runciman commission's core recommendations to avoid miscarriages of justice which have disfigured our system. In oracular fashion, the Home Secretary proposes to tinker with the right to silence, something that is seen in the United States as a fundamental human right which requires explicit constitutional protection. The contradiction between what the Home Secretary said at the Conservative party conference and what the Attorney-General has said on the subject makes it imprudent to seek to divine what is in the mind of the Government, beyond raising cheers from a few shellbacks on the Benches of their conscience.
  The lack of dedication of the Conservative Government to systematic law reform may be measured by their acceptance of 33 reports from the Law Commission during the past nine years, none of which, however, they have found the time to implement. Does the Home Secretary intend to give effect to the proposals of the Commission on violence against the person which were published recently? I would not ask him to answer today, for we have waited for some years for answers on the earlier reports.
  I turn finally to the prison service. The Woolf report, it seems has been abandoned and we are hurtling instead towards a major catastrophe in our prisons. From January to August this year, the prison population rose by 5,270. The number of young offenders in custody rose by 17 per cent. between January and September of this year. The Home Secretary says that he will no longer judge the success of our system of justice by a fall in the prison population. I am not aware if anyone ever has made such

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  a judgment. It would seem to me that a reduction in crime should be the proper measure of a successful criminal justice system.
  The Home Office's own research found no link between rising crime and lower sentencing in England and Wales in the late 1980s. The research also showed that, in police force areas where sentences tended to be tougher, crime did not in fact fall. The Home Secretary apparently no longer holds out privatised prisons as models to the prison service. Those prisons are also to be subject to the pressures of overcrowding and that will be more dangerous in the hands of the amateurs upon whom the Home Secretary intends to call to run them.
  It is true that privately operated prisons were common in the 18th century and that prisoners had to find the cash to buy their way out of those gaols. The last of those private prisons was abandoned in 1878, due to overcrowding. That was a few years before the treadmill was abolished. Those are basics to which few people in this country would wish to go back.
  The truth is that the measures which the Government are now proposing have nothing to do with the British sense of justice or fair play. The measures owe more to recent traditions, where public service must be forced into centralised and commercialised packages and sold off to the highest bidder.
  Conservative Home Secretaries themselves are becoming something of a tradition, but it is a tradition that is marked by signal failure.
  6.24 pm
  Mr. James Cran: I begin with the observation that we have heard some rather good speeches from the Back Benches today. I draw attention to the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). I feel that hon. Members will read his speech tomorrow, since my hon. and learned Friend demonstrated that he knows what he is talking about.
  I also draw attention to the speech of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux). All hon. Members will look carefully at what he said about the difficult set of circumstances in Northern Ireland. That is particularly the case with regard to those hon. Members who take an interest in Northern Ireland affairs. [Interruption.] Some of my colleagues are trying to tempt me to make judgments on other speeches, but I will pass on to the next part of my speech.
  Another point that I wanted to make about those two speeches was that, by and large, they were non-political. If I can divine anything from what I hear from my constituents on the subject of law and order, it is that they are not terribly impressed by the political ball going back and forth between the political parties. Both the Government and the Opposition will be judged at the next general election by what they do rather than what they say. That is why I have been impressed by many of the points which have been made in the 27-point plan that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary outlined.
  I welcome the Queen's Speech on this occasion and I also welcome the fact that the centrepiece of the Speech is law and order. It behoves me to say that when I had to speak on the Queen's Speech last year, I was not able to
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  speak with as much conviction or give it as much support. I will not mention why that was, but it related to a certain treaty whose name I am thoroughly sick of, as is everyone else.
  Whatever I may feel about the Government's programme, my constituents are delighted that the Government are putting law and order at the centrepiece of their programme. Again, that point has been made by some of my colleagues. My constituents and the public in general are impatient for solutions, but, as with the Opposition, they do not offer many solutions.
  I am no expert on crime and punishment and I speak as an ordinary citizen who is looking at the problem. There is far too much over-simplification on the subject of crime and we will do a disservice if we over-simplify the problem. It has also been made clear by others in the debate that the problem does not affect only the United Kingdom. This is the mistake that the Opposition make frequently because, in not making that clear, they take the argument back to party politics. The fact is, as has been made clear by other hon. Members, that crime is rising in all western states, and elsewhere.
  I beware of the easy solution brigade, and I am pleased that my right hon. and learned Friend has not indulged in easy solutions. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) did us the service of introducing the question of back to basics into the debate. The Prime Minister is absolutely correct to crank up that debate. Again, that is not simply because I believe it, but because my constituents say precisely the same thing to me.
  Hon. Members have mentioned respect for the law. I have, however, discovered that there is no longer a stigma attached to contravening the law. I did not discover that at a public meeting, but when I, too, regrettably, was summoned to a magistrates court. The offence was minor, I hasten to add, and happened a long time ago. I remember sitting in the waiting room of the magistrates court and I felt rather ashamed of myself despite the fact that it was a very small offence.
  Mrs. Gorman: What was the offence?
  Mr. Cran: I am not going to tell my hon. Friend what the offence was. I talked to others who were in a similar situation to me, their having broken the law. [Interruption.] I am being heckled from my own side. Most of the others were there for far more serious offences than mine. However, I found that they did not care too much about being in front of a magistrates court. It was en passant, something to fill in that morning.
  That is why the Prime Minister's call to go back to basics is absolutely correct, and he has struck a chord with the British people. I know that my right hon. Friend will accept, as I do, that it will be a long haul because it concerns changing attitudes. We must have something for the middle term and that is why we will study the criminal justice Bill and the police Bill which will be presented to us.
  I shall concentrate on three issues, the first of which is juvenile crime. Beverley is no inner city but a very delightful market town. I should be surprised to learn that anyone here has not been there; those who have not should go. In common with other areas, Beverley had a serious outbreak of juvenile crime. For example, the Keldgate children's home receives disruptive children from a wide

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  area. That home is in a residential area, but in one year, there were 83 incidents of crime. I am not talking about petty crime—far from it; I am talking of incidents such as section 47 assaults. Perhaps the Minister will tell me what that means—
  Mr. Oliver Heald: Actual bodily harm.
  Mr. Cran: I thank my hon. Friend for clarifying that. In other words, it is serious. I am also talking about breach of bail, breach of the peace, burglary, theft and the holding of offensive weapons, all occurring in the middle of staid, civilised Beverley. The community around the children's home was almost being terrorised.
  I have been told of one occasion when a youth from the home, who was allowed out on demand, climbed on to the roof of the local library and caused £30,000-worth of damage. I believe that I should find it terribly difficult to do that amount of damage, but he did it easily and quickly. Needless to say, he was arrested, but then, alas, returned to the establishment. Of course, after only a few hours, he was able to open the door and walk on to another library roof. That is absurd, and I am delighted that the Home Office has recognised it as such.
  As proof of the outrage felt in the community and of the fact that the Government are correct, I cite the community support group of the police authority in Humberside. It said:
  "Committee members sought to identify factors contributing to the present situation and it was agreed that the policy of repeated cautioning of offenders, so freeing them to re-offend, coupled with the severe constraints placed upon staff at such residential homes by the Children Act 1989 as regards their ability to control the movements of resident young persons, were effectively removing any meaningful control over such persons."
  I am absolutely delighted that the Government are to deal with that particular problem with what I believe are to be called secure training centres for 12 to 15-year-olds.
  Speaking as an ordinary citizen, I hope that it will not merely be a "locking up syndrome", which cannot possibly be sufficient. I am pleased to see the Minister agreeing. There is a need for more education, training and the teaching of what used to be known as civics. I have discovered that not many people nowadays know what civics is, but it must be a component of the Government's approach.
  The second issue that concerns my constituents is trespass by gipsies and travellers. It is an equally difficult problem for any community. In my constituency, land has been habitually occupied by 40, 50 or 60 caravans which blight the surrounding area. Anyone who has seen such sites will know how bad they are. Legal action was taken by the local authority and the caravans moved half a mile down the road. The problem was not solved and the community found itself to be utterly powerless faced with travellers who, there can be no doubt, knew the law better than many of us. In my constituency, the problem has now been solved by designation, but the problem will merely move down the road.
  In his splendid speech last Thursday, the Prime Minister said:
  "If squatters, travellers or trespassers occupy people's property, they should be able to get them out—and quickly. The new Bill will ensure that they can do so."—[Official Report, 18 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 33.]
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  I should like the Minister's assurance that that will indeed be the case, since it makes no sense merely to move the problem down the road.
  Mr. John Greenway: We want to keep them out.
  Mr. Cran: I agree with my hon. Friend.
  The third issue on which I shall concentrate is the new police Bill. Like all hon. Members, I am being lobbied—quite rightly—by all the police organisations. They know the profession and they wish to influence us. I have told them that I welcome the opportunity that will be provided by the Bill, but we must not demoralise the police force. There was a great deal of good in the Sheehy report, but it was overwhelmed by the bad, and I was delighted that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary recognised that fact.
  I start from the premise that there is no point in alienating any work force. We must have a dialogue and we must listen. Of course, at the end of the day the Government will have to take decisions and they may not be the decisions that the police would wish, but I hope that exhaustive consultation will take place.
  I have checked, but no police Bill was available, or at least not to me. I am keen on fixed-term appointments and hope that they will be included. It has been suggested that the principle should apply only to senior officers, but I am keen that it should apply further down the ranks. I do not suggest that fixed-term appointments should apply to existing officers, but there is no reason why they should not apply to new entrants into the profession. I hope that the Government have an open mind on the subject.
  I am also convinced of the need to simplify the rank structure. From a business point of view, it is overly complicated. I believe that everyone would benefit from its being simplified, but it has ramifications for the ranks which may be abolished, so the issue needs to be considered sensitively.
  I am also keen on appraisal-related pay. It is odd that Parliament is the only place in which I am not appraised at all, except possibly by my constituents once every four or five years.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: That is a form of appraisal and approval.
  Mr. Cran: I am reassured by my hon. and learned Friend, but, if my colleagues are not careful, they will make me lose my thread. I am very keen on appraisal-related pay and this is the only job in which I have not been properly appraised. One cannot possibly run an organisation without appraising those in it. The police organisations have their views on the subject, but they are open-minded enough to accept that appraisal is coming. I hope that, in one guise or another, the Government will also accept it.
  If it is included in the Bill, I should not be against the amalgamation of police forces. I observe, however, that big is not always beautiful and it is certainly not always efficient. I have heard endless stories implying that we may have five or 10 police forces. I gently worry about that because accountability to the people whom we represent is best attained if they can relate to the police entity involved. If one thinks about local authorities—in my case, Humberside county council—people do not relate to them in any way. Thus if the police authority were to be any

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  bigger, I would need a great deal of convincing that that was the right direction to take. I hope that the Government will consider the issue carefully.
  I am not against changing the membership of authorities, but I believe that not all local authority representatives are bad and not all business representatives are good. I hope that the Government have an open mind about who should be represented on police authorities. I am not arguing for local authorities, but many people in the community who are not business men could give good service. I assume that that aspect will be in the police Bill, although of course I do not know.
  Let me finish by saying—[HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."] I am kindly being asked to go on, but I am mindful of the demands of others, having waited to speak at the tail end of countless debates usually to be knocked out at the last minute.
  I am pleased that the Queen's Speech is not too heavy although the Session started later than usual. The Opposition propose far too much legislation and the Government indulge in it too often. They should take heed of what I always tell my constituents: that legislation does not necessarily solve all problems. Quite often it exacerbates them.
  Looking again at the Front Bench, I hope that, when the inevitable charge comes from the Opposition that the Government have run out of steam—one hears such quotes so often—we should rebut this. We should remember that legislation should be thought through carefully for a considerable length of time before any action is taken. We should not react to every problem by legislating.
  6.41 pm
  Mr. Geoffrey Hoon: I am sure that the House will understand why the hon. Member for Beverley (Mr. Cran) could not bring himself to mention the Maastricht treaty at the start of his speech. The hon. Gentleman and I were often on opposing sides in the course of consideration of the treaty, but I find myself surprised to be in agreement with much of what he said today.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to say that our constituents are impatient for solutions to the problems of law and order, to emphasise that there is too much oversimplification and to tell us to beware of the easy solution brigade. I was surprised that he exempted the Home Secretary from membership of the easy solution brigade, as anyone who produces a 27-point plan for anything must fall firmly into that camp.
  I shall concentrate on one of those easy solutions. The Home Secretary repeatedly mentioned the so-called right to silence. Whenever he referred to the right to silence he said that it was "so-called". I am puzzled as to why that should be the case as that concept is well understood and clearly recognised to such an extent that the Government propose to abolish it. Unfortunately, it is an easy solution for the Government because it is one of those technical issues which often concern lawyers and judges but have profound implications for the entire criminal justice system.
  If the Home Secretary is to persuade the House of the force of his argument, he must be able to show conclusively that it will have a significant impact on the
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  level of criminality and the conviction rate. We need to know the justification for a proposal to change a fundamental principle of our legal system.
  The Government's argument appears to be that sophisticated and experienced criminals persistently abuse their right to silence to frustrate police investigations and are thereby able to avoid conviction. Their argument rests on the proper assumption that an innocent person has nothing to hide and will therefore co-operate with the police by explaining where he or she was at the relevant time and what he or she was doing with a view to immediate elimination from police inquiries. That is the way in which I expect that the Government will put their argument.
  There is little objection to the idea of allowing a judge to invite a jury to draw an adverse inference from the failure of the suspect to offer some explanation of the evidence apparently linking him or her to the commission of a criminal offence. That is the simplified version of the Government's proposal. Unfortunately, the concept of the right to silence is not so self-contained. It is not capable of being introduced in such a superficial way. It is the easy solution against which the hon. Member for Beverley warned us, because it has implications that go to the foundations of our system of justice.
  The central position which guides English criminal law is that it is always for the prosecution to prove the defendant's guilt. Not only is the burden of proof placed firmly on the prosecution, but that burden can be satisfied only by proof of a very high standard so that a jury or magistrate—or a judge in Northern Ireland—is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt.
  The proposition was set out in a celebrated way by Viscount Sankey in 1935, when he said:
  "Throughout the web of English criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen. The duty of the prosecution is to prove a prisoner's guilt".
  Successive royal commissions—in 1929, 1981 and most recently in July 1993—have examined the argument and reached the conclusion that we should maintain the right to silence.
  The abolition or abridgement of the right to silence would break that golden thread, as it would allow the judge to comment on the defendant's failure to answer police questions or to give evidence. The defendant's silence would thereby become potential evidence of his or her guilt. The jury would have to be told that they could interpret the defendant's silence as tending to show his guilt. The burden of proof that we have always placed firmly on the prosecution would therefore to some extent be shifted to the defendant and it would be necessary for the defendant to speak in order to show his innocence.
  Such a change would have implications throughout our system at every stage in the process. The most significant effect, however, is likely to be at the first contact between the police and the suspect and it would obviously change the balance of any interview between a police officer and a suspect.
  At present, the police officer is required to caution a suspect specifically in terms that the potential defendant is not obliged to say anything. That is the basic proposition of a caution. If the Government have their way, presumably it will be necessary for the police to warn a suspect that his failure to answer questions could lead to an adverse inference being drawn at any later trial. Police

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  officers would not need to press that fact, although some undoubtedly would do so. They would be able to coerce a suspect into answering their questions.
  The mere fact of being approached and asked to answer questions by a police officer is generally sufficient to make most people nervous and confused and perhaps fail to give a proper account of themselves. That has long been recognised in common law. In the celebrated American Supreme Court case of Miranda v. Arizona, Mr. Justice Warren clearly set out the underlying problem. He said:
  "Without proper safeguards the process of custody and interrogation of persons accused of crime contains inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual's will to resist and compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely".
  Interrogations in police stations are inherently intimidatory, even to the most law-abiding and honest people. As a young law student I was required to accompany suspects to formal interviews conducted at local police stations. It was my job to ensure that suspects exercised their right to silence. Not only were they subjected to significant pressure to answer police questions, but I was frequently accused of obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. I was warned that if I continued in that way I would never qualify as a lawyer and the police would draw the matter to the court's attention.
  Such formal and informal pressure is, sadly, commonplace in police interviews. Ultimately, and sadly, it leads to the suspect confessing to offences that are not proved in any other way before the court.
  Mr. Heald: In the light of press coverage only today of a recent example of oppressive police questioning, the judge threw out the interview and the man was acquitted. Does not that protect the accused if the court can act in that way under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984? Given that that protection exists, what on earth is the point of the right to silence?
  Mr. Hoon: On the hon. Gentleman's second question, the right to silence cannot be taken as a self-contained part of the process, because it is inherent in how we conduct trials. On his more general question of how the legal system will protect suspects and defendants, the issue is whether we are confident in the integrity of our police. Ten years ago, I might have had no doubt in answering that question but, sadly, many citizens are increasingly suspicious about police officers' integrity. That is a cause for great concern. Sadly, anyone who regularly attends jury trials, throughout the country but particularly in the metropolitan areas, will know that juries approach police evidence with profound suspicion simply because in previous cases the police have taken advantage of their position and intimidated suspects and potential witnesses.
  I criticise the proposal to abolish the right to silence because it tilts the balance still further in favour of the police. The approach that I have set out has been confirmed on many occasions. In its response to the Home Office working group consultation paper, "The Right to Silence", Justice expresses its concern about abolishing the right to silence and says:
  "It is worth noting here that in Justice's experience of over 25 years of investigating cases of alleged miscarriages of justice, a false confession … was the most common cause of wrongful conviction."
  That is precisely the conclusion reached in the report of the royal commission on criminal justice under the
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  chairmanship of Viscount Runciman and presented to Parliament as recently as July 1993. Its terms of reference specifically invited it to consider the right to silence and it was asked to conduct research to look into that question. It did so carefully and came up with thoughtful conclusions and recommendations.
  Despite the considered process of a royal commission, however, the Home Secretary announced at his party conference—probably for easy applause—that the Government intended to abolish the right to silence. That is not a proper way for a Government to proceed on such a fundamental issue.
  Rodger Leng produced a study in which he concluded:
  "The right to silence is rarely exercised and — about half of those who exercise it are convicted. For cases which fail, there is little evidence to suggest that the prospects for conviction would be enhanced by inducing the suspect to speak or treating his silence as evidence against him."
  That research was endorsed by the royal commission in a review carried out for it by David Brown, which is set out in paragraph 15, chapter 4, of its conclusions. I shall not read them into the record as hon. Members can read them themselves, but the conclusions made it clear that the commission's review of the research showed that there was practical advantage to no one in abolishing the right to silence. The Government must carry out as detailed research to justify their proposals as that carried out by the most recent royal commission on criminal procedure, in 1981, which came to exactly the same conclusion for precisely the same reasons.
  Abolishing the right to silence will not only affect procedures in police stations. I assume that it is likely to have implications for the conduct of criminal trials. If the Government are to be consistent, they should propose to abolish the right to silence not only in police stations but during trials. If they allow someone who may be unrepresented to be coerced into answering questions from police officers on the basis that, later at the trial, an adverse inference may be drawn, why not—assuming that the suspect is legally represented and has been properly advised by competent lawyers—require him or her to give evidence in court? It surely follows that if the Government are determined to abolish the right to silence in police stations, a defendant should be required to give evidence in court. The principle appears to be the same. It would be interesting to see how the Government would tackle that problem.
  If the Government are seriously considering abolishing the right to silence at trial, it will fundamentally change how our criminal system operates, because it is a basic proposition that it is for the prosecution to prove every element of its case. Under our present rules, a defendant cannot be required to assist the prosecution in proving its case. If the prosecution fails to prove its case, it is for the defence to submit that there is no case to answer. If that submission is rejected, it is still for the defence to call as much or as little evidence as it chooses. Its case for the jury might be no more than that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. By potentially requiring the defendant to give evidence, the Government would be saying that the defendant must assist in proving the case against him and where a defendant refuses to do so an adverse inference may be drawn.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I put to my hon. Friend the case of someone who is arrested, brought into custody and demands to see his lawyer. His lawyer

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  comes, there is a privileged discussion which cannot be inquired into later by the court, and the lawyer tells him to say nothing. In court, the reason for that advice cannot be inquired into, but the defendant may say that his lawyer told him to say nothing.
  Unless legislation enables the court to inquire into privileged communications between solicitors and clients, professional criminals—who will always have their brief—will ensure that they use their right to silence and have the protection of that privilege, while vulnerable people who are not usually in police stations may be in a much weaker position and will not have the same advantages as professionals in exercising some spurious right in those circumstances.
  Mr. Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for setting out one of a number of practical problems that will arise if the proposal is accepted.
  Another problem may concern a defendant who chooses to answer some of the police or prosecution questions but not all of them. What will the judge then say if that defendant has avoided answering the difficult questions, as defendants are tempted to do in such circumstances?
  Will an adverse inference be drawn in those circumstances? Will such an inference be drawn if the defendant has been silent for some, but not all, of the time? Those are difficult questions and we need detailed investigation of the problem such as that carried out by the royal commission. By introducing the proposal in this way, the Home Secretary is opting for the easy solution.
  The change might be acceptable in a different type of legal system. Where there is independent investigation of facts, as happens in different legal systems around the world, the independent investigator is usually in a position to compel all witnesses to give evidence and answer questions. It does not matter whether that evidence supports the prosecution or the defence. However, our legal system is an adversarial one, which means that one side is responsible for the investigation of the facts tending to show the defendant's guilt. It is therefore wrong in principle to suggest that a defendant's refusal, in effect, to help the opposition in any way implies his guilt. That is the issue that the Government must grasp when they consider the matter.
  We have a particular type of system that has developed in a particular way and these are rules which follow on from our adversarial system. We cannot tinker with parts of the system in the hope that that will somehow solve the problem of crime. We would be tampering with the cornerstone of our system and we would regret doing so—unless the Government are capable of explaining it in the depth and detail that the royal commission was able to bring to bear in the report that it published as recently as July this year.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): I remind the House of Madam Speaker's decision earlier today that speeches between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock will be limited to 10 minutes.
  7.2 pm
  Mrs. Teresa Gorman: I welcome the Government's initiative in putting the subject of law and order at the top of the political debate. My constituents would rather describe these debates in terms of crime and punishment, because they believe that the increase in crime is related to the fact that we have forgotten that punishment is a good way of deterring crime and that we have, to some extent, gone soft. We spend too much time worrying about the criminal and pretending that the criminal is the victim of society. That is one of those modish ideas that has been prevalent in our society for much too long and on which the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon) dwelt for far too long.
  For the general public, the right to silence is largely a matter of giving people, against whom the police have serious reason to believe that they have a sensible charge, the opportunity to say nothing. Therefore, in many cases those people are not properly tried. During the debate and discussion on the Bill, I hope that a great deal more attention will be paid to that issue. It is what people want to hear.
  In my constituency, people expect their Government to protect them and their property. They believe that they have a right to feel safe in their homes and in their streets, but they feel that proper attention has not been paid to that right because we are too concerned with being soft on those who are deemed to be society's victims. They want to see that changed.
  Burglary is the crime that has increased most seriously in Essex and in my constituency. I am pleased that the police force in Essex has got on top of a great deal of crime, but burglary is increasing at a worrying pace—so much so that people are installing in their houses protection systems which might be more appropriate for Fort Knox. They are spending an enormous amount of money on such systems because they are afraid to leave their homes without some form of defence. That is a measure of the feeling of insecurity which exists.
  When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State winds up, I should like him to address the relationship between the growth of crime and the increase in the use of drugs. So much of our crime, both petty and not so petty, is linked to the growth of the drug distribution business which, as we know, is illegal. The large increase in the number of prisoners in American gaols, which has been commented on already, is related largely to the incarceration of people involved in the drugs industry. Yet despite that, the industry continues to grow. It is difficult to see how much money society can afford to lay out in the pursuit of criminals involved in the drug business and still have enough left over to deal with more important issues.
  Before I leave the House, I should like us to debate seriously the issue of how to deal with drugs and the people who take them and whether we should consider decriminalising some of that activity, simply because the alternative is to fill our prisons and extend the number of victims in our society who suffer at the hands of drug addicts in pursuit of money to support their habit.
  During the Conservative party conference I launched a book—the name of which I would not dream of mentioning in this debate—and I held a book-signing at W. H. Smith's book shop. While I was signing the books I noticed an extremely shifty character walking around the shelves. He was dressed in a scruffy manner. The manager

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  was standing beside me opening the books for me to sign as there was a very long queue of people waiting.[Interruption.] The book costs £5·99.
  Mr. John Patten: An absolute bargain.
  Mrs. Gorman: I said to the manager, "There is a shady looking character walking around the shop. Could he be a potential shoplifter?" The manager said, "No, he is the detective." He told me that in shops such as W. H. Smith they have to have full-time detectives because just outside the shop in the precinct were drug addicts engaged in business of some sort. He said that one or more of them would come into the shop looking to steal goods worth about £150 during one day in order to pay for their drugs.
  If we multiply that throughout the country and think of all those criminals going around the M25 at night, shooting off into quiet suburbs and what were once safe country villages, stealing goods to sell probably at a car boot sale in order to support their habit, we can see the roots of the growth in burglary. We also have a problem with shop theft. Also, many serious assaults on elderly people occur when, for example, their handbags are snatched after picking up their pensions or they are attacked in their home because it is often assumed that elderly people will have a little money tucked away under the mattress or in the teapot.
  Much of the crime in Britain which is causing great concern to many people is tied up with the drug problem and we cannot avoid facing up to it. It is no good saying that we will maintain the same attitude to or punishment for this crime. In the United States a huge number of people are in pursuit of drug criminals and there is almost warfare. Despite that, America has not been able to control the increase in drugs-related crime. We must address the problem. More money and more policemen will not necessarily solve the problem.
  I raised with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary the creation of new crimes. He told me that the Gracious Speech contained provision to make ticket touting a crime. Although I do not like ticket touts—they are a lot of ratbags and many are disreputable characters—I regret that provision. Touts buy and sell tickets outside public events usually because somebody wants to get rid of tickets and I do not believe that we should look for ways of putting more people into our prisons. We should not be looking for ways of creating more crime when the police already have more than enough to deal with.
  I shall address myself to the origins of the growth of crime, which partly rests in the family. I am pleased that, in the Criminal Justice Act 1991, we introduced the provision that parents have to come to court and accept responsibility for their children, and especially the cost of their crimes, and I am pleased that we are pursuing that line.
  I also want to say a few words because the Secretary of State for Education is here and because, like so many people in this place, I have been a teacher in previous incarnations. I taught for 10 years in inner city schools in the London area. I assure the Secretary of State that the frustration that is felt by many children at their inability or inadequacy to cope with the syllabuses as offered and their total disinterest in academic work leads them, through boredom, to bad behaviour, which teachers no longer have
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  the ability to control, as clipping children over the ear or spanking them on the bottom is a thing of the past. We now have a serious problem, which is related to education.
  By pursuing policies—of which I greatly approve—of giving schools more autonomy and preferably independence through grant-maintained status, which will allow variety to develop in course work and will lead to children being more interested in their school work, my right hon. Friend will help to reduce crime. That is a serious part of controlling the growth of crime by young people.
  Last but not least, I feel strongly that we must pursue the level of punishment against people who attack women and children. I am worried about the soft sentences that are often handed out by rather geriatric judges when women are violently attacked.
  7.11 pm
  Mr. Colin Pickthall: I wish, if I may, to divert the debate, if only temporarily, to the subject of education, if for no other reason than to make the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) feel wanted. I fully intend to purchase the book by the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) when it is remaindered.
  The Prime Minister's great idea of "back to basics", insofar as it relates to education, seems to have its roots in a misreading of Dickens's "Hard Times", which Conservatives seem to believe is a denunciation of active education, symbolised by Sleary's circus, and embracing the educational philosophy of Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby.
  The incessant experimentation with our education system in the past 15 years, especially since 1986, has been fuelled by an unelected, unaccountable and largely inexperienced small group, based on the Centre for Policy Studies, deriving change out of ideology, basing its assertions on myth and bar-room slogans rather than on any sense of rational planning for education, denouncing all opinion from practitioners in education as irrelevant because it comes from the educational establishment, whatever that is.
  In The Times Educational Supplement in early October, the hon. Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton), my neighbour, for whom I have a great deal of respect on matters educational, described a Government in
  "the grip of right wing ideologues."
  That constant change and turmoil has led to demoralisation and bewilderment in schools and colleges. I have visited 52 of the schools in my constituency since I was elected, and in every one of them the message has been clear: "Leave us alone for a few years. Allow us to consolidate the changes that we have already under way."
  Now the implications for further changes in the organisation of teacher education threaten further turmoil, not just in the higher education institutions but in schools themselves, again ideologically driven and devoid of research and rational planning.
  "Back to basics" in education means, as Professor Paul Black writes,
  "nostalgia as a guide to policy"
  or, as Stephen Bold has said, "curriculum as museum". If the nostalgia of Ministers for the education of the 1950s, which we read about, is examined, it is nostalgia for a generation of schoolteachers who were, on the one hand, highly educated in their disciplines, often classics or

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  history scholars with an enormous amount of knowledge to offer, and on the other hand, those rapidly retrained after the war, who called on immense skills and vast experience.
  That was a great generation of teachers, but that generation has gone. The universities and colleges have been struggling to create a new generation of teachers who can combine the academic depth of those older teachers with all the contemporary demands for flexible skills, variety of delivery and social responsibility which we now properly demand of our schools.
  Under the guise of reforming funding for teacher education, the Government are clearly bent on destroying it. It is not without significance that the Queen's Speech refers to funding teacher training and the Government's insistence on training rather than to "teacher education". There is a lot in a name. Teacher education is what one provides for human beings who are designed for crucial roles in the structure, morality and ethics of a whole society. Training is what one provides for human beings to undertake a specific task or set of tasks, with efficiency, to achieve targets in terms of output.
  That is the role that is assigned to teachers by the radical right, and the curriculum packages that are forced on schools reinforce that role. It guides the Teacher Training Agency, a quango that is directly controlled by the Secretary of State, which has the brief to shift teacher education responsibility from the higher education sector to the schools themselves.
  The consequences of that shift need to be examined before it occurs. We should not be left—as we so often are by the Government's education policies—like a small child thrown into a pool to learn to swim. "Act now, think later" is the Government's excuse for education policy.
  The Government and their assorted Svengalis seem not to have examined the reality of what is happening in our teacher education institutions. Indeed, they persist in sneering references to teacher training colleges, which long since have transformed themselves into more mixed higher education institutions.
  Some years ago, Sir Keith Joseph began asking pertinent questions about teacher education, and especially about the extent and quality of the student's education at his or her level. That produced a response from colleges in which they examined the fundamental nature of what went into the making of a good teacher. Most BEd courses were at least partially integrated with the subject-based courses that are taught for BA and BSc qualifications.
  At the same time, student teachers were obliged to spend more and more time in schools, learning on the job—something that I have nothing against in theory. A four-year BA-QTS—qualified teacher status—student at Edge Hill college in my constituency spends, with attachments and block practices, more than 18 months in schools, and will have worked, during that time, in a wide variety of types of school, with different intakes and problems. In other words, the higher education institutions have already moved substantially towards what the Government seem to want, to the limits of what is possible without sabotaging the students' developing academic education.
  The relationships of colleges and the schools they partner is two-way, and it is mutually beneficial. The complex relationships between West Lancashire schools
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  and Edge Hill college, for example, have taken years to build and are highly valued. Tutors are not locked in their ivory tower, promulgating theory, but are in and out of a wide variety of schools in connection with their students' work and as individuals, learning from the schools and, one hopes, helping the schools in turn.
  The Government's disdain for theory is of a piece with their disdain for research and planning in education. I said earlier that a teacher is not simply a performer of set tasks, much though the Government would wish that. She or he is, to put it grandly, perhaps a moulder of society, a purveyor of values, both social and ethical—a functioning part of our economy, a transmitter of cultural values.
  She or he is responsible for health and safety, for relationships within the local community, for the carrying out of the law with regard to education, and the rights of children generally. She or he has to be a psychologist, not to mention at times a psychiatrist. She or he has not only to deliver blocks of curriculum but to understand what a curriculum amounts to and what its basis is or should be. All that, as well as the sheer mechanics of delivery, preparation and evaluation amounts to what is often sneeringly summarised as "theory". How can the teachers in our schools hope to deliver all that?
  Most teachers, rightly, already return to their higher education institutions regularly to update themselves on those subjects, for the sake of their own survival. A teacher's life is increasingly crowded and pressurised, as all hon. Members know from their surgeries and postbags. The only way in which schools could sustain increasingly school-based training would be by employing extra staff, even to deliver the sort of Bell and Lancaster training with which the Government are content.
  Is it not true that the Government will use the funding that they extract from higher education to shore up the process on which they are set—to divert a species of subsidy to private schools, city technology colleges and grant-maintained schools? They will ghettoise teacher education if we are not careful.
  Whatever the arguments in which the changes in teacher education are wrapped, the proposals are really about educating teachers more cheaply in the service of a curriculum that is increasingly becoming a frozen canon of blocks of acceptable knowledge. The Government do not want creative teachers with a critical analysis of knowledge or of systems of knowledge; they do not want school students who are critical and experimental.
  I noted with interest that that well-known expert on education, Sheila Lawler, has declared:
  "There is no reason to imagine that pupils learn from talking".
  I ask hon. Members to examine the total absurdity of that remark and the Gradgrind sterility of thought that underpins it.
  One of the major benefits of higher education, as hon. Members will know from experience, is academic interaction with other students and staff. Unlike Ms Lawler, I believe that pupils and students learn massively from talking and comparing—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  7.21 pm
  Mr. Michael Shersby: I declare an interest because, as the House knows, I am parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales.

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  I offer my warmest congratulations to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary on his announcement this afternoon that there are to be trials of the side-handled baton in police forces throughout England and Wales. My right hon. and learned Friend has taken that decision quickly, and I am sure that every police officer in the country will note that the new equipment will be available. I hope that it will provide officers with the added protection that they so desperately need.
  I am pleased that my constituents in Uxbridge will feel, as I do, that, because a criminal justice Bill is the centrepiece of the Government programme, many of their concerns will be dealt with, and that the Government will take further steps to tackle crime.
  In my constituency, domestic burglary has decreased substantially over the past year, as have a number of the other crimes which beset people in towns and cities throughout the country. The reason for that decline is Operation Bumblebee, conducted by the Metropolitan police, which has targeted burglars and receivers of stolen goods. It has been enormously successful, and I hope that similar operations will be undertaken by other counties, so that the outright war against the domestic burglar and the receiver of stolen goods will continue successfully.
  The legislation referred to in the Gracious Speech has the support of the Police Federation, which welcomes the measures clearly intended to strengthen the criminal justice system and to call a halt to an era which, in the opinion of many police officers, has put the interests of offenders before those of victims and of society in general.
  I am president of Uxbridge victim support, and I am only too well aware of the stress and anxiety caused to those who are the victims of violent crime and domestic burglary, to name but two areas of criminal activity. That is why my constituents and the police welcome the measures designed to deal with the persistent young offenders who are, there can be no doubt, responsible for much of the violent crime and burglary that are the scourge of our society.
  It is right and timely that the Government should crack down on those who re-offend while on bail. As the Prime Minister said last Thursday:
  "Some people seem to think that bail is a licence to commit crime."—[Official Report, 18 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 32.]
  He is right. That perception must be changed.
  Surely it must be right to legislate for the provision of new secure units for persistent young offenders. That is a far better system than the tracking proposals by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), to which I referred earlier. However, I ask the Home Secretary, which Department of State will pay for the much-needed new facilities?
  I believe that the initiative should come from the Home Office rather than from the Department of Health, as has happened until now. The problem that the House must face is that the Department of Health is responsible for the care of juveniles, and that consequently that Department has been expected to provide secure places for those who, until the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, would have been sent to prison.
  The Department of Health and the local authorities have provided very few places; every police officer knows how difficult it is to arrange for a juvenile offender to be confined in secure accommodation. I therefore believe that the time has come for the Government to grasp the nettle
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  and to transfer the responsibility for secure accommodation for juvenile offenders from the Department of Health to the Home Office and local authorities, so that it can be provided quickly.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will be able to tell the House how many new secure units will be provided, what new resources have been earmarked for their provision, and where they are to be located. We need that information. I have heard generalisations about providing more secure accommodation too many times in this place; it is facts and figures that I want to hear tonight.
  I welcome the announcement of changes in the criminal law to deal with those persistent nuisances, squatters, travellers and trespassers, who occupy other people's property and interfere with their lawful activities. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to say something to give the police grounds for hope that there will be sufficient resources to enable them to deal with that extension of their existing activities.
  I greatly welcome the reference to action to deal with child pornography, which is one of the greatest evils of our time. Any hon. Member who attended, as I did, the exhibition organised by the police at the Palace of Westminster on the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton), any hon. Member who had the misfortune to see the disgusting and disgraceful material displayed there, will know that the stronger powers of search, arrest and seizure that are to be provided will help the police to fight those wicked people who are distorting and corrupting young people. The proposals should have the full support of every Member of the House, and of every decent man and woman in our society.
  With reference to the proposals for improving the organisation and management of the police to make them better able to combat crime, it is only right for me, as parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation, to tell the House candidly that the federation has expressed concern about the idea of changing the way in which police authority members are to be chosen. When we see the Bill, the federation will want to consider carefully, as I shall, how the proposals for the appointment of chairmen and other members of police authorities by the Home Secretary are actually to be effected. Those changes are a considerable move away from the present composition of police authorities, which are based on local councillors and local magistrates.
  To which body or authority will those police authorities be accountable? If the Government are determined to persist with this proposal, people appointed by the Home Secretary to serve on police authorities should have their candidatures vetted, and should be appointed by statutory instrument subject to the approval of the House. That would preserve the essence of democratic accountability, which many people believe is important in police authorities.
  While the Police Federation warmly welcomes the fact that chief constables, together with their authorities, will have to determine spending priorities on equipment, personnel and so on, it is concerned about the setting of national objectives. There is a feeling that those objectives may give the Home Office too much control over police forces and chief officers.
  Could there be a conflict between the evident desire of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to

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  decentralise decisions on the manpower and equipment needed in a particular police force, and perpetuating Home Office control through the setting of national targets and the appointment of police authority chairmen and members? We shall need to examine that when we debate the Bill.
  I shall deal briefly with student unions. I am a member of court of Brunel university. I consulted the student union last week, and it gave me a number of reasons why it believes that the Bill's provisions are heavy-handed and in some cases unnecessary. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will give us a clear explanation of the purposes—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. I call Mrs. Anne Campbell.
  7.31 pm
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) did not have time to finish what he was saying about student unions, because I dare say there is a great deal on which we would agree.
  I have received hundreds of letters from students about the Government proposals to reform student unions. Although we have heard a great deal in the debate about the right to silence, my constituents are concerned about the right to make as much noise as possible. I have received letters not only from students, but from heads of colleges, university authorities, eminent academics and members of the local business community. To a person, they have condemned the Government's proposed reforms.
  The Government seem to have concocted proposals for student union reform which range from the malign to the ridiculous. They are malign in intent and in their effect, and many of the so-called reforms appear to be designed to prevent student unions from functioning effectively and, more particularly, to deprive students of an effective voice in the community.
  Furthermore, the Government's proposals are ridiculous in their distinction between core services, which would be eligible for public funds, and non-core services, which would not. As the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has rightly said in its formal submission to the Department of Education:
  "The list of core services omits an astonishing range of positive and legitimate functions undertaken by student unions."
  The Department for Education's consultation note on student union reform says that it is the Secretary of State's view that publicly funded student union activities
  "should be limited to the core areas of welfare and advisory services, catering, sport, and student representation in institutional affairs."
  Sports clubs and societies are given the blessing of the Government, but all other student clubs and societies are excluded.
  Are we seriously to believe that academic, music, drama and debating societies are less deserving of public support than sports clubs? The Government are in serious danger of undermining an important part of the educational experience of being a student. I can put it no better than in the words of the principal of Newnham college, Dr. Onora O'Neill. In her letter to the Secretary of State for Education, Dr. O'Neill states:
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  "Students learn not only in the lecture hall, the laboratory and the library, but from a range of more active experiences in which they develop both confidence and the organisational and entrepreneurial skills which are vital both for their careers and for their future employers. If in the future, student unions were not able to support any clubs except sporting clubs, a wide range of club activities that contribute greatly to the quality of education would be undercut. In this College we have nearly five hundred women students who will be going on to professional, business and academic careers of great variety for whom club activities provide important opportunities for training and support as they move into the fields which, in some cases, are still not very easily accessible to women. Among the clubs and societies whose financial basis would be swept away by the proposed changes are the Law Society, the Engineering Society, the Medics and Vets Society, the History Society, the Geography Society and the Environment Group. We also have a large number of students clubs which are less disciplinary in their orientation, but contribute in many ways to the confidence and skills of our students. They include the Music Society and the Drama Society. Sport alone will not provide the range of extra-curricular activities that we would all wish students to undertake."
  I am sure that the Secretary of State agrees that we would wish all students to undertake those activities. Why, then, has he sought to undermine them—or are we to assume that the proposals are half-baked in spite of the extended period of so-called consultation that preceded them?
  Another glaring omission from the list of core areas is student community action. Surely we would wish to encourage students to contribute to the wider community through voluntary work and fund raising for charities. One of the letters that I received is from an organisation in my constituency called Bridget's, which provides care and accommodation for disabled students at Cambridge and Anglia polytechnic universities. Bridget's is alarmed at the threat to rag activities, which contribute significantly to its funds as a charitable institution.
  Another organisation, Emmaus UK, which provides accommodation and work for the long-term homeless and unemployed, is similarly alarmed. I have received a letter from its founder, Mr. Selwyn Image, who is a well respected local business man. He has asked me to do what I can to preserve the fund-raising activities of student unions.
  The Government are right to identify welfare services as central to the work of student unions, but even here there are important omissions. There is no mention in the consultation note of welfare services for students from ethnic minorities or for homosexual students, both of whom continue to face prejudice and need particular support. We might regard the omission as careless, as another half-baked section of this half-baked document.
  I hope that that is the explanation, because the alternative explanation is prejudice or worse, and there is some evidence for that. The briefing produced by Conservative central office for Conservative Members when the Secretary of State made his statement earlier this year cites the mere passing of a resolution in support of lesbian and gay rights by University college London student union as an "abuse" of public funds.
  Many proposals in the forthcoming Bill will be seen as political oppression. The Government's proposal to restrict the ability of student unions to engage in any activity that might be deemed political raises serious questions in a democratic society. Many student unions are already charities and are subject to the law of charity, which clearly precludes political campaigning. However, charity law does not preclude the promotion and encouragement of political ideas, as is clearly established in case law.

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  In seeking to place greater restrictions on student unions than already exist under charity law, the Government threaten the basic rights of freedom of association and freedom of speech that are enshired in articles 10, 11 and 14 of the European convention on human rights. I hope that that will be taken on board. It is foolish effectively to deny students the ability to represent their interests in the wider community. As the National Union of Students has cogently argued, many decisions that directly affect the education and welfare of students are made outside the institution's structures.
  No Government who had confidence in their policies and the strength to take criticism would ever dream of putting forward such a small-minded and vindictive set of proposals. I can do no better than end with the words of Dr. Peter Mathias, master of Downing college, writing to the Secretary of State as chairman of the Colleges Committee, the forum of heads of houses in Cambridge. He said:
  "All colleges in Cambridge have examined the proposals in great detail and every college finds itself in opposition and every Head of House personally. I have seldom known such unanimity in the Colleges Committee. We are speaking primarily for our college JCRs"—
  the colloquial term for student unions in Cambridge—
  "As far as collective memory knows, there have never been any significant problems about the misuse of public funds by these bodies. Yet the proposed legislation will impose elaborate bureaucratic and accounting procedures, where we consider existing legislation governing charities, and external checks with the college concerned, fully adequate to assure accountability. By virtue of the proposed division between 'core' and 'non-core' activities, JCRs will be inhibited in fulfilling normal college functions which are the essence of collegiate life—i.e. supporting through their normal budgets such activities as college academic societies, music, drama and other activities which fall outside the current definition of 'core' activities.
  We are asking that the proposed legislation, in its current form, be withdrawn as counterproductive, with consequences which will be much worse than the alleged problems which the proposals are supposed to cure."
  I echo that plea.
  7.41 pm
  Mr. David Congdon: Over the past 14 years, the Government have massively increased resources on law and order and expanded the police service. Quite rightly, they have repeatedly strengthened the law and extended the range of sentences available so that there are longer sentences for sexual offences and violent crime and maximum life sentences for attempted rape. However, despite all those measures, crime has inexorably risen, from 500,000 recorded offences in 1950 to 1·6 million in 1970, 2·5 million in 1980, 4·4 million in 1990 and 5·6 million in 1992. That has led to increasing public concern about the growth in crime.
  Whereas, 10 years ago, few people had personal experience of crime, now most people have either experienced it directly or know people who have. People fear leaving their homes at night because they might come back to find them burgled and they fear leaving their cars parked in empty places at night because they might be vandalised or stolen. That is a serious issue and, rightly, the Government are tackling it in a positive way with the measures outlined in the Queen's Speech.
  I want to examine some of the reasons why the public have lost confidence in the system of criminal justice. The system has shown itself unable to cope properly, in particular with persistent young offenders. There is a widespread perception that young offenders can cock a
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  snook at the law and walk free from the courts. We know that the clear-up rate on crime is poor, particularly in relation to burglary. We also know that the courts, in dealing with crime across a broad range of offences, often seem unable or unwilling to give tough enough sentences and certainly not the sentences that most reasonable and sensible people would like to be given. We have seen a regrettable growth in violent crime, which greatly concerns people.
  I probably shall not have time to develop the argument that the problems of law and order go very deep and reflect a much deeper malaise in our society and western society in general. The criminal justice system is in need of radical reform. Therefore, I welcome the measures that the Secretary of State has announced. I welcome the move to reduce the number of cautions used. There is no doubt that cautioning has been used far too often and in inappropriate cases. I also welcome the attempt to reduce the amount of paperwork that the police have to do.
  It is ironic that, at a time of rising crime, apart from the increase this year, the prison population had been dropping. There was also a drop in the number of cases being brought to court. I should have thought that that was unacceptable. Earlier, we heard the Opposition's argument that prison should not be the centrepiece of measures to deal with crime. Perhaps it should not, but it should be an important part of measures to deal with crime.
  My contention is that the liberal approach to crime has failed the country dramatically. There are too many criminals who have no fear of being caught. They know that the chances of being caught are slight. They know that if they get caught the chances are that the police will caution them, or refer the case to the CPS which will not follow it through. They know that if, by mischance, they end up in court, they will probably get off with a non-custodial sentence.
  All that has had a serious effect on reducing the deterrence of the law in dealing with crime. I regret to say that the liberal approach to crime reached its height—if that is the right word to use—with the Criminal Justice Act 1991. I am pleased that some of the measures on sentencing in that Act are to be revised.
  Reformers argue that prison does not work. They quote various reconviction rates, one of their favourite figures coming from a Home Office study in 1986 which showed that 63 per cent. of young male offenders released from prison were reconvicted within two years. However, they do not go on to say that a further study in the July Home Office statistical bulletin, which analysed 11,000 criminals given probation or community service sentences, showed that 65 per cent. of those people had a further conviction within two years. Therefore, it could be argued that no method of punishment is effective. That might well be the case, but we should not forget that, if somebody is in prison, while he is there, he cannot commit any more crime.
  Too many of the reformers of the legal system are more interested in the criminal than in the victim and it is the victim of whom we should be thinking. I urge my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to resist the pressures that he will undoubtedly be under from the do-gooders both inside and outside the Home Office and to get on with the reforms outlined in the Queen's Speech.
  In relation to law and order, people are probably most concerned about the young offenders. Far too much crime is committed by young offenders. We know that they play

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  a large part in burglary, much of it opportunistic. The public may not be so aware of the fact that, in the past 10 years, the number of custodial sentences for young people has dropped by 65 per cent.—from 63,000 to 17,000—as a direct result of the liberal approach to law and order. Has it led to a better society, to less crime among young people? Most people would doubt that. There is a great danger that the police have partially given up with young offenders because they know that if they follow the case through, the chances are that the young person will not get a severe sentence.
  I welcome the measures to provide secure training orders aimed at 12 to 15-year-olds, but I wonder whether they will go far enough. As I understand it, they will apply only to those who have been convicted of three imprisonable offences. Perhaps we should consider intervening much earlier. If we can intervene early, we can sometimes stop those young offenders reoffending.
  Some researchers argue that age is a great leveller in terms of crime and that the only cure for some young offenders is, frankly, that as they get older they commit far less crime. I would not suggest that we send young people inside for a large number of years—that would be totally inappropriate—but it is important to provide an effective criminal justice system. I do not believe that we have one at the moment and the Home Secretary is quite right to bring forward these measures.
  There is a danger that the measures will not be effective, because deeper social issues are involved, and I hope that all parties will join together in looking at those deeper and serious social issues. We all have a responsibility to play our part in trying to reduce the levels of crime in society —not just burglary and vandalism, but some of the mindless violence that is endemic. Some people argue that part of such violence is influenced by what people see on television and video—that is another area that we need to tackle.
  All those factors have an influence and I urge my right hon. and learned Friend to look at some of the wider and deeper issues so that we can tackle the problem on a broad basis.
  7.51 pm
  Mr. Neil Gerrard: The Minister's speech and much of the debate have focused on questions of crime prevention, bringing down levels of crime, stopping reoffending and protecting the victims. As an agenda, there is a great deal that everyone would agree with, but the issue is not whether it is the right agenda but whether the Government's proposals will actually bring down the levels of crime and whether the criminal justice Bill will make a real difference. I suspect that we will have a Bill that is a mixture of non-contentious, relatively minor changes and window dressing; set alongside that will be the cheap populism of the Home Secretary's speech, which promises far more than the Bill will deliver.
  One of the 27 points that the Home Secretary announced, with which I agree, was support to victims of crime and the recommendations of the Royal Commission. I was disappointed that the Home Secretary did not mention that in his speech.
  The issue of information by the Crown Prosecution Service, support to victims or witnesses and the way in
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  which people are treated in court all come under the criminal justice system. The Royal Commission made a number of recommendations about that. It recommended that victims should be kept informed of the progress and outcome of cases, including decisions about whether or not to prosecute; that the CPS should take steps to ascertain victims' views before decisions were taken; and that information should be given, if not through the CPS, through the police. When cases come to trial, everything should be done to ensure that facilities for witnesses and victims are adequate and that they are kept completely separate from people on trial. There should be witness support schemes in Crown courts.
  Another simple point is that, at the conclusion of cases involving sexual offences, victims' statements should be returned to the instructing solicitors. The royal commission found evidence—and evidence has been quoted in other places—of victims' statements being handed around in prison afterwards.
  Outside the criminal justice system, victim support schemes exist in many places, do good work and are widely used by the police. We have not heard from the Minister whether he intends to give those schemes the resources that they need. Another £200,000 is needed this year to enable them to continue and, if we are to implement some of the recommendations of the Royal Commission, at least another £2 million or £3 million will be needed next year.
  The gaps that exist in procedures for dealing with the families of murder victims have been brought home to me by what happened to a family in my constituency. I have talked to those people, who feel completely abandoned by the criminal justice system. They were unable to get information about why bail was granted to one of the accused. They could not find out what had happened and, when I asked, I was refused the information by the Recorder of London.
  There is a problem for the families of victims in cases like that. They are not direct victims of the crime or material witnesses—they are not directly involved—but certainly in the case of relatives of homicide victims there are great gaps in the support given to them. There are supposed to be "victims of crime" leaflets and the victims charter, but they are not always issued by the police and are often of not much use in such cases. Also, families in that position may feel that the police are not the people who should provide such support. There is a need for organised and easily available bereavement counselling for families who are affected by homicide.
  I hope that the Home Office will look at some of those issues and will follow through what the Home Secretary said when he accepted the recommendations of the royal commission. I hope that he will act on those recommendations and find the necessary resources.
  If a map was drawn of areas of deprivation in London, and a map was drawn of where crime is committed in London, they would fit nicely together. The conditions that are the breeding ground for crime are the conditions in which the victims of crime have to live. There are streets and council estates in London where drug dealing openly goes on. What are teenagers supposed to think? They are unemployed; they have no prospect of work, no money and no youth services any more, and their parents are struggling to survive.
  In the midst of all that, who do they see as the only people with money? The drug dealers and the burglars are

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  the only people who are examples of success. Is it surprising, in such circumstances, that some people are tempted and drawn into dealing in drugs, and then drawn into burglary and street robbery to pay for their drugs habit? I do not condone the individuals who commit that sort of crime, but we should not be surprised when it happens. When it does happen, the victims in the main are people who are already deprived.
  The Government's answer seems to be that we put more people in prison. We heard that view expressed by the hon. Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon). Secure places have not been provided for young offenders and some of the secure accommodation which now exists is in danger of being shut down. We are told that, for people who are slightly older, the answer is to put them in prison.
  Recently I read a report in a local newspaper of a speech by a magistrates clerk to a Magistrates Association conference. He said:
  "There is no surer way of manufacturing criminals than by sending boys in their teens to prison."
  He went on to say:
  "It used to be said that a magistrate's job was to send people to prison, but they were changing that. In these days it was becoming more and more apparent that their job was to try to effect reform without recourse to prison."
  That was in a newspaper that I found recently among some old effects of my mother's dated 9 July 1937. It seems that some people have learnt very little in the past 60 years about the way in which we should deal with crime.
  However, unless changes in the criminal justice system are matched by support for projects that try to prevent crime—projects organised by the police, local authorities and voluntary agencies—and by action to tackle some of the causes, such as unemployment, poor housing and the poverty that now exists in many parts of our inner cities, the change in the criminal justice system will be ineffective. We shall be back here in a year or two, with another Minister presenting another Bill and another change of direction; in the meantime, crime levels will have risen yet again.
  8 pm
  Mr. Nigel Evans: I am delighted to take part in this important debate. We all agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) said about relevant education. We have seen the introduction of general national vocational qualifications and the placing of a greater bias on vocational education to make education more relevant. That is entirely right, but the fact remains that there is no excuse for criminal behaviour.
  One school of thought holds that we should have more understanding of the criminal mentality and that, if a person does something wrong, it does not matter because society will understand. However—as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) pointed out—so many crimes have now been committed that society has had enough.
  I, too, have had enough. I am sick and tired of opening my newspaper in the morning and seeing headlines such as
  "Sex trap teenagers try to burn a wife to death",
  or "Playground rape", which headed a story about a girl of 11 being pounced on by young schoolmates. Another such headline was
  "PC and drug dealer shot".
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  I am sure that we all remember the incident in which PC Patrick Dunne was shot. A story about a young girl of 15 was headed
  "Knifed seven times as she fed pet horses".
  We have all had enough of reading such stories in the newspapers.
  I was delighted when the Home Secretary announced, at the party conference, 27 measures to tackle the increasing trend of lawlessness. We should realise, however, that that trend is taking place in other countries as well; we should also recognise that 95 per cent. of crime in this country is committed against property. I myself have been a victim: my car was broken into twice in one week this year. I am very pleased that the Government are to take stronger action in regard to law and order.
  I was delighted to hear the announcement about bail bandits, as that is one of the issues that interest me particularly. I recently held three public meetings in my constituency, all of which were well attended. At two of them I was handed petitions containing a total of 4,500 signatures, saying that people wanted to see the action that my right hon. and learned Friend is now taking. They were especially concerned about the granting of bail.
  On Friday night, I talked to a gentleman who works in a bail hostel. He told me that one of the inmates had left the hostel and stolen a car. Having been caught by the police, he was bailed again. Next day he had stolen another vehicle, done a ram raid and crashed it. Someone could have been killed. Only then was that person given a custodial sentence. We need to tackle the problem of criminals who use and abuse the privilege of bail, continuing their career of crime.
  At one of my local meetings, police described the career of one criminal over a 12-month period. He was bailed no fewer than eight times and during those 12 months—often when he was on bail—he committed 215 crimes. Such activity must be stopped.
  One message came over loud and clear from my town hall meetings. Those who attended backed the Home Secretary's aim to build more prisons and want persistent offenders to be imprisoned. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East said, at least when such people are in prison we know that they are not out on the streets committing crimes. At present, unfortunately, too much crime is being committed by young offenders. Some are only 12 or even younger, but those aged between 12 and 14 will now be treated properly: they can be sent to detention centres. Not only will they be kept off the streets, which is important; they will be given the discipline that was lacking at home and the education that did not interest them at school.
  I am disturbed by stories of young criminals who, when they are finally detected and taken to court, are given holidays abroad. One newspaper described a teenager who turned to crime and who—to his mother's horror—was "sentenced" to a holiday abroad. She said:
  "It's scandalous. He was doing really well until he got it into his head that he would get motorbikes, skiing trips and foreign holidays if he was bad. He broke into a pub cellar and took alcohol. He also did £2,000 damage at a children's centre. He sees what others in care are getting and he wants the same."
  An idea is going around that such people can be sent on holiday abroad and that they will come back converted to the straight and narrow.
  The same page of that newspaper told us:
  "A teenage car thief who had an 11-week holiday in Portugal is on the run from council care."

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  The holiday has cost £20,000. Such activity is an affront to the victims of crime, who want criminals to be put into detention centres or given custodial sentences. They have little truck with the slogan "Commit a crime and win a holiday", or the slogan "Commit a crime and get motoring lessons". That is the last development that we want.
  We could all do much more to help reduce crime. I cannot speak too highly of my own Lancashire constabulary, who are working partnership with industry and schools to great effect. They are also operating a car watch scheme, which is being partly sponsored by Bradford and Bingley building society. More than 120,000 Lancashire car owners are taking part in the scheme: they display a luminous sticker and may well be stopped by police between midnight and 5 am. The arrangement is working extremely well.
  We want more people to be involved in the special police force, which is being increased to 30,000. The last thing that we want is for people to become self-styled vigilantes, going around the country to track down crime on their own. They have the opportunity to adopt a role in the special force and to become involved in neighbourhood watch schemes. We now have 115,000 such schemes, covering 5 million homes. They are extremely successful and allow residents to take part in the detection of the crimes described earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East.
  As one who represents a rural constituency, I was delighted when my right hon. and learned Friend made his announcement about parish constables. That will enable people in rural areas to help the police to detect the crime that has, unfortunately, been increasing in such areas because of improved infrastructure. It is possible to enter constituencies such as mine from one of the major cities in the north-west, after a 45-minute drive, and to perpetrate a crime; the stolen goods could be offered in a car-boot sale back in the city in a very short time. We need to support the police and we are doing so, in particular, with the announcement of the extended batons.
  I am fed up with the rhetoric of Opposition Members. They talk about law and order as though they care. The Labour party manifesto at the general election devoted 155 words to law and order. That is how much they care about cracking down on crime. In debates on the measures that we have passed to crack down on crime, all that we have heard from Opposition Members has been rhetoric and how much they feel for the victims and they have voted time and again against the sort of measures that we need to introduce. I should be interested to see whether Labour Members and especially the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) follow us into the Lobbies when the Home Secretary's proposals are introduced because I suspect that the hon. Member for Sedgefield will think again of all sorts of reasons why he was unable to support the new legislation that we need.
  8.10 pm
  Mr. John Gunnell: One basic principle of government over the past fourteen and a half years has been the process of centralisation. The Government have consistently put democratically accountable bodies and independent services under Westminster control, either by inserting their own placemen or through
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  more drastic restructuring. It is not surprising that there is more of the same in the 1993–94 programme. The programme is not "back to basics", but more of the same.
  I shall briefly consider one quango that would be created under the proposed legislation and one body that is to be quangoised and I shall ask why a third is missing from the plans.
  Having spent the largest slice of my professional life in the training of graduate science teachers, I shall raise two serious concerns about the new quango—the teacher training agency. Can it maintain a proper balance between classroom experience and the knowledge and understanding of educational issues—essential to becoming an effective teacher—in the initial training of teachers? Some have suggested that the teacher training agency is primarily a mechanism, through emphasis on school-based enterprise, to provide additional funding for grant-maintained schools.
  Emphasis on school practice is important. Anyone who has been in the teacher training business—I was at the university of Leeds for many years—knows that over recent years there has been a consistent increase in the amount of work in schools and an increase in the breadth of experience as a result of students working in different sorts of educational institutions. Partnerships have developed between schools and universities and between schools and colleges, and those partnerships have proved fruitful in developing teacher training. However, a wholly school-based consortium may tip the balance too far and it would need a partner in higher education to maintain balanced training.
  Of still greater concern is the control of research. The concept of giving research funding to the teacher training agency is quite disturbing. Research funding given to the agency must deal with issues relevant to initial teacher training. How wide is that remit? Will there be research into the psychology of learning, the motivation of teachers, the supply of teachers and the choices of sixth form students? Those topics are not directly related to initial teacher training and are not its focus, but they impact on it. One has to be careful when one has a research funding body, because inevitably it is liable to impinge on academic freedom. There is great danger in setting up an agency that funds research and is able to specify what areas of research it feels are desirable. One may well get Government-directed research that will conclude what the Government desire.
  Having led a council and having been a member of its police authority, I am appalled by the changes proposed for police authorities. I noted the comments made by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), the adviser to the Police Federation, who raised the issue of police authorities and correctly stated that chief constables were unhappy about the proposals and about changing the process of democratic accountability. There are a number of examples of events in West Yorkshire that were more easily dealt with as a result of elected members of the police authority having credibility with the public.
  Those responsible for drafting the proposed legislation should carefully consider the aftermath of the Yorkshire ripper case. I had not long been in the job of leader of the authority when the case came to its conclusion and Peter Sutcliffe was sentenced. The Home Office must consider the analysis of the failings of the detection work, as it was eventually chance that led to his identification. As an

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  authority member, I had access to reports which are available to the Home Office but are still not generally available.
  New technology was implemented as a result of the analysis of those failings, and changes were made at the top. We were able to talk sensibly with the then Home Secretary, Lord Whitelaw. It was a proper co-operation between central and local government. Because of the public focus on the issue, having a democratically accountable authority was extremely important. West Yorkshire introduced community policing well before it was the norm or was encouraged by the Government.
  The Home Office should also consider the policing of the miners' strike and compare events in West Yorkshire with those to the south of us and in the east midlands. People should consider why, in West Yorkshire, there was little violence and few of the problems that hit the national headlines. Sir Cohn Sampson was a superb chief constable of West Yorkshire at that time and every week he met democratically elected members of the police authority. Those meetings were also attended by Jack Taylor, then president of the Yorkshire branch of the National Union of Mineworkers, and representatives of the British Coal Board. We talked through likely problems and how to deal with them.
  We had a police authority that was credible in the eyes of police and credible in the eyes of the public, because it was operated by democratically elected members. Ken Davison, the Tory spokesperson on police—and a business man and therefore "acceptable"—disapproved of magistrates being on police authorities and said that those authorities were unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable and and affront to democracy. How much more would that be true of Government appointees? It will be extremely difficult to facilitate effective policing with the consent of the community if an authority is set up along the lines suggested.
  Lastly, why is it that the part of the royal commission report that deals with miscarriages of justice is not being dealt with? That would be a devolution of Government decision-making and would be most desirable. People should study recommendations 331 to 337 in the report, together with recommendations 316 and 317.
  I have spent a great deal of time during the past year and a half dealing with the problems of a constituent, Alan Dodson, who maintains his innocence—and who has been maintaining his innocence for the seven years he has been in prison. Because of that, he does not qualify for parole. I recognise the seriousness of the problem and I believe that recommendation 317 should be followed.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.
  8.20 pm
  Mr. Gyles Brandreth: I want to begin my brief contribution with a revelation. When my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer first arrived at the Treasury, I had the temerity to offer him some advice on his first Budget. I said, "Chancellor, on 30 November why do you not simply get up and say that the recovery is coming along, we have had some encouraging figures recently, we had a very full Budget earlier in the year, steady as she goes, thank you very much—and sit down." The House will have to wait just seven days to discover whether he has taken my advice.
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  Sadly, I do not have comparable access to Her Majesty, although my advice to her on the Queen's Speech would have been similar. We have a great deal of legislation; perhaps we have too much. Certainly, we need to think carefully before we introduce more. A century ago, we would have had a much slimmer Queen's Speech and passed much less legislation. Were we noticeably less well governed then?
  This year, we have a substantial Queen's Speech, and rightly so. However, if next year's Queen's Speech is slimmer, I hope that we will not feel obliged to apologise for that. I am a believer in the old Tory adage that if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. In government, as well as in other fields of endeavour, there are times when less means more.
  This Queen's Speech is very full. It is precisely because nowhere does it propose change for change's sake that I welcome it. Every aspect of it goes with the grain of the aspirations of my constituents—
  Mr. Peter Kilfoyle: How does the hon. Gentleman know that?
  Mr. Brandreth: I talk to my constituents regularly. I have my finger on the pulse of my constituency. That is why I am here now and will be for generations to come.
  It is self-evident that we need to sort out the muddle on Sunday trading. It is clear that our education reforms must include improving the quality of teacher training and a much greater emphasis on teacher training in the classroom. We all know that businesses, large and small —but especially small—are crying out for deregulation. As well as repealing unnecessary regulations, we need to tame unnecessarily officious regulators.
  Central to today's debate and to the Queen's Speech is the concern with law and order. That is rightly so, because that is central to the concerns of my constituents and, indeed, the constituents of all hon. Members. Judging from my postbag, from meetings and from casual conversations, our constituents are more concerned about the growth in crime and the growth in the fear of crime than they are about anything else.
  The proposed criminal justice Bill will do much to correct the balance between victim and defendant. It will end the so-called right to silence. It will allow courts to send persistent offenders between the ages of 12 and 14 to secure centres. It will give the police additional powers to tackle the so-called bail bandits—those who persistently re-offend while on bail and who are responsible for 50,000 crimes a year. In particular, I welcome the proposed measure to take DNA samples from anyone detained or convicted in connection with a recordable offence. That will safeguard the innocent, while helping to secure the conviction of the guilty.
  All that makes sense. Indeed, much of it is common sense. However, it is also common sense to recognise that those measures alone will not solve all the problems overnight. They represent an important move in the right direction; they sensibly attack specific problems in specific ways; and they are focused and necessary. They may riot stem the rising tide of crime at a stroke, but they will tackle real problems realistically. An essential part of a policy that puts the victim before the criminal is that even the most tolerant society cannot tolerate crime and must be intolerant of the persistent criminal.

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  Notwithstanding the views of the Labour party, there is no simplistic diagnosis of the cancer of crime in our society —would that there were. Yet there are still Labour Members who claim that it is somehow due to unemployment and deprivation. That is insulting to those from areas of far greater deprivation and unemployment than our own, yet who never turn to crime. It is facile when we consider that much of the growth in crime has coincided with the growth in prosperity. In my constituency, unemployment today is 27 per cent. lower than it was five years ago, yet recorded crime is almost 27 per cent. higher.
  Just as there is no easy diagnosis of the problem, so there is no quick-fix remedy. As well as the sensible proposals that will feature in the criminal justice Bill and the other measures announced during recent weeks by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, we need to speed up the process of justice. Many offenders are what is known as present dwellers; the connection between the offence and the punishment, which may come many months later, is too remote. We need to do everything we can to accelerate the operation of the criminal justice system.
  We also need to do everything that we can in crime prevention. As a society, we cannot have it both ways. We cannot deplore, as people rightly do, anti-social behaviour among the young, hooliganism, vandalism, theft, under-age drinking and drug abuse, while denying those same young people the opportunities, leadership, sense of direction and sense of discipline that they need to help them to grow in the way in which we want them to grow.
  No one becomes a criminal by chance; he becomes a criminal by choice. All of us at home, at school, in the media, through the Churches and with the police can influence that choice. Many positive things can be done and I shall give hon. Members just a taste of what is being achieved in my part of the world.
  This summer, on a particularly difficult estate, the Cheshire constabulary introduced a community leaders award course. It trained young members of the community to organise voluntary sports activities for the youth of their own community. The effect was a fall of 22 per cent. in recorded crime on the estate compared with the level in the summer of 1992. Even more important, there has been a sustained reduction in the amount of crime on the estate since then. That is not some do-gooder's daydream; it is cheap and effective and is happening now.
  That is what the Central Council of Physical Recreation's community sports leaders award scheme is all about. It is a reminder that we do not need to throw up our hands in despair.
  My constituents regularly say to me, "Something must be done." Something is being done. Sadly, we do not know what the Opposition would do because they will not tell us. They had the opportunity to do so today, but they did not take it. The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) was long on adumbration—
  Mr. Patten: What a word.
  Mr. Brandreth: Indeed. The word was well chosen by the hon. Member for Sedgefield, who may be aware that the first definition of "adumbration" in the "Oxford English Dictionary" is "to indicate faintly". He chose his
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  words precisely. He was woefully short on detail and offered only faint-hearted waffle—unspecific, uncosted and consequently unconvincing.
  Mr. Gunnell: Rubbish.
  Mr. Brandreth: The hon. Gentleman has a fine way with words. "Rubbish" is how he sums up his hon. Friend's contribution.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, by contrast—[Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I merely intervened to say that sedentary interruptions can lead to confusion.
  Mr. Brandreth: The one thing about which there can be no confusion is that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is anything but faint-hearted. He knows what needs to be done. He knows that he is the man to do it and that he will have the support of the country as well as Conservative Members in all his endeavours.
  8.30 pm
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I declare a potential financial interest in that I am currently discussing matters with a group of police officers and acting as their adviser. Although there has been no finalisation of an agreement yet, I feel that I ought to declare that.
  I shall also take this opportunity to congratulate the Warwickshire constabulary on the effectiveness of its Operation Claw. It has begun an operation to deal with burglary in particular and with other types of crime that are escalating in our county. On the first day it arrested 71 people. A number of those people have been charged, and that operation will carry on throughout the year. I very much hope that it will be successful in reducing the escalating crime problem in our area.
  It is my belief that, if every one of the Home Secretary's 27 proposals to the Conservative party conference was implemented tomorrow, they would barely dent the increase in crime over which the Conservative party has presided since it come to office in 1979.
  In Warwickshire, the annual crime statistics have shown that crime has tripled in our county since the Government came to office. The figures for burglary and car theft have in fact quadrupled since they came to office. It is true that there are considerable crime problems in the inner cities. It is also fair to say that, historically, crime in some of the rural areas has been at a lower level than in some of the inner cities. But crime is now rising in rural areas such as mine at a far greater rate than it is in the inner cities. That must be addressed. I feel that it has not yet been addressed seriously by the Government. I do not believe that we will see any significant and serious fall in crime—certainly not down to 1979 levels—until the long-term causes of crime increase are addressed.
  The all-party Home Affairs Select Committee considered the causes of crime in its report on juvenile crime this year. It concluded that there is an unquestionable link between unemployment, hopelessness and crime; indeed there is. There is also a link with deprivation and homelessness., I shall return to that issue in a moment. If we are to address crime seriously, we must address it as a whole. Unless we do that, the crime statistics will continue their inexorable rise.
  It is right to say that there is no excuse for crime. Unemployment is not an excuse for committing a crime,

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  nor is deprivation or homelessness. It should not be said that they are excuses. They are causes. When that has been recognised, the Government must examine both ends of the line. They must look at the short term. They must look at punishment and enforcement and ensure that we have sufficient police officers on the beat to enforce the law. That means looking now at the short term—the criminal —and ensuring that we reduce the number of offences that are now being committed.
  We must examine also the other end of the line. We must examine the reasons why those crime statistics are rising in the first place, and the causes of that offending. At the moment, the Government are interested only in looking at one side of the problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has described, the Government have a one-club policy. They do not look at the issue in the round or as a whole. We must not deal only with crime that is being committed now. We must look to a long-term reduction in the number of people committing crime.
  The Labour party wants to look at both ends of the line. We want to be tough on crime and on the causes of crime. The Government's failure to recognise what that means shows that they will not succeed in reducing crime, even to the level at which they inherited it in 1979.
  People are looking not only for punishment but for effective justice and long-term delivery of policies to reduce crime. That is why the Government are losing the argument on law and order. Because of their record, they are seen to be ineffective and short-term. They are going back over policies that failed during the past 14 years. If the Government are ever to succeed, why could they not have implemented those policies before? Why have they failed to deal with crime over the past 14 years?
  The Government say that they are supporting the police. We have heard many promises of support for the police over many years. Where is the beef? Where are the policies? Police morale is now at the lowest level ever. Alan Eastwood, the former president of the Police Federation, said at its last conference that police morale was plummeting. That morale was dealt an even more serious blow by the Sheehy report.
  Although the Government backed off from confrontation on some of its proposals, the Police Federation well knows that many of the proposals were shelved. Some of them have been put back to the police negotiations board for discussion over the next year. No doubt some of them will be resurrected at various stages while the Government remain in office.
  The police, and the Police Federation in particular, have always regarded as far more dangerous to their morale, not the Sheehy report and its consequences, but the White Paper. They regard it as far more dangerous and insidious than they ever did the Sheehy report. They have rightly taken the view that the proposals in the White Paper could result in a sharp reduction in the number of police officers on the beat.
  The general secretary of the Police Federation spoke to the all-party police group in the House only a few weeks ago. He argued that the Home Secretary's demand that the core role of the police is identified in the White Paper. The policy of having a fixed budget imposed on a chief constable with a lot of discretion as to how that budget is spent will involve a political appointee—the chairman of the police authority—standing over the chief constable throughout the period of his fixed-term contract to ensure that the policies of the Home Office are carried out.
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  That chief constable will be under increased financial pressure to reduce expenditure. The core role of the police officer is being identified and the concern, particularly of the Police Federation, is that when those core roles are identified, the non-core roles will be ripe for some kind of privatisation. That is why the general secretary of the Police Federation told the all-party police group that, by the end of the decade, he envisages that, if the proposals in the White Paper are implemented, the number of police constables will be reduced from 128,000 today to about 80,000 by the end of the decade.
  The Government propose the political appointment of a chairman in every police authority. The Russian communist party had a way of ensuring that it kept control of its police. It appointed not a chief constable but a commissar who worked with the chief constable. We now have a Conservative Government appointing a Conservative commissar in every police authority in Britain in order to ensure that the cuts in police force expenditure desired by the Government will be carried out. That will result not in any reduction in crime but in a reduction in the number of police officers employed, a reduction in the number of police officers on the beat and an increase in crime in Britain.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but the time is up.
  8.40 pm
  Mr. Patrick Nicholls: The proposals put before the Conservative party conference by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary mark a sea change in attitudes which it would be difficult to over-estimate. That is particularly clear with regard to penal policy. For far too long there has been an unholy, unwritten alliance, one might almost say a liberal agenda, between the Home Office and the Treasury. The Treasury does not like the idea of building prisons because it costs money and the ruling ethos of the Home Office was that it was not the done thing to want to lock people up anyway. For far too long Conservative Home Secretaries were able to take the rhetoric to the Conservative party conference, but when they tried to put that rhetoric into action the answer was, "Oh no, Minister, that couldn't possibly work."
  There are many examples of that, but I shall name just one which illustrates not only the point but the difference between the parties on the point. The proposition that it should be possible to challenge in a higher court an over-lenient sentence makes self-evident common sense. Opposition Members now call for that in particular cases. But when the matter was first raised in the Home Office it was smartly squashed and it took considerable time for that policy to come through. It is a tribute to Home Secretaries since 1979 that, faced with such insidious insider opposition, they were able to do as much as they did.
  It is all too easy for a liberal agenda to deride prison, saying that it does not cure or reform anyone and costs a great deal of money. It is obvious that when dealing with young offenders there must be an emphasis on reform and, on the basis that hope can sometimes triumph over experience, one can hope that the young people will emerge from whatever custodial sentence they have served in a better position not to reoffend than when they went in.
  But in this day and age, if a convicted adult goes to prison he does so because he is a bad person. If such a person manages to reform, if he sees the light, that is fine,

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  but for the time being he goes there as a punishment and to be contained. The public can be sure and certain in the knowledge that while he is contained in prison he is not out on the streets offending again. For far too long such arguments put to us by our constituents were derided. It is a good thing that such beliefs are now informing penal policy.
  The idea that sending a person to prison represents a failure for society is complete bunkum. When an individual commits an offence so serious that he has to be sent to prison, the blame and responsibility lie fairly and squarely with the individual, not with society.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary made it clear when he announced his 27 propositions that they were only the first instalment. He was straightforward about that. It is important to realise that there are more instalments to come. In the short time available to me I shall suggest two particular areas for consideration.
  The first is a natural extension of the abolition of the right of silence. It is remarkable that in this debate we should hear the Opposition deride the principle that the right to silence should be abolished. Any barrister or solicitor such as me, who practised criminal law for the best part of 20 years, knows that that rule was abused time and again. I abused it. I was asked by a defendant to advise him of his rights and, knowing his criminal record and the circumstances in which he had been apprehended, of course I told him to exercise his right to silence.
  That was an abuse being perpetrated on society. It was not my fault; I was doing my duty as a solicitor advising that defendant on the laws of the kingdom. But it would be an abuse of society if, ultimately, the House did not abolish such a law. The abolition of the right to silence is long overdue and I welcome it.
  There is a natural extension of that which I hope Ministers will consider in due course. It is this. How often have banisters or solicitors appearing in a criminal court seen a defendant acquitted by a jury who, before they are released, hear the judge say, "I understand that there are other matters now to come before me," and then find that, having acquitted someone on the one offence before them, that person has a criminal record as long as one's arm? On more occasions than I can now recall I have heard the gasp of disbelief from a jury when they hear the real background and circumstances of the character appearing in the dock before them.
  Traditionally, lawyers told the humble populace that they could not possibly be given information about a criminal's previous convictions because there was no guarantee that the man was guilty on this occasion and they were far too unsophisticated to be able to make the necessary judgment and not jump to conclusions.
  Mr. Patten: It is patronising.
  Mr. Nicholls: Not only, as my right hon. Friend so rightly says, is that patronising, but it is completely out of date. The mere fact that a person may have 20, 30 or 40 previous convictions for dishonesty does not mean that on another occasion he was dishonest as well, but surely that is information that a jury should have. I do not accept that, in this day and age, a British jury, properly directed by a competent judge, could not give that information the weight that it deserves. Except in the most exceptional
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  circumstances, to deny a jury knowledge of previous convictions should be considered in the second instalment of measures.
  My next point concerns minimum sentences. I do not go along with the call for statutory fixed immovable minimum sentences for particular offences. That, for a range of reasons, cannot work. But, and it is an important but, surely it should be the House, comprising elected representatives of the people out there, which establishes the tariff for particular offences.
  In particular circumstances, that tariff will have to be adjusted by the judge in charge of the trial, both increased and decreased, but what is so wrong in this day and age with the public, through speeches made by their Members of Parliament in the House, having a direct say in what a minimum sentence might be? Why should not the House say that, for instance, the tariff for a serious assault should be five years' imprisonment?
  According to the circumstances of a particular case, the sentence might need to be more or less. It would be a good idea to allow the people who send us here to have a direct, but ultimately not all-deciding, say in the tariffs imposed. The judicial bench would benefit from knowing what our constituents think the minimum sentences should be in particular cases.
  All that can be derided on the basis that we should be thinking not about that but about the causes of crime. Of course there are circumstances in which crime will thrive, but the truth about crime is that people are born with free will and some will opt for a wrong, not a right, course of action. However deprived people's social circumstances might be, some will choose a righteous option and others a wicked option. We can talk about the causes of crime until the cows come home, but that proposition will not be affected.
  It is bizarre to hear Opposition Members claim to be tough on crime but at the same time talk as though the circumstances which might be a natural breeding ground for crime automatically justify people turning to crime. Perhaps the most pathetic illustration of that this evening was the speech of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). If one were to ask the hon. Gentleman what he thought about any one of the suggestions that have been made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, the hon. Gentleman would have no idea. Either he could not think about the suggestions, or no one had told him about them. The House was none the wiser.
  I asked the hon. Gentleman straighforwardly and slowly —I have debated with him before—what he thought was an appropriate way to deal with joyriders. He mumbled about some sort of community project, so that the joyriders could channel their energies into other things. That came from an hon. Member, the leader of whose party, when asked how he felt about the legislation of cannabis said that he was relaxed about it. That is certainly no sort of a lead to give. All that can be said about that speech was that it was consistent with every other one which the hon. Gentleman has made during the past 10 years.
  8.53 pm
  Mr. Ray Powell: The hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) was doing well in the Department of Employment, and I am sorry that he is not still there. He seems to have gone astray in his beliefs.

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  On the question of law and order, the biggest lawbreakers during the past 10 years have been Tesco and the other large stores which have abused the Shops Act 1950 blatantly by trading illegally on Sundays. If any Home Secretary since 1986 had had any concern about law and order in this country, the first thing that he or she would have done would have been to ensure that the Act was enforced. Many requests have been made in the House, not only to the Home Secretary but to the Prime Minister and many others, in the hope that the Act would be enforced. When we talk about crime, we must remember that a lot of crime is committed in those shops which are illegally open. Since 1986, the Opposition have advocated, either by private Members' Bills or by pressure on the Government, that something be done to change the Act.
  I had the luck to be drawn in the ballot immediately after the previous general election to introduce a Bill on Sunday trading on behalf of Keep Sunday Special. Unfortunately, the Bill did not have a response from the House on Report on May 14 and it collapsed. Therefore, I welcome today's statement from the Home Secretary. When the subject is debated on Second Reading, I will support the Bill so that we can examine the three options to replace the Act which will now be available to hon. Members.
  It has taken the Government since 1986 to realise that options must be made available to the House. Hon. Members will recall that when the matter was debated previously in 1986, the Government were defeated on a proposal for total deregulation by 14 votes, despite having a majority of over 100. The Government are misguided if they think that hon. Members will have changed their minds since 1986 to the extent that they would agree to total deregulation.
  There are no longer four options, as were included initially in the Bill, but three. That has resulted from negotiations involving Keep Sunday Special, the organisation that I support. That organisation is set up by a trust and it expects hon. Members who support it to go around the country advocating policies on their behalf. That is done without champagne breakfasts or lunches and without entertaining hon. Members at their party conferences. The hon. Members do it because of their conviction that there are millions of people who want to keep Sunday, as far as possible, a special day.
  Those people have given their opinions to hon. Members. That was reflected by the fact that, on a Friday afternoon, 214 hon. Members came to the House to support my Bill on Sunday trading. I am sure that those hon. Members will be in the House again to support the measures suggested by the Keep Sunday Special campaign and RSAR, a group that is associated with the Marks and Spencer group.
  The three options include total deregulation. Although the measure will be decided on a free vote, I am given to understand that the Prime Minister has declared publicly that he is in favour of total deregulation. There can be no doubt that Keep Sunday Special and the RSAR group will succeed with their option, because the Home Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and most of the Cabinet have already declared that they support total deregulation. I assume that, with all that support, the House will vote for the proposal from Keep Sunday Special.
  I am concerned when reading the Bill about the offer from the Government of employment protection. I have
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  read and reread the Bill and it is being examined by a number of people regarding the implementation of the Government's proposals for employment protection. The Government must look again at the proposals. I realise that they have had since 1986 to consider what they could have offered on employment protection. The Opposition have asked continually and constantly for employment protection, and did so even in 1985–86 when the House debated the last attempt to provide total deregulation.
  It is quite a change of heart for the Government now to be talking about protecting employees, when they have done away with wages councils and with the protection offered by trade unions since 1979. However, when it is a Government Bill about changing the laws on Sunday trading, they concede that they must provide some type of employment protection.
  Something should have been done a long time ago about the lawbreakers who are spending millions of pounds to bribe hon. Members to acquiesce to their demands. They are not only bribing hon. Members, but they are blackmailing unions to change their allegiance to the option that they have given to Keep Sunday Special. The lawbreakers are threatening to tear up a properly negotiated agreement for 50,000 trade unionists if those union members were not prepared to acquiesce and agree to support the Shopping Hours Reform Council. That is nothing but blackmail, but, because of the pressure to retain their membership, the trade unions reluctantly conceded.
  The Keep Sunday Special campaign and RSAR have agreed jointly that all shops should be able to open for the four Sundays before Christmas. The Keep Sunday Special campaign agreed reluctantly, but in the hope that the House would acknowledge the concessions that it has made since my Bill was presented. The first concession involved DIY stores being allowed to open, the second concerned garden centres being allowed to open with very little restriction and the third involved the extension of the size of shops in question from 1,500 sq ft to 3,000 sq ft. That is the size of the Chamber and should be sufficiently large for a convenience store. We have offered those concessions in the hope that the House will accept that we are trying to ensure that the demand from the public—if there is a demand—is met in what replaces the 1950 Act.
  We believe that protection for shopworkers should extend not only to England and Wales but to Scotland and that double time should be paid to anyone who is expected to work on a Sunday.
  8.58 pm
  Mr. James Clappison: I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a brief contribution to the debate because it enables me to welcome warmly the priority that the Government have placed on law and order in the Gracious Speech and to welcome the individual proposals that embody that priority. In saying that, I am sure that I endorse and echo the views of my constituents who will also warmly welcome that priority. I look forward to the legislation that will undoubtedly follow and I hope that, when we consider that legislation, we shall do so in a constructive and realistic spirit.
  I have been in this place only a short time, but it seems to me that we sometimes fall into two traps. The first is the use of slogans instead of arguments and the second is the creation of unnecessary and artificial divisions where there

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  should be none. Having listened to the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), I believe that he fell into both traps. He is fond of the slogan, "Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime", but having listened to his analysis of those causes I am less than convinced. The longer he spoke about the causes of crime, the more I believed that he was engaging in a diversionary tactic in order to talk about anything but crime.
  The hon. Gentleman betrayed the unsoundness of his knowledge of the subject when he said that crime began in the 1970s. He would do well to study the history of crime in this century. Crime was at a stable and low level, with only modest increases, until the middle of the 1950s. Since then, sadly, crime has increased unremittingly under Governments of every complexion. It is very hard to make a connection between the long-term increase in crime and social or economic factors such as unemployment, housing or education, all of which have improved considerably since then.
  I also have misgivings about what the hon. Member for Sedgefield said about subcultures creating crime. He is misguided if he is trying to parcel together everyone who lives in inner-city conditions and in the least favoured areas. It needs to be said over and over again that the vast majority of people who live in such circumstances are decent, honest and law-abiding, and that crime is the activity of a minority.
  If there is one statistic that is perhaps under-used in the debate on crime, it is that the vast majority of offences are committed by a very small proportion of offenders. Statistics from a recent Home Office study of offenders of a given age group revealed that 7 per cent. of them were responsible for nearly two thirds of crimes. I conclude that living in an inner city or in less advantaged circumstances does not inevitably mean that one turns to crime, but there is a greater likelihood in those conditions of being a victim of crime. Victims of crime are calling for tough action, and I believe that tough action is embodied in the Government's legislative programme.
  People are not interested in an artificial debate about whether or not prison works. It is an artificial debate and a diversionary tactic which shows little familiarity with the way in which the sentencing system works. The public want measures to aid the police in detecting crime and in ensuring that criminals are then convicted and properly punished.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield wishes the public to take seriously his claim to be tough on crime. He will be judged on the extent to which he constructively supports the Government's proposals, on whether he supports the wider powers that the Government propose to give to the police and whether he supports DNA testing, all of which will help in the detection of crime. He will be judged on whether or not he supports the Government's proposals for dealing with offenders on bail. The Labour party has called for action. Will Labour Members support the measures or put forward their own constructive ideas? They will be judged on that, but they have said little about it today.
  On punishment, I believe that the public will welcome the proposed measures to give the courts greater powers to deal with serious and persistent offenders, particularly young offenders. I warmly welcome the proposal for the secure training order which will improve the existing
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  sentencing powers of the courts. In the case of serious and persistent offenders under 15, the present powers are inadequate to protect the public, being limited to a supervision order with a condition. That is not sufficient for a minority of persistent young offenders.
  I also welcome the proposal to increase the maximum sentence to young offender institutions for 15, 16 and 17-year-olds from 12 months to two years. That is a necessary step and will enable the courts to deal properly and satisfactorily with a number of serious offences, particularly those involving youngsters and motor cars.
  The Opposition will be judged on the extent to which they support the measures. The measures stand on their own merit and together they constitute a package which shows our determination to tackle crime.
  I mentioned that the current approach of the Labour party is limited to a slogan, but even that is more than the Liberal Democrats have produced. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) became agitated earlier in the debate and disputed the suggestion that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) had said that criminal justice was irrelevant.
  I do not know what was in the Liberal Democrat press release, but I heard the right hon. Member for Yeovil responding to the Gracious Speech on Thursday, and he devoted far more time and priority to Bosnia then he did to the criminal justice system. Although the situation in Bosnia is serious and tragic, ordinary people in Britain are more concerned about law and order than they are about Bosnia. The right hon. Member for Yeovil said that he had been travelling up and down the country meeting ordinary people. If he is meeting ordinary people who are more concerned about Bosnia than they are about law and order, he has been meeting some pretty strange ordinary people. He is totally out of touch.
  I hope that the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party will show a little more humility and constructive understanding of the problems of ordinary people. I challenge both Opposition parties on one particular issue. They have had to eat humble pie on the measure to increase the sentencing powers of the courts by giving the prosecution the right of appeal against over-lenient sentences. When it was first proposed, the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) derided it as one of the 64 measures that he said were no good.
  When the measure came before the House, the Labour party huffed and puffed. Although his predecessor opposed it tooth and nail, the hon. Member for Sedgefield has had to eat humble pie on that issue, so perhaps he will show a little humility on the Government's proposal to extend the right of the prosecution to appeal against over-lenient sentences for other serious offences. I hope that he does not have to eat humble pie again.
  The criminal justice system is important. I endorse entirely the views of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). The public are interested in seeing that crime is detected, that criminals are brought to justice and convicted and that the sentences they receive deter them and others from committing further acts of crime. Ordinary people are crying out for tough action. We can use whatever phrases we like, but people are crying out for leadership and for a sign that those who make laws and decide policy are responding to their concerns.
  This package and this priority for law and order respond full measure to that concern. If the hon. Member for

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  Sedgefield engages in a sterile, unproductive and unconstructive debate on the issue, the Labour party will suffer in the long run because Conservative Members are in tune with what ordinary people want. Ordinary people take the issue seriously, and so do we.
  9.9 pm
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: We have had an interesting debate in terms of what has been said inside and outside the House about the Government's policies on education and home affairs.
  I was surprised during this evening's debate by the speech of the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth). I can remember no hon. Member on either side of the House whose contribution has made the Secretary of State for Education appear to have a modest style, but the Secretary of State was outdone by the hon. Member.
  Mr. Patten: Just you wait.
  Mrs. Taylor: The Secretary of State says that I must wait. He may not have heard that the hon. Member for City of Chester was promising to be with us for generations. I am not sure what that says about his education.
  I welcome the fact that we are achieving a debate on education, although I do not welcome the contributions to education contained in the Queen's Speech. It has been appropriate to debate both home affairs and education, and I am glad that some of my hon. Friends have combined both areas of policy, because much interaction takes place, and much can be learned from the Government's mistakes in each area.
  The Government's approach to crime and education shows great failure in their policies. Both issues highlight significant and growing public concern. The interests of individuals and the community should coincide on both issues, although the Government rarely adopt that approach. Hon. Members have shown that the Government's approach is equally inept and incompetent, whether they are trying to fight crime or improve educational standards. Indeed, they are no nearer to tackling the causes of crime than the causes of young people's under-achievement.
  The Government still do not realise that the market cannot solve those problems. Nor has anything that I have heard today suggested that Ministers or Conservative Back Benchers consider spending on education as an investment that could reduce crime in the future. They do not seem to have made the basic link between investment in nursery education, in particular, and levels of crime later.
  Most worrying is the fact that nothing in the Queen's Speech or the Prime Minister's remarks will improve our children's quality of education or standards of achievement. Last week, when the Queen's Speech should have provided positive proposals to improve education, what did Ministers do? They were too busy to do anything constructive about education, and instead were busy publishing league tables on truancy. Yet again, Ministers were showing that they would rather count a problem than try to tackle it. They proved that they could not even count properly.
  Truancy is just one of the many problems to increase in recent years. Ministers sometimes express concern about the problem—quite rightly, because it is a serious issue —but seem to forget that they have been in office for 14
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  years. Whether we are discussing truancy, underachievement or discipline in schools, every child in school in Britain today has received all his or her education under a Conservative Government. The fact that the problems are growing and are so severe and so worrying demonstrates the complete failure of 14 years of Conservative government.
  I want to consider some of the specific proposals in the Queen's Speech. The proposal on student unions is so irrelevant that the Conservative party could not even manage to mention it in its manifesto at the last election. It may have got the Secretary of State for Education a weak round of applause at the Conservative party conference, but it is irrelevant to any real problems that we face in education.
  Student unions are worried that many of their activities —debating, drama and cultural societies, community action, student newspapers and even briefings to hon. Members—could be prohibited, and are definitely under threat from the proposals. Their fears are shared not only by Opposition Members, students and vice-chancellors, but by Conservative Members. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) mentioned, there is widespread agreement among vice-chancellors and students throughout higher education that the proposals will cause difficulties and are irrelevant.
  Several Conservative Members are on record as saying that they are worried about the proposals. The hon. Members for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley), for Wantage (Mr. Jackson), and for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) who was in the Chamber earlier, have all expressed reservations. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) who has experience as a Minister, told the Secretary of State earlier that it was—I think I remember his words correctly—a small and distracting measure, and he warned of the law of unintended consequences. So I think that we can look forward to difficulties on that score if his predictions come true.
  In one of the earlier debates on the Queen's Speech, the hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Sir D. Knox) said:
  "I may suggest for a start that the Bill to reform student unions be dropped. I do not think that it would be any great loss. That Bill would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Given the recent action taken by the National Union of Students, it is now unnecessary in any event."—[Official Report, 18 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 59.]
  Those are the views of Conservative Members. I trust that, if the Bill ever reaches this House—I understand that it is to start in another place—they will put their votes where their words are when it comes to a debate or vote. I only wish that the Government and Ministers had spent as much time concentrating on the real issues of student poverty and underfunding in higher education.
  Mr. Forman: I believe that I am the only Conservative Member to whom the hon. Lady referred who is present in the Chamber. In case she did not have the benefit of listening closely to my speech, I should like to clarify that I made it clear that I am in favour of the voluntary principle. I have said that from the Dispatch Box and from the Back Benches. However, I want to see proposals that are as simple and workable as possible, because some of the long-term measures that our higher education system has to do in the next five or 10 years are vastly more important than this measure, although I support it.
  Mrs. Taylor: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman confirms that the measure is irrelevant and should be kicked into touch, and that Ministers should be concentrating on the real problems in education.
  Far more important than the proposals for reform of student unions are the Government's half-baked, but thoroughly dangerous, proposals on teacher education. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington also referred to those proposals, with reservations.
  An interesting announcement was made by Ministers this afternoon. Perhaps the fact that the Secretary of State did not choose to make that important announcement was even more interesting. The noble Baroness Blatch again stepped in, and determined or announced Government policy. We were told by the noble Baroness that the Department is to issue a new circular about funding courses for classroom assistants. That means, in coded terms, that the Government are dropping the idea of a "mums' army". That is an enormous U-turn, which ought to be welcomed by everyone who has the interests of our children at heart.
  Mr. James Pawsey: I have some difficulty in understanding how one can do a U-turn on what was a consultation document and nothing more. All that my right hon. Friend has done is listen and consult. He is a listening Secretary of State, who has taken on board the representations made to him.
  Mrs. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman always had a sense of humour, and we appreciate his attempts, yet again, to rescue the Secretary of State. Time and again, when Ministers have not wanted to appear on television programmes or debate the issues, whom did they send but the valiant hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth? Time and time again, he tries to rescue them. On this occasion, rescuing the Secretary of State is too much even for the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, not least because no one—but no one—supported the barmy idea in the first place.
  Dr. Lewis Moonie: The Secretary of State did.
  Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend suggested one person who might have supported the idea, but perhaps the less said about that barmy idea and its supporters the better.
  I hope that the Secretary of State will use the debate this evening to confirm that that climb-down is the end—not the postponement—of any such crackpot proposals. I hope that he will learn some lessons from the whole sorry exercise, because it is not just a question of consulting and of being willing to listen: that idea should not have seen the light of day in the first place. I think that the first signs of retreat, which were seen in the summer months when the Secretary of State was away because he was unwell, were made by the noble Baroness. I am glad that she won, but where does it leave the Secretary of State?
  I welcome the reconversion of Ministers to the principle that teaching should be a graduate profession. I hold out some hope that perhaps, if the Bill comes before us, we shall be able to explore another idea that the noble Baroness has said she might be willing to consider—the need for a general teaching council. There are, however, still proposals for change before us, and legislation before us about teacher education.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Pickthall) pointed out that the Queen's Speech mentions the Government making new arrangements for teacher training. I agree with him that it is indicative that they are not using the words "teacher education", but I shall point out another problem with the wording in that section of the Queen's Speech, which shows the priorities of Ministers. The speech says:
  "My Government will introduce legislation to establish new arrangements for funding teacher training in England and Wales".
  There is no mention of improving quality, but only the word "funding". If we were trying to introduce measures to improve quality, we might all be able to make some progress.
  Ministers want more school-based teacher training, and obviously, as several of my hon. Friends, and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, have said, there has to be a balance between elements of higher education and elements of practical experience. However, what worries us especially is the Secretary of State's keenness to talk about a trendy establishment that he seems to think holds such sway in schools throughout the land. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) says, that is drivel, but the Secretary of State continues to repeat those allegations.
  The right hon. Gentleman is clearly wrong. He frequently says that he often goes into schools, although I suspect that he cannot do so as often as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West. If the Secretary of State spends so much time in schools, I do not know where he finds all those trendy 1960s people—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield suggests that the Secretary of State looks like a trendy 1960s person, but, although the right hon. Gentleman would like to have been one, he probably never quite made it.
  Even if the Secretary of State is right, and our schools are staffed by people educated and trained by the "trendy education establishment", what is the Government's solution to that problem? Ministers want to let the teachers they criticise—those supposed incompetents—to teach not only our children but the next generation of teachers as well. If today's teachers are so bad, why put them in charge of tomorrow's teachers? If there were really a problem, that would only reinforce it.
  Last week, I attended a reception at which the Secretary of State spoke. I believe that he surprised everybody there by making the announcement, unusually for him, that change in education could come about only slowly. Coming from a Government who have introduced so many pieces of legislation, and have changed one lot of regulations before the previous lot have been implemented, that was a surprising statement. But the Secretary of State made it, so I do not understand why he is now introducing panic measures.
  A pilot scheme was announced in March, then a White Paper was published on 7 September, to which responses had to be submitted by 1 November. Today we are hearing the details of a Bill to be published tomorrow. Presumably that is the Secretary of State's idea of slow, proper preparation. Ministers have still not learned the basic problems caused by such hasty decisions.
  There is a great deal wrong with what the Government are trying to do. Several of my hon. Friends have pointed out the difficulties of getting the balance right, not only because trainee teachers need experience of higher

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  education, but because of the burdens that would be placed on schools if they tried to take on all the training of our teachers.
  I welcome the Government's retreat on the "mums' army", but Ministers have a long way to go before they can convince any of us that they have learnt from the blunders of the past year. The Government, and especially the Secretary of State, have a bad record of hasty experiments, and of gambling with our children's future.
  One of my main complaints about the Queen's Speech concerns not only what it says but what if fails to say. Some omissions are tragic, because so much needs to be done in education today. Much of that was recently highlighted by the National Commission on Education, whose establishment was welcomed by the Prime Minister.
  Therefore, it is surprising that the Secretary of State for Education was so quick to condemn and describe as "rubbish" the commission's recommendations. The commission said that there was a need to move away from confrontation and towards consensus. There is consensus on many education issues, but unfortunately the Secretary of State isolates himself from all the parents, governors and teachers who know which way we should go.
  I thought that we were beginning to make some progress, because yesterday we seemed to have scored a famous victory by winning over the Prime Minister to one of our most prized policies. The Daily Express headline stated:
  "Nursery place for every three and four-year-old."
  Mr. Kilfoyle: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Secretary of State was raised by hand by the Jesuits, one of whose maxims is, "Give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man." Does my hon. Friend agree that the Jesuits got it right but that their illustrious pupil, the Secretary of State, has got it wrong?
  Mrs. Taylor: All the evidence is that the early years are the most critical for any child. I hope that the Secretary of State will announce another U-turn on Government policy by telling us that he accepts this approach and will give a new, direct commitment. However, I am not sure about that, because, while the Prime Minister has stated his position, we also have the views of the Chancellor when he was Secretary of State for Education. He said:
  "Enthusiasm for nurseries is very middle class."
  I did not realise that Ministers were so against the middle class, but that was how the Chancellor dismissed nurseries. He went on to describe as rubbish the commitment by the previous Prime Minister that was made more than 20 years ago.
  Why has the Secretary of State been so quiet on this issue? At Question Time, it is always the junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Schools, who answers on his behalf. The junior Minister refused to acknowledge that nursery education for three and four-year-olds was the best start we could give our children. He said that I was obsessed with nursery education. I am happy to plead guilty to that.
  The item in the Daily Express refers to the Prime Minister's plan, not speculation, for creating 1 million places and calls it the biggest schools revolution this century. It states that the Prime Minister is very keen to provide nursery education for all three-year-olds and above. It says that he is mad keen on it all. I did not realise that my obsession with nursery education was shared by the Prime Minister.
  Mr. Don Foster: After that article appeared, I wrote to the Prime Minister. I congratulated him, and said that I entirely supported the views that were expressed in the article. Just half an hour ago, I received a letter from 10 Downing street in which the Prime Minister's private secretary informs me that he has passed the letter to the Secretary of State for him to reply.
  Mrs. Taylor: In that case, in a few minutes the Secretary of State will be able to reply to that letter as well as to my questions. I hope that he will give us some clear answers, because there is not just a link between educational achievement and nursery education but a serious and important link between nursery education and crime, which was pointed out by the chief constable of Thames Valley police recently. He said:
  "We really have got to start looking at this. It is really important hard evidence of something that works. Pre-school education is very important. It is at that stage that children learn habits. They learn right and wrong and life skills, so that when they get into school they can grasp what the school is teaching them and grow up as mature adults. If they don't, when they get to school, they are lost and just become completely alienated from society and that is where crime starts."
  All of us, in the Chamber and in the country, have a vested interest in putting money into nursery education so that we can provide the best for our children and expect the best from them. If we neglect early education, as the Government have done, we shall all pay a significant price for that failure.
  9.35 pm
  The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten): We have had an excellent and wide-ranging debate, and I shall do my best to reply to as many points as I can in the 25 minutes that I have.
  I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) on an exceptionally important speech on the future of the Province. My right hon. and learned Friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland were on the Bench to listen to his speech, which was important to those of us who were lucky enough to hear it, and will deepen with significance as people read it.
  I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind personal words in my direction. He knows that, like many others on the Government Benches, I am deeply devoted to the Province and all its people. We wish to do all we can to help that part of the kingdom, which we want to see as peaceful, happy and contented as the rest. Speaking as Secretary of State for Education, I feel that we in England can learn some things from Northern Ireland.
  We had a first eleven of speeches from my hon. Friends, kicked off by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman). I shall return to answer two of his questions specifically. He was followed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Whittingdale), for Beverley (Mr. Cran)—he made all too short a speech—and for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), who made a characteristic speech. She was right to highlight the connection between drugs and crime, which I know is high on the agenda of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.
  I was extremely interested to hear the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby).

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  I shall be glad to relay to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary my hon. Friend's welcome for his important announcement about side-handled batons.
  We also had excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) and for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who was in characteristic forthright style. We also had a tip-top performance from that genuinely subfuse character, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester (Mr. Brandreth).
  Almost last but not least, we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls). What he had to say about individuals' responsibilities and making, at quite a young age, the choice about growing straight or crooked was worth repeating. Last but not least, we had my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), who spoke with vim and verve for 10 minutes without a note. I wish that he could have spoken for longer.
  Today's debate has ranged from home affairs to education, and we have touched on Sunday trading, which will be an interesting episode when we have a vote or two on it. First, I will concentrate on education issues, and I will then move on to home affairs—in particular to the points made by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). I had not heard him speak before; I will explain my reaction to his speech a bit nearer 10 pm.
  Our Education Bill has been introduced in another place today, and will be published tomorrow. I have written to hon. Members in England about its main provisions and the very important announcement I made today about primary teaching. The Bill is modest in size, much more so than the important monster that was taken through the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools.
  The letter from the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) has been passed to me. I will pass it on to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools to answer, because he is the expert on these issues.
  Although the Bill is modest in size, it tackles areas of great importance, and takes forward the key principles that have informed all our education reforms: quality, diversity, choice and accountability. Those are the four themes that have underlined our education reforms since 1988.
  Teacher training is an important issue. If I could wind the clock back 14 years to 1979, I wish we had started with the reform of teacher training. That would have given us a firm foundation for many of the changes that we have made in education. We may have left that for a little while, but we will put it right in the next few months. The Bill will start shortly in another place and then come to the House.
  As for teacher training, the new agency will bring together the work of funding all types of courses. It will provide full and up-to-date information about routes into teaching, and accrediting those offering courses. It will be required to put the quality of teacher training at the heart of its funding decisions. In future, we will link the quality of teacher training to the funding of teacher training, and quite rightly so.
  The Teacher Training Agency will encourage diversity by supporting courses run by schools as well as by higher education. In a moment, I will turn to the point about higher education that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington.
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  Those courses will be supported as long as they meet the standards set by the Secretary of State, and will be monitored by the independent education inspectorate Ofsted, which is an entirely independent department of state, free from the direct control of any Secretary of State.
  There will be an increasing choice of courses of differing lengths and design, as well as courses provided by different bodies. All those conducting such courses will be held accountable for the quality of what they provide, with the accreditation given by the agency, and will be subject to review in the light of inspection evidence.
  I see that the Official Ulster Unionist Benches are now filling up. I am afraid that the hon. Gentlemen are too late to hear the compliments that I have paid to their leader, and they will be able to read them in Hansard tomorrow, but they can obtain videos, which are freely available.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Patten: I will not give way. The hon. Lady made a frivolous speech, and I will not give her the opportunity to make a frivolous intervention.
  Speaking of frivolous speeches, where is the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who made a totally ludicrous speech? He does not have the courtesy to turn up and represent the Liberal party, which shows the contempt that the Liberal party have for the parliamentary process.
  Mr. Don Foster rose—
  Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman should sit down; he had his moment in the sun earlier. He should go and find his hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland.
  The reform of teacher training courses is already in hand. The new agency, with its statutory objectives of higher standards of teaching, the promotion of teaching as a career—
  Mr. Don Foster: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
  Madam Speaker: Order. I have the feeling that it is a point of frustration, but I must listen to it.
  Mr. Foster: Would it not have been more appropriate for the Secretary of State for Education to give way in order to enable me to explain that my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland has left the Chamber in order to go to bed because he is ill?
  Mr. Patten: In that case, I wish the hon. Gentleman a return to full health. [Interruption.] In any event, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has just observed, the hon. Gentleman is normally allowed out only for the afternoon.
  Higher-quality and more efficient training, and school involvement in that training, will give added impetus to the reforms. Let me tell my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington that we certainly support high-quality higher education institutions; provided that they meet the quality objectives, such institutions need not fear that they will have no role to play in the future.
  The progress of reform was taken a step further today by my announcement of new standards for primary teacher training courses. We now have robust criteria for all primary and secondary courses, requiring more time in schools and allowing schools to play an active part in designing and running courses. I think that that will spread:

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  our schools contain many excellent teachers who—as can be seen by anyone who visits one of the consortia now carrying out teacher training under the experimental scheme—are full of enthusiasm for the new method of training in the schools themselves, as are their students. Serving teachers will be able to bring a practical and professional perspective to bear on training.
  As I announced today, for primary teachers we have greatly increased the amount of time to be spent on the core subjects of the national curriculum. Within that framework, we want teacher training colleges to place special emphasis on the basic skills of reading and arithmetic. After all, it was Ofsted—the independent inspectorate—that found, according to a report that it published recently, that only about 50 per cent. of all new entrants to primary teaching felt that they were adequately prepared to teach reading at all. In many instances, that was after four years in a teacher training college.
  We need to put that right, as a matter of urgency. [Interruption.] Opposition Members cannot even do decent joined-up shouting; the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) cannot even tell a joined-up joke about the Jesuits. I will tell him a few more behind the Chair after 10 pm
  If children do not master the basic skills at an early age, they will never reach their full potential. New primary teachers really must have the best possible training, so that they can help to raise standards at this crucial stage of a child's education. The new circular builds on teacher training reforms that have already been introduced. Extensive consultation—to which I am very partial—has revealed strong support for a great emphasis on the basic skills of reading, writing and mathematics. It has also revealed a great demand from mature, experienced people to embark on teaching and helping in our schools. 1 think we should welcome that.
  The development of a new specialist teacher assistant certificate, which I have announced today, will ensure that mature people who are already making a valuable contribution as teacher assistants can extend their role by receiving specialist training—and, of course, gaining qualifications that can then be accredited towards the later gaining of qualified teacher status if they want. Such people play a very important role.
  I represent quite a few students in Oxford. Over the years, I have become used to them and their doings. I have thought and consulted long and hard about our legislation on student unions, which was introduced today. Choice and acountability are the key aims of our student union reforms. We should remember that about half those entering universities this autumn are aged 24 and over: they are mature people, not people who have just left school.
  We should also remember, with some pride, that this autumn about 70,000 extra students can be seen on our university campuses. We have created six or seven brand new universities this autumn. We should remember the Robbins principle, and the idea of open access for all. Over a 10 or I5-year period, a few universities were created, each containing 2,000 or 3,000 people. This autumn—thanks to Conservative Government policy—we have seen a massive expansion in university education. It is important that those entering universities—students of all ages—have the basic right to choose which all of us support.
  We recognise that campus unions can provide some valuable services which should be accessible to all, with
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  public funding where necessary. However, we also want activities on a voluntary and opt-in basis. We wish to protect core services, while at the same time treating students—many of whom are adults—as adults, allowing them to choose whether to join a student union.
  The proposals will also promote democratic and financial accountability in student unions by requiring universities and colleges to establish codes of practice governing their conduct. An important feature of those codes will be an appeals mechanism for students who feel that they are being unfairly treated by their student union. None of that is a threat to ordinary student activities. Of course, where public money is not available, individual students of all ages can make the choice to pay for the service or activity in which they wish to participate.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington raised two important points in relation to the submission by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals—a body that he and I know well and respect —and asked me to tell the House why I am not able and not minded to accept its recommendations. I shall write to him at greater length and place a copy of my reply in the library so that all right hon. and hon. Members can see it.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: How kind.
  Mr. Patten: It is a pleasure. It is all part of the service.
  The CVCP has proposed building in charity law by developing existing guidelines on what constitutes inappropriate activity for a charitable organisation such as a student union. I am grateful to the CVCP for recognising that there is a need for reform. It is clear that we are at one on reforming student unions, but the CVCP approach would fail to satisfy two important Government policy objectives.
  First, its proposals do not include the voluntary principle that my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I share. Secondly, its approach would relieve universities and colleges of their responsibility for ensuring that student unions are fully accountable and operate according to a clear code of practice. Again, accountability would be lifted. For those two reasons, I have rejected the CVCP proposals, having considered them carefully.
  It is moving to my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Education to find such a high volume of correspondence from students who support our proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) received a letter on 18 November from the Wales area collegiate forum. It begins:
  "Dear Mr. Boswell,
  I am writing to congratulate the Government on its commitment to the reforming of student unions as outlined in t he Queen's Speech on Thursday. May I also take this opportunity to thank both your staff and yourself for all the hard work that has been done in order for the proposals to be one step closer to the Statute Books."
  The chairman of the forum, Mr. Justin Powell-Tuck, from Lampeter, continues:
  "I know I speak on behalf of all my members and for the silent majority of students who will welcome more freedom on their campus as well as the choice to join their student union or the NUS. Even some executive members of my student union at Lampeter secretly support the proposed changes which should end the dictatorial power, corruption, lack of competition and political representation within theirs and the parent organisations."
  Mrs. Ann Taylor rose—
  Mr. Patten: I am not giving way, Madam Speaker. I have listened carefully to the hon. Member for Dewsbury on many occasions in the past, but this afternoon I was given the chance to listen to the hon. Member for Sedgefield. I had never heard him speak before, and have been kept from him. I thought his mode of delivery rather charming. However, when I began to listen rather carefully, it became quite clear that he was spending all his time trying to reconcile his principles with left-wing policies with which he does not agree.
  We listened to a very uncomfortable shadow Home Secretary. He sat demurely on the Bench and was a little camera shy during the opportunities provided by my right hon. and learned Friend to intervene in his speech. Indeed, he maintained his right to silence throughout almost the whole of my right hon. and learned Friend's speech.
  There was thorough cross-questioning, and every time that the hon. Gentleman did get to his feet, we searched vainly for the substance of his comments. I could not work out where I had heard his answers before. Then I suddenly realised that we were looking at one of the creations of the hon. Member for Hartlepool when he was simply Mr. Mandelson, the Svengali of the Labour party. He was extremely fond of creating for the Labour party a number of public relations persons rather than a number of politicians.
  When looking at and listening to the hon. Member for Sedgefield, I was also reminded of Senator Gary Hart. [Interruption.] Hon. Members must remember the question about Senator Hart—"Where's the beef?" It is quite clear—[Interruption.]
  Madam Speaker: Order. I have heard enough sedentary interruptions.
  Mr. Patten: It was quite clear—[Interruption.]
  Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner) must desist.
  Mr. Patten: There was no substance to the speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield. There was no description of any Labour party policy on crime. It is clear that Sedgefield is a policy-free zone; it is a beef-free zone. I was puzzled why he should behave like that, when he is clearly not a stupid person—[Interruption.]
  Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East must stop.
  Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Dennis Turner: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. We are questioning the Secretary of State on the important policy issue of nursery education.
  Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is not questioning the Secretary of State on anything. The right hon. Gentleman is replying to the debate.
  Mr. Turner: Why does not the Secretary of State answer instead of waffling on—
  Madam Speaker: Order. I am not responsible for the Secretary of State's answers.
  Mr. Patten: Indeed, Madam Speaker, you are not responsible for my answers.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield clearly is not a stupid person. Because he does not believe in anything he says, he does not say anything of substance about Labour's policy on law and order. Indeed, I do not think that he actually believes in Labour party policy any more. This afternoon we have seen the beginnings of an early middle-age political crisis—someone who has realised that he is in the wrong party. I have the authority of the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Mr. Wood), to say that we would happily consider an application from the hon. Member for Sedgefield to join us on this side of the House.
  I think that the hon. Gentleman is really a Tory—and by the look on the face of the Labour party Chief Whip, the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon), he thinks so too. The hon. Member for Sedgefield should have seen the faces of those behind him when he was speaking this afternoon. They could see the words "Tory, Tory" coming out in bubbles around his head.
  The hon. Gentleman must make up his mind. Either he throws himself behind left-wing policies and votes against my right hon. and learned Friend's important Bill, or he will have to do what he did on the 1991 Act, when he voted against longer prison sentences for violent and sex offenders, against an increase in the minimum time to be served by all prisoners, against tougher and extended supervision on release for violent and sex offenders and against parents being made more responsible for their children. The hon. Member for Sedgefield was against all those things. After his performance this afternoon, come back the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), all is forgiven.
  We have had no serious response to the Gracious Speech from the Labour party this afternoon. We have had nothing of any substance at all. We have heard this afternoon the authentic voice of Britain's permanent party of opposition, able only to shout and squawk, unable at all to make any serious policy pronouncements. What a difference from the run-up to the first Attlee Government, when there was something on which to bite. What a difference from the noble Lord Wilson when he was leading the Labour party. At least they stood for something. At least they had some ideas.
  We have seen both in the speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield and certainly in the speech—
  It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  Air Cadets
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Andrew MacKay.]
  10 pm
  Mr. Bill Walker: I thank my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces who is on duty to reply to my debate. I understand that he is unwell and suffering from ear problems. As someone who from time to time has had similar problems I sympathise and am grateful that he is on duty tonight.
  When I joined the Air Training Corps in 1943 I never imagined that 50 years later I would still be directly involved in the corps or that tonight I would be introducing a debate on the future of the air cadets.
  Tonight I shall look into the way in which I and other young people were motivated into joining the air cadets. I shall also touch on the history of the air cadets and examine the benefits for the individuals who join and also the massive benefit to the nation that comes from members of the corps. I shall look also at the recruitment situation for the Royal Air Force, which it directly enjoys from its control and funding of the air cadets.
  First, I shall say a few words about the air cadets and their history. The air cadet organisation is a term used for the combined Air Training Corps and the CCF, or combined air force, RAF sections. The ATC had its origins in the air defence cadet corps and the first of the squadrons paraded in 1938, before the second world war. When those squadrons became part of the ATC in 1941 they had an "F" put after their number to denote that they were founder squadrons.
  The aim of the ATC in 1941 was to provide pre-service, part-time training for young men destined to join the Royal Air Force or Fleet Air Arm. The corps reached its peak of 210,000 cadets during the second world war. In 1983, the rules of the corps were changed to allow girls to become members.
  The corps was established by royal warrant in 1941 and the most recent royal warrant was in February 1990. His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh is the Air Commodore-in-Chief of the corps. The aims of the air cadets are, first, to promote and encourage among young people a practical interest in aviation and the Royal Air Force; secondly, to provide training that will be useful both in service and civilian life; and, thirdly, to foster the spirit of adventure and develop qualities of leadership and good citizenship.
  Later, I shall examine the benefits of those objectives, particularly as they will affect social values such as self-discipline and the wider preparation for life as mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently at the Lord Mayor's banquet. But before doing so I shall remind the House that the command and control of air cadets is via headquarters air cadets and that functional control is via the AOC and commandant at RAF college, Cranwell. That, in turn, is under the full command of the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, RAF Support Command. All that will be changed next year when the new command for training and personnel is set up.
  I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the cost of running the air cadets in global terms is £30 million, of which, in 1993–94, the cash budget is £20·06 million. Consequently, it is wise to consider how the budget is spent, what, if any, are the areas where substantial
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  reductions can be made and, if those reductions were to be made, what impact that would be likely to have on the air cadets and in the community.
  First, we must recognise that the air cadets today is a large organisation. There are more than 49,000 cadets, more than 10,000 adult volunteer staff and about 5,000 civilian committee members. Therefore, the air cadets makes a substantial contribution towards involving adults and cadets in an organised, disciplined and controlled environment. That is done through the 928 squadrons and 83 detached flights which are part of 40 wings and seven regions. In addition, there are 186 combined cadet force RAF sections in schools, most of which are public schools.
  Many of the 928 squadrons and 40 wings are located in the large urban areas and a considerable number are located in and service inner-city and deprived areas. If those squadrons did not exist, other Government Departments and local authorities would be faced with the extra cost of providing additional youth facilities for the youngsters who are at present members of the air cadets.
  Ministers urged the cadet forces to become involved with the Department of the Environment's inner-city initiative and, as I said earlier, without the air cadets the Department of the Environment in England and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices would be faced with the extra costs of providing additional youth facilities in place of the squadrons. I doubt whether they could provide, or would be capable of providing, an air interest as well. Therefore, many thousands of young, air-minded youngsters would be deprived of the vehicle through which their interests could be explored and nurtured. In addition, the RAF would be deprived of a source of good, highly motivated, disciplined recruits.
  What is it that makes the air cadets a healthy, viable and vibrant organisation today, 52 years after the Air Training Corps was established? First, it is the flying and the gliding that attracts young people. That is what attracted me in 1943 and it is still a magnet that draws in young people today and probably, more importantly, keeps them in once they join. Secondly, it is the disciplined and organised environment which a uniformed body projects. Thirdly, it is the character building and self-discipline that the challenge of flying and gliding provides. I make it clear to the House that, without flying and gliding, the air cadets would be just another uniformed youth organisation.
  The aim of the air cadets is to give each cadet one air experience flight per year and to give each new cadet an air experience gliding trip in his or her first year of service and then to provide suitable cadets with progressive gliding training. That is achieved at 13 geographically suitable locations—geographically suitable in as much as the squadrons can travel to the locations without having to spend hours reaching them.
  Thirteen air experience Chipmunk flights are found at those locations. Those flights are staffed by a small cadre of full-time pilots and groundcrew, and there is an establishment of volunteer reserve pilots who, on a part-time and unpaid basis, fly the cadets. They have 48 Chipmunk aircraft, plus 12 more which are in use as reserve aircraft. The pilots and aircraft log up 24,500 flying hours per year.
  The 27 volunteer gliding schools are similarly spread geographically. Those are manned by volunteer reserve officers and volunteer civilian instructors who fly cadets at weekends on a part-time and unpaid basis. There is also the air cadets central gliding school at RAF Syerston, which is

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  manned by full-time officers and groundcrew. The unit trains and tests the volunteer reserve and the civilian gliding instructors and also provides courses for cadets. The unit is an essential part of the training organisation and without it one could not maintain the volunteer schools.
  The air cadets have a fleet of 150 modern gliders, of which 52 are motor gliders. I am pleased to tell the House that I am in current flying practice on the Vigilant motor glider. I am the vice-president of the British Gliding Association and I can say that the quality of the instruction and the professionalism of the air cadets gliding organisation is respected, admired, and envied throughout aviation and gliding both within the United Kingdom and abroad.
  A 16-year-old who has undergone training with the air cadet gliding organisation and who has flown an air cadet motor or conventional glider solo is unlikely ever to seek a challenge or thrill by stealing cars or by joyriding. He or she will already have had his or her thrill. There is a real risk and a danger in aviation and only by mastering the risks and controlling the danger can the youngsters see their own self-development.
  In my time, I have sent hundreds of cadets off on their first solo flights. It is a wonder to watch the increasing personal stature and confidence which stem from that flight. It is also wonderful to see the pride with which they receive their gliding wings and wear them on their uniforms. It is from such cadets that future squadron officers and volunteer gliding school staff will come. That is why the air cadet central gliding school and the RAF volunteer reserve training centre are important. Air cadets grow and train their own future officers and instructors.
  There are also two adventure training centres, and 100 part-time non-publicly funded centres which are run by the wings. It is there that the Duke of Edinburgh award and other personal development practices are carried out. The policy for air cadets is directed by the RAF Board, and is advised by the Air Cadet Council through the Air Member of Personnel. The president of the Air Cadet Council is my hon. Friend the Minister. The council consists of seven civilian regional chairmen, a representative from Northern Ireland, the Air Officer Commanding Air Cadets and a representative of S10.
  The Air Cadet Council's role is to recommend changes to the RAF Board to improve the corps' efficiency and image. It is responsible to the RAF Board for the overall running of the Air Training Corps and to formulate general policy. As well as the military input, there is an important civilian input into the policy and running of the corps. It all sounds very good. Why, then, am I raising a question about the future?
  Surely any organisation that provided 3,275 gold, silver and brozen Duke of Edinburgh awards in 1992, that provides citizenship training, sports, adventure training, shooting and community projects and which sends cadets abroad on international air cadet exchange schemes and to Easter and summer camps, which were attended by 19,700 cadets in 1993 and where 17,400 places are proposed for 1994 must have a rosy future. That must be so when the same organisation has, in the past five years, provided the Royal Air Force with 60 per cent. of all officer recruits, 66 per cent. of all direct entry officers and 28 per cent. of all airmen and when it has also been actively involved in
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  many inner-city initiatives. However, I am worried about the future, as is every volunteer member of the corps. Why is that? Let me explain.
  When I hear that, under the alternative options or the alternative assumptions, or any other form of "alternative", it is proposed to make cuts£or savings, as they are called £of 10 per cent. or, worse still, of 20 per cent., in the budget, I become desperately worried. I said that I joined the Air Training Corps in 1943. Since then, I have had the good fortune to have served full time in the Royal Air Force and given more than 12 years of my adult life to running an ATC squadron. I have also commanded a volunteer gliding school and served full time at the central gliding school. I have held a volunteer reserve commission and an Al instructor category for almost 40 years.
  Let us say that granddad has been around the air cadets for a long time. He has lived through many changes, but what has not changed is the fact that it is the gliding and flying which attract young people to and then keep them in the corps. I get the same thrill today when I get into an aircraft or glider as I did as a cadet in 1943. I can remember my first solo flight in a Tiger Moth and my first solo in a glider as if they were yesterday. I still get an enormous thrill in sending young people on their first solo flight and yet, if savings of the magnitude proposed are to be achieved, I believe that gliding or flying has to suffer. A significant number of youngsters would be deprived of the opportunity to fly if, for example, a substantial number of air experience flights were to be stopped. That is what will happen if there are reductions of 10 per cent. or 20 per cent.
  I strongly urge the Minister to examine all the RAF's assets before any hasty decisions are taken. I suggest that we examine not only air experience flights but the university air squadrons. There may be opportunities to make savings via the merging of the units and the tasks, the air experience flights and the university air squadrons.
  Way back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the volunteer reserve schools did all the flying for the air cadets. They provided all the air experience flying and it was very happy flying because it was largely in Tiger Moths, which the cadets loved. I also remember what happened in the mid-1950s when the volunteer reserve schools were closed. We set up the air experience flights because that was the most cost-effective way of providing cadets with air experience.
  Perhaps the time has come for a much closer look at the university air squadrons, which I believe that we must keep —let me make that clear—because they, too, play an essential part in making young people air minded and in giving them the right attitude to the Royal Air Force. We should take a closer look at the university air squadrons and air experience flights—their sights, tasks and activities —and consider a cost-effective replacement for the Chipmunk for air experience flights and the Bulldog for the university air squadrons.
  I seek from my hon. Friend the Minister an assurance that the importance of flying and gliding will be maintained at their current levels; otherwise I fear for the well-being of the Air Cadets. Once volunteers lose faith, it is difficult, if not impossible, to restore it.
  Birth is easier than resuscitation, so I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the proposal to cut the pay of the volunteer reserve officers who get paid when they attend full-time camps and courses. That is the only time they get paid. I suggest that camp is essential and that courses are a must because they are the only way in which we can train

  425
  our people to take command of units, to fly gliders and take air experience flights and possibly to command future air experience flights.
  I also remind my hon. Friend that all evenings and weekends are unpaid and that volunteer reserve officers give their time for nothing. The volunteers give more than six days free for every day for which they get paid. I suggest that is a good deal for the Treasury, which may wish to consider expanding it elsewhere.
  If we want to get officers into training and camp, there is not much scope for a reduction in pay. I mentioned birth and resuscitation. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the Prime Minister's comments at the Lord Mayor's banquet. He said:
  "Basic social values like self-discipline. Respect for the law. Concern for others. A great acceptance of personal responsibility and obligations … It is a wider preparation for life and it involves parents as well as teachers".
  He was talking about education, but his words also fit the Air Cadets. He spoke about learning the values of our society as well as the rules. Some people will say that those values are obvious; I suggest that some people have forgotten them.
  I am not overlooking the time, as I have an arrangement with the Front Bench. Let us not forget the Prime Minister's comments. Air Cadets provide an environment for the values that he mentioned. If we reduce the flying and gliding, the motivation for joining and remaining in the corps will be adversely affected. Tomorrow's officers and instructors will go elsewhere and the air cadet units will wither and die.
  In inner-city areas and elsewhere there will be fewer opportunities for young people to learn to be good citizens. RAF recruiting will be adversely affected and other Government Departments will be faced with funding alternative projects. Savings of 10 or 20 per cent. are not realistic. I seek an assurance that no hasty action will be taken to achieve such reductions and that the future of the Air Cadets will be secure under the Government.
  10.23 pm
  The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Jeremy Hanley): I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) on securing the debate. I also draw attention to the presence of my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), who is a qualified pilot; for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale), from the armed forces parliamentary scheme; for Berkshire, East (Mr. MacKay), whose knowledge of defence is second almost to none; and for Stevenage (Mr. Wood), who has also served with my hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire, East in the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office. Their interest is worthy of note just as is the fact that no interest whatsoever has been shown by the Opposition.
  We are talking not just about air cadet organisations; we are talking about an inspiring group of young people who have the ability not only to bring themselves together during their spare time to become part of our forces but to learn discipline and dedication both to the country and to the Air Training Corps.
  To some degree, all the comments that I shall make about the air cadets will apply broadly to the other cadet forces, which also do an excellent job. There are just over 40,000 cadets in the Air Training Corps and some 8,500 in the RAF sections of the combined cadet force, giving a
  426
  total of nearly 50,000 cadets. There are more than 900 squadrons divided into 40 wings throughout the United Kingdom. The country is divided into seven regions, each with a regional commandant, and the permanent staff throughout the country numbers just over 250. However, that is clearly insufficient to run a successful air cadet organisation and I must therefore pay tribute to the many volunteers—as my hon. Friend said, the majority of whom are unpaid—who give their time to the running of the corps.
  One of the objectives of the Air Training Corps is to foster a spirit of adventure and develop qualities of leadership and good citizenship. Of equal importance, the corps also promotes and encourages a practical interest in aviation and provides training that will be useful in the services and civilian life.
  My hon. Friend described how the corps meets those objectives. He mentioned flying, gliding, camps at RAF stations at home and abroad, sport, adventure training, shooting and, equally important, through the community projects, citizenship training. He mentioned the Duke of Edinburgh's award scheme and he may take comfort from the fact—I hope that the House will be impressed—that in 1992 some 3,275 gold, silver and bronze awards were made to air cadets.
  Cadet forces do not exist as recruiting agencies for the armed forces, although it is clear that membership of them encourages an interest in the services among young people considering a life in one of them as a career. My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence is president of the Air Cadet Council and takes a keen interest in the cadet forces. He is especially keen to strengthen the links between the cadets and the community at large and, to that end, officials from the MOD have been tasked with finding ways to involve the cadets to an even greater extent in the local community. Initiatives such as the Department of the Environment's action for cities programme and city challenge aim to bring together and give new focus to a range of programmes to promote regeneration in inner-city areas.
  Some 80 Air Training Corps squadrons currently exist in the areas identified for those initiatives. Most urban units are already thriving but could still benefit on similar lines to those involved in the schemes, as nearly all serve a community need.
  The cadets have a high awareness of the need to consider the communities from which they come and those less fortunate than most. Many individuals and organisations have benefited from the kindness, generosity and unstinting help given by the cadets' volunteer staff and parents. That is because the essential column of the corps' philosophy is to promote good citizenship. Discipline is a much maligned work these days and there is more to good citizenship than just that. But the cadets foster values that would do much to engender a proper sense of social responsibility and altruism if applied more widely. My hon. Friend's description of that was graphic.
  The Ministry of Defence must ensure that we achieve value for the funds allocated to various activities. The air cadet organisation is no different in having to prove its cost-effectiveness and efficiency in these difficult times. A balance must be made between the aims of the air cadets and the value for money which they represent to the MOD. The air officer commanding the air cadets has recently undertaken a review of the organisation and implemented

  427
  several measures to bring the organisation into line with the changes taking place within the Ministry of Defence as a whole.
  Wide-ranging changes face the armed services and cadet organisations cannot escape some of the effects of those changes. The air cadets must consider ways to increase efficiency still further and ensure that value for money is obtained in all its activities. Each year, we must consider carefully its funding arrangements in competition with other demands on the defence budget. But I confirm that we have no intention of changing the spirit or traditions of the ATC.
  A recent internal report made a number of recommendations for improvement in the management and financial procedures of the corps and all the recommendations on the financial procedures have been, or are being, put into action.
  On voluntary support for the corps, it is heartening that more than 10,000 adult volunteer staff are assisting the Air Training Corps and Royal Air Force sections of the combined cadet force. There are also 5,000 civilian members. Of those volunteers, many people have served in
  428
  the Royal Air Force volunteer reserve training corps. The many adult warrant officers, civilian instructors and chaplains all play a vital role in meeting the corps' objectives.
  We can be proud of the air cadet organisation. At the same time, we must recognise that it is not immune from changes taking place within the Ministry or from the severe budgetary pressures facing us. None the less, the cadets are given and will continue to be given exciting and demanding challenges and excellent training. Those are solid bricks for them to build on for a career in the armed services or civilian life. Moreover, in some of the most deprived urban areas they provide a focus towards becoming good citizens.
  The air cadets represent the only RAF presence in many parts of the United Kingdom and provide a focus for many young people in inner-city areas and remote rural communities. In return, the RAF achieves a high profile in society as a whole and, as an adjunct, a high proportion of well-motivated recruits stay in the service longer and give a better return on our training investment.
  The House is therefore grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for raising this important subject.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Chemical Weapons Convention
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps Her Majesty's Government plan to take to work for the effective implementation of the chemical weapons convention.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We signed the chemical weapons convention in January 1993 and play an active part in the work of the preparatory commission which is charged with setting up the future Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Hague. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is working closely with the Department of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Defence and other Departments to make the preparations for the implementation of the convention in the United Kingdom. The necessary implementing legislation will be introduced when parliamentary time permits.

  Foreign Affairs Council
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Foreign Affairs Council held on 8 and 9 November.

  Mr. Hurd
  I attended the Foreign Affairs Council on 8 and 9 November. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office also attended.

  The Council agreed to rename the "Council of the European Communities" as the "Council of the European Union" to reflect its involvement in both EC affairs and the intergovernmental pillars; and that political declarations made in the context of common foreign and security policy would now be made in the name of the European Union. The Council also agreed on a minutes statement to the effect that these decisions did not alter the current legal position that the European Union does not enjoy international legal personality and that the designation of the parties to any international instruments having legal effects would be a matter to be decided case by case.

  Sir Leon Brittan reported to the Council on his recent discussions with the United States Administration and on the state of the GATT Uruguay round negotiations in Geneva. The Council reaffirmed the need to make every effort to reach a global, durable and balanced agreement by the 15 December deadline. The Council expressed its concern over the slow progress of the negotiations and launched an urgent appeal to its main trading partners to engage more actively in the negotiations. The Council also considered a written report by the Commission on outstanding problems in the negotiations and noted that the Commission would shortly produce a further report on the audio-visual sector. The presidency decided to arrange a further discussi on at a special Council in early December.
  14
  The Council agreed that new Commission proposals on anti-dumping procedures should be considered by the Permanent Representatives Committee with a view to a decision at the 6 December Foreign Affairs Council.

  Greece raised the possible appointment of an EC observer for Cyprus. The Council agreed to defer discussion until a further Council.

  Ministers had their first collective meeting with the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Mr. Arafat gave his analysis of the latest developments in the peace process, and stressed the importance of international, including EC assistance. The Council recalled that the EC is already the Palestinians' largest donor, and underlined the need for transparent, effective and accountable Palestinian aid structures in the occupied territories.

  The Council agreed proposals to amend the negotiating directives for an EC/Russia partnership and co-operation agreement.

  The Council adopted a joint action providing for the monitoring of the 12 December Russian elections.

  The Council discussed recent developments in the former Yugoslavia relating to the search for a negotiated and durable solution to the conflict, a contribution to the implementation of a peace plan and support for humanitarian action. On the basis of guidelines from the 29 October Brussels European Council, the Council adopted a joint action on the delivery of humanitarian aid in Bosnia and agreed to meeting further on 22 November to discuss both political and aid-related aspects of the crisis.

  The Council discussed the Commission's draft negotiating mandate for a new partnership agreement with Morocco and concluded that further work on the dossier was needed.

  In a brief discussion of relations with Tunisia, the Commission said that it expected to present a draft negotiating mandate for a partnership agreement to the next Foreign Affairs Council.

  The Council held further discussions on access to information. No decision was reached and the negotiations will continue.

  The Council agreed to take forward discussion with the European Parliament over detailed rules for the operation of the Parliament's temporary committees of inquiry.

  The Council agreed to lift two further sanctions measures, on civil nuclear co-operation and sales of sensitive equipment to the South African police and military, as soon as the Transitional Executive Council is established.

  The Council agreed to open negotiations on various bilateral agreements with Switzerland including transport and research.

  The Council discussed conclusion of the EC/Bulgaria interim agreement. No agreement was reached.

  The Council authorised the Commission to negotiate agreements covering trade in aluminium with Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan.

  An Association Council with Turkey was held in the margins which recalled both sides' commitment to achieving customs union in 1995.

  Ministerial sessions of the accession negotiations with Finland, Norway, Sweden and Austria also took place in the margins.

  No formal votes were taken during the Council.

  Embassies and High Commissions
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many embassies and high commissions are maintained around the world; and what was the total cost involved under all expenditure headings in the last financial year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  In 1992–93, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office maintained 235 embassies, high commissions and subordinate posts at a total overseas, recurrent and capital, cost of £383·5 million.

ENVIRONMENT

  South-East London Combined Heat and Power Ltd.
  Mrs. Bridget Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether Lewisham's South-East London Combined Heat and Power Ltd. will be affected by the Government's planned reassessment of business rates; if SELCHP will still be subject to fixed business rates under any review; and what plans he has to safeguard the future of waste management facilities under any review of business rates.

  Mr. Baldry
  We have no plans to change the rateability of combined heat and power stations or other waste management facilities in the 1995 revaluation of non-domestic property. We are currently considering whether combined heat and power stations should continue to have a prescribed assessment, instead of having rateable values set by local valuation officers. Whatever the result of that consideration, it is not possible to predict the outcome of the revaluation at this stage.

  Neighbour Notification
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent advice his Department has given to local planning authorities on neighbour notification.

  Mr. Baldry
  Advice on publicity for planning applications, including neighbour notification, is given in my Department's circular 15/92, "Publicity for Planning Applications", issued in July of last year.

  Local Government Commission
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a breakdown of the Local Government Commission's time and duties; and what was the total cost of the commission to the Exchequer up to 28 October.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Local Government Commission has a duty to undertake reviews of the structure, boundaries, and electoral arrangements of local government in areas of England, in accordance with directions from, and having regard to any guidance issued by, my right hon. Friend. The commission also has a statutory duty to undertake periodic reviews of local government electoral arrangements in all areas. In carrying out these reviews the specific responsibilities of individual members and staff of the Local Government Commission are a matter for the commission itself. Payments of grant in aid totalling 16
  £2,130,000 were made to the commission in 1992–93 and a further £2,107,515 has been advanced to it in 1993–94 —up to 28 October 1993.

  Housing Corporation
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many homes were provided through the Housing Corporation in 1992–93; and how many he expects will be provided in 1993–94 and 1994–95.

  Sir George Young
  The total number of completions by the Housing Corporation of housing for rent or sale in 1992–93, and the latest forecast for 1993–94 are as follows. The figures include completions under city challenge.

  Actual 1992–93

  Forecast 1993–94

  Completions

  162,137

  57,600

  1Including 18,430 completions under the Housing Market Package.

  The figures for 1994–95 will depend on the autumn Budget statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  Local Authority Capital Asset Sales
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much local authorities have already raised from sales of capital assets since the announcement in the 1992 autumn statement that they would be permitted to spend all of their receipts up to the end of December; how much he now estimates will be raised in total by the end of December; how much of these receipts he estimates has already been spent by local authorities; and how much of these receipts will be spent by the end of the financial year 1993–94 and during 1994–95.

  Mr. Baldry
  The temporary relaxation in the capital receipts rules announced in the 1992 autumn statement allows local authorities to spend 100 per cent. of virtually all the receipts they receive during the period 13 November 1992 to 31 December 1993. Recent information provided by local authorities in England indicates that a total of around £1·3 billion of usable receipts were obtained during the period 13 November 1992 to 31 July 1993. This information also suggests that local authorities currently expect to obtain around £2·3 billion of usable receipts in total during the whole period of the relaxation, of which some £1·3 billion is estimated to arise as a result of the relaxation. On the basis of their latest returns, local authorities plan to finance £1·8 billion of their capital expenditure in 1993–94 from usable capital receipts received in that year or brought forward from earlier years. No equivalent information is yet available for 1994–95.

  Council Tax
  Mr. Hutton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many appeals against liability for the council tax have been made this year in each region in England; what is the length of time taken to hear these appeals; and what proportion of these appeals was successful.

  Mr. Baldry
  Information is not available centrally in the form requested. The available information is as follows:
  17

  Numbers of Appeals against Liability for the Council Tax By Region in England: Period ending September 1993

  Region

  Received

  Resolved

  Outstanding

  Northern

  21

  4

  17

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  27

  4

  23

  North West

  43

  1

  42

  East Midlands

  17

  1

  16

  West Midlands

  24

  8

  16

  East Anglia

  9

  1

  8

  London

  36

  1

  35

  South East1

  95

  15

  80

  South West

  360

  34

  326

  Total

  632

  69

  563

  1Excluding London.

  County Hall, London
  Mr. Austin-Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will disclose the sale price of London's county hall and the proposed distribution of the proceeds.

  Mr. Baldry
  The London residuary body has sold the riverside building of county hall to the Shirayama Corporation of Japan. The amount of the consideration is a matter of commercial confidentiality. My right hon. Friend is about to lay before Parliament an order authorising the residuary body to distribute to the London boroughs and to the City of London certain moneys which will include the proceeds of the sale of the riverside building.

  Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
  Mr. Clapham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will call for a public inquiry over the opening of THORP to allow for an examination of the alternative to reprocessing nuclear waste and to provide for an environmental impact assessment; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  Responses to the consultation are still being assessed. When they have all been carefully considered, my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will decide whether to afford a hearing or inquiry and, if they decide not to do so, will take final decisions on the authorisations.

  Mineral Planning Guidance
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the revision of mineral planning guidance note 3.

  Mr. Baldry
  My right hon. and learned Friend the then Secretary of State for the Environment announced on 25 March,Official Report, columns 714-15, that we intended to proceed to consultation on revised planning guidelines as soon as possible. This is still our intention.

  Sulphur Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to curb sulphur dioxide emissions.

  Mr. Yeo
  The Government have in place a range of measures to control and progressively reduce emissions of 18
  sulphur dioxide, which were set out in the 1990 environment White Paper "This Common Inheritance" and subsequent annual reports. Copies are available in the Library of the House.

  North Cornwall (Planning)
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when the results of the inquiry into the operation of the planning system in North Cornwall district will be available; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  Miss Audrey Lees was appointed in August last year to carry out an inquiry into the operation of the planning system in North Cornwall. She submitted her very thorough report to my right hon. Friend at the end of August.

  Miss Lees concludes that many of the complaints about the district council were justified. North Cornwall has granted planning permission for sporadic developments in the open countryside, on an inconsistent basis, contrary to national planning guidance and the structure plan. Some councillors seem to have favoured certain applicants, often local people, because of their personal circumstances.

  Miss Lees suggests that the practices and procedures of the council in publicising, assessing and deciding planning applications should be improved. She recommends that priorities given to completing the local plan to provide the basis for consistent decisions in future.

  I am seeing North Cornwall district councillors today to emphasise the Government's concern to seek a positive commitment from the Council. I know that some improvements have been made already, but I will be seeking a full response to Miss Lee's recommendations when the council have considered her report.

  The report also provides a valuable reminder of the need for all local planning authorities to follow proper procedures when dealing with applications for planning permission. I have arranged for each authority to receive a copy.

  I note that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has recently written to all the local planning authorities in the Principality to emphasise the importance of taking full account of Government planning guidance and the development plan in making decisions. He also warned that the personal circumstances of applicants should not normally influence such decisions.

  Copies of the report are being placed in the Library of the House today and copies will be on sale from Her Majesty's Stationery Office tomorrow.

  Local Government Staffing
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he intends to issue further guidance to the Local Government Staff Commission (England) about the staffing implications of the continuation of district or county councils as unitary authorities.

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

  The guidance, which has been drawn up in consultation with the local authority associations and the staff commission itself, is designed to clarify the original policy guidance in cases where district or county councils continue as unitary authorities.
  19
  A continuing authority with new functions will need to take a completely fresh look at its existing organisational structures and staffing in planning for unitary status.

  Within the constraints of employment legislation, the additional guidance provides as level a playing field as can be achieved for staff of outgoing authorities compared with those of the continuing authorities. It gives a framework within which the commission can provide continuing authorities with some practical examples of ways to help maximise their freedom to choose a new head of paid service and other senior managers, and to review the organisational structures and staffing of existing support services.

  We expect the staff commission to look carefully at all the implications of the additional guidance.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Trial Delays
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress has been made in reducing delays in coming to trial in Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Patrick Mayhew
  We remain determined to address with sustained and vigourous measures the problem of delays on remand. I believe that our efforts to do so in the past year have brought encouraging progress.

  I announced to the House on 10 June last year a scheme designed to reduce the time defendants spent in custody before trial on indictment for schedule offences—the type of case where delays had been longest. This scheme was a joint initiative, involving agencies answering to the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General as well as the police and my own officials. It introduced targets for the progress of cases: 38 weeks from remand to committal and 14 weeks from committal to arraignment, a culmultative target of 12 months.

  It began on 1 July last year. The agencies involved set up new machinery for close co-operation between them, in order to track the progress of cases, and to signal the need for attention to those whose targets risked being exceeded.

  I am now able to announce the results of the first year's operation of the scheme. Fifty-seven cases with their first remand on or after 1 July 1992 had reached arraignment by 30 June 1993. All met the 12-month cumulative targets; all also met the 14-week committal to arraignment taget. Six cases, however, failed to reach committal within the target of 38 weeks from first remand. The average time taken to process cases also fell. In 1991, the last full year before the introduction of the scheme, the average time from remand to committal for such cases was 33 weeks; in 1992 case covered by the scheme reached committal in an average of 24 weeks, an improvement by 27 per cent. The statistics for a single year must obviously be read with caution, but I believe that the improvements indicated are most impressive and reflect great credit on all the agencies concerned.

  We wish to see these improvements sustained. We have accordingly decided to continue the scheme until at least 30 June 1994; to extend its oversight to non-scheduled cases tried on indictment; and to tighten targets under the scheme by reducing cumulative target to 11 months. The latter will be achieved by making the committal to arraignment target 10 weeks instead of 14.
  20
  We will continue to take a close interest in the operation of the scheme, and in the whole period up to the start of the trial, in order to identify any further ways in which avoidable delay can be reduced.

TRANSPORT

  Channel Tunnel
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent representations the Minister for Public Transport has had from the North West Channel Tunnel Group about the high speed rail link from London to the channel tunnel; what reply he is sending; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  The chairman of the North West Channel Tunnel Group wrote to me on 4 November. I am placing a copy of my reply in the Library.

  Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what has been the cost of providing 4,400 DVLA staff with(a) charter mark coasters, (b) charter mark book marks and (c) charter mark vehicle disc holders; what has been the total cost of the provision of these items; what has been the cost of consultancy advisers for DVLA's market-testing programme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  The DVLA is proud to have been awarded a charter mark on 27 October. The items mentioned were issued to agency staff to mark the occasion and to remind them of the charter principles. The total cost was £3,970, or £0·90 per head. The agency has contractually committed some £300,000 to the end of October to consultancy support for its current market-testing programme. This includes support for in-house teams such as the recent successful bid for the security guard work at the agency's Swansea headquarters.

  Highways Agency
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff are currently employed at each location of the Highways Agency; and what are the projected site costs for the current year of each location(a) in total and (b) as a figure per whole time equivalent staff.

  Mr. Key
  The Highways Agency will not be in existence until April 1994; the following figures relate to the highways safety and traffic command of the Department of Transport. These figures therefore cover both staff who will become part of the agency and others who will remain in the central part of the Department.

  The current staff numbers and pay budgets are:

  Staff numbers

  £million

  Construction Programme Division Operating Units

  South Eastern, Dorking

  157

  Eastern, Bedford

  123·5

  North Western, Manchester

  84

  West Midlands, Birmingham

  105

  Yorkshire and Humberside, Leeds

  91·6

  South Western, Bristol

  66

  East Midlands, Nottingham

  30·1

  Motorway Widening Unit, Coventry

  143·5

  21

  Staff numbers

  £million

  —

  Total staff numbers

  800·7

  Total pay budget

  18·255

  Network Management and Maintenance Operating Units

  South Eastern, Dorking

  97

  Eastern, Bedford

  125

  North Western, Manchester

  94·5

  West Midlands, Birmingham

  107·5

  Yorks and Humberside, Leeds

  86

  South Western, Bristol

  108

  East Midlands, Nottingham

  112

  Northern, Newcastle

  57

  Total staff numbers

  787

  Total pay budget

  16·588

  London Regional Office

  251

  Total pay budget

  6·756

  Traffic Area Offices

  449·5

  Total pay budget

  6·943

  Headquarters Directorates

  872·3

  Total pay budget

  23·492

  Staff numbers are recorded as either full time or percentages of full time; the pay budgets are, therefore, based on whole-time equivalent staff, and are set to cover expected requirements for the year as a whole.

HEALTH

  Specialised Services
  Dr. Liam Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what arrangements are being made to improve contracting arrangements for specialised services.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We have been reviewing arrangements for the contracting of specialised services and last week issued guidance to the service under cover of EL(93)98—"Contracting for Specialised Services"—copies of which are available in the Library.

  The guidance emphasises the need for purchasers, working closely with providers, to identify appropriate contracts covering needs, costs, quality and developmental issues to ensure the delivery of high-quality services to patients.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  ECOFIN Meeting
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what changes the ECOFIN meeting of 15 November made to the proposed amendments submitted to the Council by the European Parliament on the 1994 budget for the European Communities; and if he will make a statement on the outcome of the ECOFIN meeting.

  Sir John Cope
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on 19 November,Official Report, columns 4-6.

WALES

  Mr. W. J. Ravenscroft
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) how long Mr. W. J. Ravenscroft, the executive director of Clwyd health authority, and his assistant have been working for three days per week with the health service in Pembrokeshire; and when he expects their work to be concluded;

  (2) who is responsible for the salaries and expenses of Mr. W. J. Ravenscroft, the executive director—corporate management—of Clwyd health authority and his assistant during the period they have been working on the health service in Pembrokeshire;

  (3) what are the terms of reference issued to Mr. W. J. Ravenscroft, the executive director—corporate management—of Clwyd health authority and his assistant in their work within the health service in Pembrokeshire.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Mr. W. J. Ravenscroft is not associated with the service review which has been commissioned jointly by Pembrokeshire health authority and the Pembrokeshire NHS trust for completion by the end of the year. Questions about the review should be addressed to the commissioning bodies. All costs of the review are being contained within existing management budgets without detriment to patient care.

  Council Tax
  Mr. Hutton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many appeals against liability for the council tax have been made this year in Wales; what is the average length of time taken to hear these appeals; and what proportion of appeals was successful.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To mid-November, the eight valuation tribunals in Wales had received 36 liability appeals. Tribunals expect to deal with appeals within an average time of eight weeks from receipt. Appellants have been successful in four of the eight appeals dealt with to date.

  Housing Revenue Account Subsidy
  Mr. Richards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he will announce his proposals for housing revenue account subsidy for 1994–95; and what proposals he will be making.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The Welsh Office is consulting local authorities and other bodies on proposals for the rent guidelines and management and maintenance allowances to be used in calculating next year's entitlement to housing revenue account subsidy. I shall be placing a copy of the consultation papers in the Library of the House with a list of the estimated guidelines and allowances for each authority. The proposals are for an average guideline rent increase of £2·20 per week with a range of increases for individual authorities from £1·50 to £2·90 per week. The new average weekly guideline rent would be £31·30. For management and maintenance, it is proposed to increase allowances by an average of £31 per annum per dwelling over the 1993–94 level.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Banking
  Mr. Congdon
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what changes are proposed to the banking provisions of the Companies Act 1985.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  A consultative letter was issued on 17 November seeking comments on draft regulations to change some of the banking accounting provisions of the Companies Act 1985.

  The draft regulations would delete the definitions of the terms "banking activities" and "banking transactions" from schedule 9 to the Act. Banks would then, as they have sought, interpret the terms in the context of EC directive 86/635/EEC on the annual and consolidated accounts of banks and other financial institutions.

  The draft regulations would also ensure that the UK holding companies on non-UK banking subsidiaries disclose details of transactions such as loans or mortgages from the subsidiaries to staff in the same way as UK holding companies of UK banking subsidiaries.

  Comments should be made by 17 December.

  Insolvency Service
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when the hon. Member for Birkenhead may expect a reply from the Newcastle upon Tyne Insolvency Service office to his letters of 29 October and 10 November about Mr. A. Hemmings.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The official receiver at Newcastle replied to the hon. Member on 19 November 1993.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Register of Sports Sites
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage where the register of sports sites may be inspected; and which organisations have been given copies.

  Mr. Brooke
  Copies of the register of recreational land's database will be made available free of charge to the Sports Council, the Central Council of Physical Recreation, the National Playing Fields Association, local authority associations, local authorities, relevant professional organisations and relevant national governing bodies of sport.

  The Sports Council is establishing with these organisations whether they require the information on diskette or on paper. Until the database has been circulated, all inquiries concerning the register are directed through the Sports Council.

  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what was the cost to his Department of the register of sports sites.

  Mr. Brooke
  The Government's grant in aid to the Sports Council in 1991–92 included £500,000 to establish the register of recreational land.

EDUCATION

  English
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what percentage of respondents to the National Curriculum Council consultation on his proposals for the revision of attainment targets and programmes of study for English circled the strongly disagree option in each of the questions G1, G2, G3, G4 and G5.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Department does not have that level of detail because the consultation on the proposals for revisions to the English order was carried out by the National Curriculum Council. However, section 2 of NCC's consultation report, recently published by the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, does summarise the views expressed by respondents in general terms.

  Fitzherbert School, Brighton
  Mr. Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education whether the former Fitzherbert school site in Brighton has been sold.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  I understand from the City Technology Colleges Trust, which is the beneficial owner of this site, that a sale to Nuffield Nursing Homes Trust has been agreed. The price is commercially confidential.

  Primary Schools
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to improve the teaching of basic skills in primary schools.

  Mr. Patten
  I have today published, following wide consultation, a circular—DFE circular 14/93—which sets new standards for all courses of training for primary teachers. It requires students to spend more time on learning to teach the core subjects of the national curriculum, in particular the basic skills of reading and arithmetic. It also requires students to spend more time in schools, with serving teachers playing a full part in their training.

  The circular announces new plans to fund courses for classroom assistants, so that they can support the teaching and learning of basic skills in the primary classroom; such courses will be developed over the coming months and funded from September 1994.

  The circular, which has been sent to all primary schools, those offering primary teacher training, and other interested bodies, includes comprehensive criteria which all primary training courses must meet. The criteria cover the subject knowledge and teaching skills new teachers require to be effective in the classroom; the amount of time to be spent in schools, and on the study of core subjects and basic skills; and the need for serving teachers to be able to play a full part in planning and delivering training.

  The circular sets the new criteria in the context of the government's policies for primary education and teacher training. It supports the use of new course models to offer a variety of routes into teaching; including a six-subject, three-year BEd to prepare primary teachers for work across the curriculum. It encourages the use of the accreditation of prior learning to widen access to teaching for mature people without conventional qualifications.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Fisheries Council
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Fisheries Council held in Brussels on 22 November; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  I represented the United Kingdom at the Council of EC Fisheries Ministers held in Brussels on 22 November.

  The Council voted unanimously to agree the fish support prices for 1994. This was the only vote at this Council. The prices set reflect developments on the market, and the United Kingdom secured some adjustments to the Commission's proposals to reflect particular concerns of our industry. The United Kingdom also secured the continuance of the dual guide price system for herring, which is designed to enable the United Kingdom industry to take best advantage of EC market support mechanisms.

  The Council held a further discussion on the Commission's proposal for changes to the rules governing fishing by Spain and Portugal. The Commission's proposal was unsatisfactory to a majority of delegations including the United Kingdom. As a result, the Belgian presidency will be looking for an alternative way foward. I repeated my insistence that the eventual decision must respect member states' existing shares of available quotas—"relative stability"—and must not allow any increase in fishing effort. I also stressed my determination to find satisfactory arrangements to apply in the Irish box. Discussions will be taken up in the December Council at which time decisions may be reached on these matters.

  At the United Kingdom's request, the Council had a further discussion on industrial fishing. We received strong support from a number of member states to our request that the Commission should press ahead quickly with a thorough study of the subject including its possible effects on the marine ecosystem and marine mammals and birds. Pilot projects will be set up to study control and management problems on industrial fisheries. The Commission was asked to report back to the Council, if possible before 31 March 1994.

  The Council reached unanimous agreement in principle to adopt measures this year on standards for the minimum information to appear in all member states' fishing licences. More detailed aspects of the Commission's proposal on fishing licences and permits will be considered further during 1994.

  Agricultural Commodities, Trade and Food Production Directorate
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what were(a) capital expenditure and (b) running costs paid by her Department in 1992–93 in respect of the work of the agricultural commodities, trade and food production directorate on (i) the European Community, (ii) arable crops and alcoholic drinks, (iii) horticulture, plant protection and agricultural resources, (d) food, milk and marketing policy and (e) the meat group.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The information requested is as follows:26

  £ thousands

  Running costs

  Capital

  European Community

  1,123

  5

  Arable crops and alcoholic drinks

  1,494

  40

  Horticulture, plant protection and agricultural resources

  7,930

  64

  Food, milk and marketing policy

  2,689

  21

  Livestock products

  1,791

  22

  Deputy Secretary and staff

  130

  0

  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list the responsibilities of the agricultural commodities, trade and food production directorate in respect of(a) the European Community, (b) arable crops and alcoholic drinks, (c) horticulture, plant protection and agricultural resources, (d) food, milk and marketing policy and (e) the meat group.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The responsibilities are set out in columns 42 to 46 of the civil service year book 1993. However, since that was published, the plant health division, plant variety and seeds division and agricultural resource policy division have ceased to be part of this directorate.

  Set-aside
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in her discussions on the extension of the EC set-aside programme; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  At the meeting of Agriculture Ministers on 16 and 17 November, my right hon. Friend the Minister continued to press for a number of changes to the rules on set-aside under the arable area payments scheme, in particular to enable those who have set land aside for five years under the old five-year scheme to keep all that land in set-aside, to reduce the percentage requirement for mixtures of rotational and non-rotational set-aside below the 20 per cent. proposed and to allow arable land taken out of production under forestry and agri-environment schemes to count against a producer's set-aside requirement. It was not possible to reach decisions at the meeting though a compromise was discussed that would allow farmers finishing a five-year set-aside agreement to keep all that land in set-aside for a further five years. Discussion will resume at the December Council when I hope that agreement can be reached.

  Statistics
  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans she has to rationalise the collection of statistics by her Department.

  Mr. Jack
  The statistical needs of the Department are kept under constant review. A thorough review of each statistical survey is reported to Ministers every five years. These reviews, which examine the need for the information and whether it could be collected more efficiently, lead to continuing rationalisation of collection of statistics.

  Sediment Pollution
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what contribution her Department made to the recent European Commission study on sediment pollution in the EC.

  Mr. Jack
  I am not aware of any recent European Commission study on sediment pollution in the EC. My scientists are making a significant contribution to a study of sediment which is being undertaken on behalf of the Oslow-Paris convention.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Ethnic Monitoring
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of police forces operate ethnic monitoring procedures in respect of cautioning; and if he will list those police forces.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Forces are not required to collect data on the ethnic origin of those cautioned. We understand that around one third of police forces in England and Wales do so. The forces are:

  Bedfordshire

  Leicestershire

  Cleveland

  Northamptonshire

  Derbyshire

  Nottinghamshire

  Devon and Cornwall

  South Yorkshire

  Durham

  Staffordshire

  Gloucestershire

  Surrey

  Gwent

  West Mercia

  Hampshire

  West Yorkshire

  Kent

  Secure Training Centres
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he plans to take to ensure that children who will be held in secure training centres do not deliberately harm themselves.

  Mr. Maclean
  I fully recognise the importance of this issue. Providers of facilities for juveniles serving the custodial part of a secure training order will be required to develop and implement a suicide and self-harm awareness and prevention policy. This will be monitored by the Home Office.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much of the 25 hours per week lesson time which children at secure training centres will receive will be spent on education; and how much on vocational training.

  Mr. Maclean
  The figure of 25 hours per week lesson time was a suggested minimum in the outline draft specification for the delivery of the regime in a secure training centre. A number of comments were received on this and other aspects of the proposed regime. The minimum number of hours lesson time per week and the breakdown between education and vocational training are matters which are still under consideration. Our present intention is to retain flexibility so as to enable each trainee to follow a programme based on his or her individual needs.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what police and medical checks will be required of staff appointed to work in secure training centres.
  28
  Mr. Maclean
  The Government intend to ensure that a wide range of checks are made on staff who work in secure training centres. Staff who have a specific responsibility for the custody of detained juveniles will require a certificate issued by the Secretary of State.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to ensure that there is not an inappropriately high ratio of boys and girls in secure training centres.

  Mr. Maclean
  The secure training order will be a sentence available to the youth court for persistent juvenile offenders who meet statutory criteria. It will be the decision of the court as to who will be made the subject of an order. Facilities for both boys and girls will be available in each secure training centre.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) when he plans to announce a complaints and representation procedure for children who will be held in secure training centres;

  (2) if he will make it his policy that arrangements for representation of children held in secure training centres should be the same as those provided in the Children Act 1989 for children in secure accommodation.

  Mr. Maclean
  I am still considering with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health what provision should be made for a complaints and representation procedure for children held in the new centres.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to introduce a mandatory key worker scheme into secure training centres.

  Mr. Maclean
  We are currently considering whether it will be necessary to require agencies or organisation providers secure training centres to provide a key worker scheme.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy that secure training centres should not be sited an impractical distance away from hospital accident and emergency departments.

  Mr. Maclean
  No decision has been made on sites for secure training centres. A number of factors will be taken into consideration. These will include proximity to main centres of population.

  Persistent Offenders
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects the research commissioned by his Department from the Policy Studies Institute into persistent offenders to be completed.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Policy Studies Institute has completed fieldwork for the research commissioned by the Home Office into persistent juvenile offending, but on current information I do not expect to receive a final report before the new year.

  Deportation
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the circumstances in which drugs are used to sedate people who are being forcibly deported.
  29
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Drugs are not used to sedate people who are being deported. Any medication required by the deportee would be administered by a medically qualified person with the deportee's consent.

  Young Offenders
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when his Department hopes to introduce specialist training for staff working with juveniles in youth offender institutions.

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

  Letter from Mr. Derek Lewis to Mrs. Barbara Roche, dated November 1993:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about specialist training at Young Offender Institutions.
  Some specialist training for staff working with young offenders has already taken place at Lancaster Farms Young Offender Institution, under the guidance of the Trust for the Study of Adolescence. Pilot training based on this, to develop a distance learning pack for use in other YOIs is to take place in January. We plan to have the distance learning pack available for general use later in the year.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects that 16 and 17-year-olds who are sentenced to adult penalties will no longer be held with adults serving similar penalties.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The custodial penalties available for 16 and 17-year-olds are detention in a young offender institution—YOI—and detention under section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. Boys of this age sentenced to YOI are taken directly to a YOI with a juvenile unit, unless exceptionally they have to he held overnight at a remand centre or local prison because of travelling difficulties. Boys sentenced under section 53 may be held for a few weeks in a remand centre or local prison while a decision is taken as to where they should be allocated to serve their sentences. Girls of 16 and 17 may be held with other female young offenders in establishments which also hold adult women prisoners. This is considered to be the best option for holding them, in their own interests. There are no plans to alter these arrangements.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he plans to end remands of 15 and 16-year-olds to Prison Service establishments.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Government have enacted the necessary legislation to end the remand of 15 and 16-year-olds to Prison Service establishments and we have made additional capital provision available to local authorities so that they can provide an effective alternative. We will bring the new law into effect as soon as we are satisfied that local authorities have provided sufficient additional secure accommodation to meet the expected need.

  Criminal Justice Study
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects his Department's study of entry into the criminal justice system to report.
  30
  Mr. Maclean
  A first report on this study is expected in July 1994. This report will cover decisions made by the police about whether to charge or caution suspects arrested and held at police stations. The report will also contain information about the ethnic origin and gender of those arrested, the proportion dealt with as mentally disordered or handicapped offenders, and the extent of offending on bail.

  A further report on the study is expected to be available towards the middle of 1995. This will contain details of decisions made by the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to termination or continuance of proceedings and information about court outcomes and sentences.

  Siemion Serafinowicz
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to remove United Kingdom nationality from Siemion Serafinowicz; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  There is no record of Mr. Serafinowicz having acquired British citizenship.

  British National Party
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for a report from the Metropolitan police Commissioner over an assault by a British National party councillor against an Evening Standard reporter; and if he will refer the case for prosecution.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I understand from the Commissioner that the complainant in this case does not wish any further action to be taken and has declined to give evidence.

  Mr. Amanullah Khan
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when in May 1990 the United Kingdom National Central Bureau of Interpol received notification that the arrest of Amanullah Khan was requested by the Indian National Central Bureau of Interpol; and what description was given of Mr. Khan's nationality.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The notification was received on 25 May 1990. Mr. Khan's nationality was described by the Indian National Central Bureau of Interpol as"Indian and Citizen of Pakistan (not confirmed)".

  Plutonium Smuggling
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information or assistance his German counterpart sought from United Kingdom authorities in regard to the trial in Flensburg of British citizen Albert Derbyshire for smuggling and alleged attempt to sell stolen Russian plutonium.

  Mr. Maclean
  The United Kingdom Central Authority in the Home Office received a letter of request from the German authorities under the 1959 European convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters asking that witness summonses be served on five named people in this country for the purposes of the trial. This request was executed earlier this month.

EMPLOYMENT

  Disabled People
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what representations were made to him at his meeting on 20 October with the Royal National Institute for the Blind, Mencap, the Spinal Injuries Association, the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation and Deaf Accord to discuss his proposal to oblige employers to contribute 50 per cent. of the cost of providing services such as personal readers and special aids to employment for disabled people working with them for six months or longer; what reply he has made; what action he will be taking to revise the proposal; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what consultations he is having with the Employers' Forum on Disability and the CBI on his proposal to oblige employers to contribute 50 per cent. of the cost of providing services such as personal readers and special aids to employment for disabled people working with them for six months or longer.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The meeting on 20 October was called to discuss the new scheme "access to work" about which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a statement to the House on 22 June 1993,Official Report, column 102. It will replace and extend four of the Department's current special schemes and enable us to help more disabled people and meet a much wider range of their employment related needs. To help fund the extra costs we will expect employers to contribute 50 per cent. of the cost of help, up to a ceiling, to employees who enter the scheme after working for them six months or more.

  Members of the delegation welcomed the increased flexibility of access to work. They expressed concern about the willingness of employers to pay a contribution and the effects this would have on the employment of disabled people. My right hon. Friend sought to reassure them. Both current and previous research suggests that employers would be willing to make a reasonable contribution: my right hon. Friend pointed out that the limit on the employer contribution, and on individuals' entitlement, about which they also expressed concern, had yet to be set.

  My noble Friend Lord Henley met representatives from the Employers' Forum on Disability on 2 November to discuss access to work; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be meeting them on 9 December. The Department is currently in correspondence with the CBI on a number of issues including access to work. The Department has offered to meet the CBI at a suitable date.

  There are a number of issues on access to work on which my right hon. Friend has still to make decisions. In addition to the limits on individual entitlement and employer contributions, these include transitional arrangements for existing beneficiaries of the current special schemes, for how long those helped as new recruits will remain exempt from the employer contributions and whether there will be special arrangements for certain types of firm.

  Once my right hon. Friend has taken a decision on these areas, an announcement will be made to the House.

PRIME MINISTER

  War Veterans
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will take steps to assist British war veterans attending the D-day commemorations in Brittany to stay in the hotels in which their bookings have been made.

  The Prime Minister
  I am aware that some of the hotel reservations made by British veterans wishing to attend the D-Day commemorations in France in 1994 have been cancelled by French hoteliers. I am pleased to say that, following an approach by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, the French authorities have established an office in Caen to deal with all queries concerning accommodation in Normandy. The address of the office is:Comite Departmental du Tourism du Calvados
  Place du Canada
  1400 CAEN
  France
  (Telephone: 010-33-31-86-53-30)
  (Fax: 010-33-31-79-39-41)

  Weapons Proliferation
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will set out the policies Her Majesty's Government intend to implement to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

  The Prime Minister
  We will continue to oppose the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by strongly supporting the unconditional and indefinite extension of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and by working towards the effective implementation of the chemical weapons convention and the strengthening of the biological weapons convention. We will continue to press for universal membership of these agreements and to give vigorous support to the related export control regimes.

  Housing Associations
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will initiate an inter-departmental review of the relationship between housing association grant rates and benefit entitlements to identify the impact of varying marginal rates of tax and benefit on both housing associations and their tenants, to reduce numbers dependant on benefit and the poverty trap.

  The Prime Minister
  Ministers and officials in the Departments of the Environment and of Social Security already work closely together in those areas to ensure that the interaction between the different subsidy systems is fully understood and appreciated. A formal working group has now been established to discuss this and other issues relating to housing and benefits policy on a regular basis.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy towards Cyprus.

  The Prime Minister
  The Government continue to support the United Nations Secretary-General's initiative, which we believe offers the best hope for a just and lasting solution to the Cyprus dispute. We hope that the two sides will be able to resume negotiations in New York soon after elections in northern Cyprus on 12 December.

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister how many documents his office has provided to Lord Justice Scott's inquiry into arms sales to Iraq since 23 November 1992; what has been the cost of document provision; how many civil servants in his office have been involved in assisting Lord Justice Scott with documents; how many have attended the inquiry; and which documents requested have been withheld.

  The Prime Minister
  My office has provided 184 documents to Lord Justice Scott's inquiry, doing so, for administrative reasons, via the Cabinet Office. No documents have been withheld. Up to six officials were involved in the compilation of the documents, and the costs incurred by both Departments has been approximately £800 in total. One Cabinet Office official has attended each hearing of the inquiry.

  Crime Prevention
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Prime Minister which ministers are currently members of the ministerial group on crime prevention.

  The Prime Minister
  The current membership of the ministerial group on crime prevention is as follows:Chairman, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Charles Wardle MP, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (The noble Lord Astor)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Tony Baldry MP, the hon. Member for Banbury)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (John Bowis MP, the hon. Member for Battersea)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education (Eric Forth MP, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire)
  Minister of State, Scottish Office (The noble Lord Fraser of Carmyllie)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Welsh Office (Gwilym Jones MP, the hon. Member for Cardiff, North)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Robert Key MP, the hon. Member for Salisbury)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Patrick McLoughlin MP, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West)
  Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Anthony Nelson MP, the hon. Member for Chichester)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of National Heritage (Iain Sproat MP, the hon. Member for Harwich)
  Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Sir John Wheeler MP, the right hon. Member for Westminster, North)
  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Employment Department (Ann Widdecombe MP, the hon. Member for Maidstone)

  Baroness Thatcher
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Prime Minister whether the additional security costs arising from Baroness Thatcher's book-signing tour were borne by the police forces or by Government.

  The Prime Minister
  Any such costs will be met in the usual way from the police fund. Specific grant at the rate of 51 per cent. is paid by the Home Office on police expenditure.

  Engagements
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 23 November.

  The Prime Minister
  This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Chamber Carpet
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Chairman of the Accommodation and Works Committee what was the cost and place of manufacture of the recent replacement of carpet in the Chamber of the House; how long it had been there; in what way it was disposed of and for what price; what plans exist for replacing the carpet in the remainder of the Chamber; and how much this is expected to cost.

  Mr. Ray Powell
  This is a matter for the Director of Works and I shall ask him to write to the hon. Member.

  All-party Groups
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee which all-party groups receive funds or are serviced by outside organisations; and if he will list the organisation in each case.

  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  I refer the hon. Member to the Register of All-Party and Parliamentary Groups which is maintained by the Registry of Members' Interests in accordance with the resolution of the House of 17 December 1985. The Register is available for inspection by Members in the Registry and the Library.

  Parliamentary Broadcasting
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will discuss with Westminster Cable the possibilities for cabling hon. Members' offices with the parliamentary channel at the same time as they cable the SW1 area, outside the Palace of Westminster.

  Mr. Waller
  I have been asked to reply as Chairman of the Information Committee. Any provision of such services would need to await decisions on the proposed parliamentary data and video network, on which the Committee hopes to report early next year.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much was spent on official hospitality in his Department in the first six months of financial year 1993–94.

  Mr. Hague
  The provisional figure for the first six months of the financial year 1993–94 is £97,000.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will give the main headings of the money spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1992–93.
  35
  Mr. Hague
  The main headings were: ministerial hospitality; Minister of State's reception in honour of organisations representing disabled people; official hospitality.

  Parking Fines
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much has been spent on parking fines by his Department in each of the last three financial years.

  Mr. Hague
  The information is not available. Responsibility for parking fines rests with the driver; however, when fines are unavoidably incurred during the undertaking of official duties, management may, exceptionally, consider reimbursement.

  Ministerial Offices
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much has been spent on decorating and furnishing Ministers' offices in his Department in each of the last three financial years.

  Mr. Hague
  There has been no such expenditure on Ministers' personal accommodation in any of the last three financial years.

  France (Official Visits)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the purpose and place of each of the visits to France by officials of his Department in the financial year 1992–93.

  Mr. Hague
  Information for the Department as a whole is not available in the form requested. Details of departmental headquarters official visits to France in 1992–93 are in the table.

  Reason/host

  Place

  Number of visits

  Council of Europe

  Paris

  1

  Council of Europe

  Strasbourg

  7

  Training

  Paris

  3

  Liaison with French officials

  Paris

  3

  OECD

  Paris

  4

  Beveridge conference

  Strasbourg

  1

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much has been spent by his Department on officials travelling to France in the first six months of the financial year 1993–94.

  Mr. Hague
  Information is not available in the form requested and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. From 1 April 1993, the company that arranges travel for departmental officials keeps records by mode of travel rather than by destination.

SCOTLAND

  Norwegian Salmon
  Mr. Charles Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what further representations to the European Commission he has made following his meeting with industry representatives, in respect of the entry of Norwegian salmon into the Union; what response he has received; and if he will make a statement.
  36
  Sir Hector Monro
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland wrote to the European Commission on 16 November expressing concern about the current market situation, welcoming discussions which were taking place between the Commission and the Norwegian Government, and asking the Commission to take appropriate action.

  The Commission has now introduced minimum import prices with effect from 20 November 1993 until the end of January 1994. This will provide a temporary floor to the market while the longer-term problems facing the industry are addressed.

  The Commission has also invited the industry to update the information they have submitted in support of allegations of dumping by Norwegian exporters. I would encourage the industry to provide this information as soon as possible so that the Commission is in a position to proceed with an investigation.

  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) when he expects to announce what action the United Kingdom Government are taking in response to complaints from Scottish salmon farmers about the dumping of Norwegian salmon on United Kingdom and EC markets;

  (2) what action he is taking to safeguard United Kingdom salmon producers from the effects of Norwegian salmon being dumped on United Kingdom and EC markets.

  Sir Hector Monro
  I have been asked to reply.

  Allegations of dumping of farmed salmon on the European market by Norwegian importers are a matter for the European salmon farming industry to take up with the European Commission. The Scottish industry made such allegations in 1991 and the Commission has recently asked the industry to update the information provided on that occasion. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has encouraged the industry to provide this information to the Commission as soon as possible so that the Commission is in a position to proceed with an investigation.

DEFENCE

  Departmental Land
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the total land area in the United Kingdom currently under MOD control.

  Mr. Hanley
  The defence estate in the United Kingdom is approximately 243,000 hectares—600,000 acres—of freehold and leasehold land.

  Hercules
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he proposes to take to ensure that the Royal Air Force shall be equipped with a new aircraft to replace the Hercules; and when he expects the first of such aircraft to enter squadron service.

  Mr. Aitken
  We are currently evaluating options for both refurbishment of the existing aircraft and purchase of new aircraft. A final decision will be taken on the basis of the option which offers best value for money.
  37
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when invitations to tender for the Hercules replacement programme are to be provided to contractors; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  We are currently studying the alternatives of extending the life of our existing Hercules fleet or replacing them with new aircraft. We will come to a decision on the way ahead when we have evaluated the results of these studies.

  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence by what date he proposes to issue invitations to submit tenders for the Hercules replacement; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  We are currently evaluating options for both refurbishment of the existing aircraft and purchase of new aircraft. A final decision will be taken on the basis of which option offers best value for money.

  Civilian Career Opportunities
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what advice his Department is giving to service men and women who will be leaving as part of the "Options for Change" policy concerning alternative career opportunities in civilian life.

  Mr. Hanley
  The Ministry of Defence provides a comprehensive resettlement service for all service leavers including redundees. These include a range of briefings on specific careers and job search workshops which have been designed particularly with redundees in mind. Practical help with job finding is provided by the services employment network.

  Trident
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what savings will accrue from reducing the number of warheads on the Trident missile programme; and what proportion of this may be reinvested in armed services numbers and duties.

  Mr. Rifkind
  Changes in the number of warheads have only modest financial implications, and do not affect the armed service's numbers and duties.

  Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what sanctions exist for breaches of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

  Mr. Hanley
  There are no formal sanctions associated with breaches of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Alleged breaches may be considered on a case-by-case basis by the United Nations Security Council.

  Eurofighter
  Mr. Hawkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he next plans to meet the Spanish defence Minister to discuss the progress of the Eurofighter 2000.

  Mr. Aitken
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Robinson) earlier today.

  South China Seas
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether, and where, provision will be made for the basing of British forces in the South China seas after the withdrawal from Hong Kong.

  Mr. Hanley
  We have already agreed with the government of Brunei to continue the deployment of the Gurkha battalion in Brunei until 1998. Consideration will be given to a further extension in due course. We shall continue to participate in exercises held in Malaysia and Singapore under the five-power defence arrangements and make occasional naval deployments to the region.

  Spare Parts
  Mr. Heppell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the future provision of spare parts for the armed forces.

  Mr. Aitken
  My Department will continue to ensure the adequate provision of spare parts for the armed forces so they can fully meet their agreed defence objectives.

  Market Testing
  Mr. Sykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what benefits he expects to flow from his Department's market-testing programmes; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  Experience suggests that the competitive pressures of market testing will produce savings of between 20 and 25 per cent. of running costs, regardless of whether the service is contractorised or retained in-house. The process provides an oppotunity to reassess the use of resources to give better service to the customer and better value for money.

  Germany (Force Withdrawals)
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his estimate of the saving to the defence budget from withdrawing British forces from Germany.

  Mr. Hanley
  Over the period 1990–91 to 1995–96, the defence budget, excluding the cost of the Gulf conflict and redundancies, is expected to reduce by around 12 per cent. in real terms. While the operating cost of maintaining British forces in Germany is expected to reduce by around £500 million in real terms between 1991–92 and 1993–94, it is not possible to identify separately the savings of withdrawing British forces from Germany.

  Belize
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he wil review Her Majesty's Government's present defence commitment to Belize.

  Mr. Hanley
  By agreement between the Government of Belize and Her Majesty's Government, the Belize defence force will assume responsibility for the defence of Belize on 1 January 1994. We see no reason to change these plans.

  Yugoslavia
  Mr. Patrick Thompson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many British troops are now deployed in the former Yugoslavia; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) earlier today.

  Contracts
  Mr. Bryan Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he is taking to ensure that a high proportion of defence contracts is awarded to British firms.

  Mr. Aitken
  In order to achieve the best value for money, wherever possible, we place contracts by means of open competition. British companies have proved highly competitive to the extent that, over the past five years, we estimate that 91 per cent. of defence equipment expenditure was spent with United Kingdom industry.

  Reserve Forces
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the relative state of readiness for active service of the regular reserves and the Territorial Army.

  Mr. Hanley
  Members of both the regular reserve and the Territorial Army require a period of special-to-role training in advance of deployment on active service. The amount of training required depends on the role and nature of the units in which the reservists concerned would serve.

  Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich
  Mr. Austin-Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement regarding the timetable for withdrawal of his Department from the Queen Elizabeth military hospital in Woolwich.

  Mr. Hanley
  Current plans are for a withdrawal by March 1998. We are holding discussions with the NHS about the Greenwich healthcare trust progressively taking over the hospital in advance of this date.

  Dockyards
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will agree to provide a contractual guarantee of work to both Rosyth and Devonport dockyards.

  Mr. Aitken
  The Government have not ruled out the possibility that some form of contractual commitment relating to future refitting work could be included as one of the matters for negotiation with tenderers for the dockyards.

  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 provisions will apply to the employees of the royal dockyards following full privatisation.

  Mr. Aitken
  This will depend upon the particular circumstances of the proposed sale. However, my Department will honour any obligations on it arising from the relevant employment legislation.
  40
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the Government will guarantee the pensions and redundancy entitlements of the royal dockyards' employees after full privatisation.

  Mr. Aitken
  Terms and conditions of employment at the royal dockyards remain a matter for negotiation between the work forces—or their representatives—and their respective employers.

  Defence Diversification
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to encourage defence diversification.

  Mr. Aitken
  The Government's policy is that decisions on how to adapt to changing market circumstances, and what products to make, are for the commercial judgment of companies.

  The Department of Trade and Industry provides advice and assistance to companies who may be considering diversification, including a recently published handbook called "Changing Tack". That Department, together with the Department of Employment, also administers the United Kingdom participation in the EC Konver programme, which is designed to assist regions affected by the decline in the armaments industry and the closure of military bases.

  Shipbuilding and Refitting
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the dialogue over an industrial policy for shipbuilding and ship refitting will commence.

  Mr. Aitken
  The Government believe that industry is best placed to take the decisions necessary for its own success. My Department is, however, seeking to promote greater awareness of our likely future requirements through regular and continuing dialogue with industry.

  MV Belvaux
  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what date, for what purpose and for how many days MV Belvaux was chartered by his Department; what nature of cargo the vessel was intended to carry; for how many of the days chartered the vessel was employed on other tasks for his Department; when the charter was cancelled; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  The MV Belvaux was taken up on time charter on 26 January 1993 against a contingency of transporting artillery units at short notice to reinforce the troops deployed by Bosnia. The charter lasted for 117 days and was relinquished on 22 May 1993 once developments in the former republic of Yugoslavia justified its termination. During the period of the time charter it was possible to make 23 days' use of the vessel for other purposes without compromising availability for the primary contingency task.

  Small Arms Nitro Compound
  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has on the facilities available in the United Kingdom for the manufacture of small arms nitro compound; from which foreign countries it is imported; and if he will make a statement.
  41
  Mr. Aitken
  My Department does not purchase small arms ammunition propellant separately but procures the complete ammunition round from a prime contractor. It is for the prime contractor to decide on the source of the propellant used in his ammunition and to ensure that it meets the appropriate technical and performance standards. The capability to produce nitro-cellulose and nitroglycerine for small arms ammunition does exist in the United Kingdom.

  Channel Islands
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement over remaining documents in his Department relating to the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands; and if such documents have now been seen by the German authorities.

  Mr. Hanley
  There are very few closed documents relating to the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands. The German authorities' investigations are proceeding with MOD giving every assistance, including sight of the relevant files. The closed documents will be released on completion of the German inquiries.

  Royal Tournament and Edinburgh Tattoo
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the current level of support from the services and from civilian staff of his Department for(a) the royal tournament, (b) the Edinburgh tattoo and (c) other similar scale events, showing the additional attributable cost; what plans he has to reduce that level of support; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  The 1992 royal tournament, the most recent for which detailed figures are readily available, required support of about 19,500 man days of effort from service personnel, excluding participants. The 1993 tournament was reduced in length from 29 to 20 performances, with a consequent reduction in effort. There are no MOD civilian staff directly employed on royal tournament tasks. The additional attributable costs—that is, costs which would not otherwise have been incurred, amounted to approximately £350,000 in 1992.

  The 1993 Edinburgh tattoo required support of a little over 5,000 man days of effort from service personnel, excluding participants. Some MOD civilian staff worked overtime in support of the tattoo and a number of casual cleaners were hired for its duration. The total attributable costs were some £60,000.

  There are no other events comparable to the royal tournament and the Edinburgh tattoo.

  There are no plans at present for further reductions in support to these events.

  Nuclear Warheads
  Mr. Hutton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has on the number of nuclear warheads which have been destroyed by the Russian Government under the provisions of the START 2 treaty.

  Mr. Hanley
  The START 2 treaty has not yet come into effect and cannot legally do so until START 1 enters into force. Therefore, no nuclear warheads have been destroyed by the Russian Government as a result of the terms of the START 2 treaty.

  Mr. David Hart
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the purpose of Mr. David Hart's visit to RAF Strike Command on 27 May; how long the visit lasted; and whom he met.

  Mr. Hanley
  Mr. David Hart was invited by the Chief of the Air Staff to receive a briefing on the role and organisation of RAF Strike Command in the context of an article written by Mr. Hart in The Spectator magazine published in February 1993. During a half-day visit, Mr. Hart met the Commander in Chief and a number of his senior staff.

  Search and Rescue
  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has for the future of the search-and-rescue services at RAF Chivenor; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  The Wessex search-and-rescue—SAR—flight at RAF Chivenor is planned to be replaced by the Sea King SAR flight from RAF Brawdy in April 1994. This decision will be looked at again in light of the decision which I announced on 11 November, to move a battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers into temporary accommodation at RAF Brawdy from August 1994, and once the outcome of the review into the rationalisation of RAF flying training stations is known.

  Market Testing
  Mr. Stephen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the size of his Department's market-testing programme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  We intend to market test, in the four years to March 1996, activities currently costing £1·2 billion each year to undertake in-house and employing over 40,000 people.

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

The Lord Chancellor: Leave of Absence
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, before the commencement of business I take the opportunity to inform the House that with the approval of Her Majesty the Queen I am to visit Egypt on official business at the invitation of the Minister of Justice and to sign the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the dates of Monday, 29th November and Friday, 3rd December.
Accordingly, I trust that the House will agree to grant me leave of absence from Monday 29th November to Thursday 2nd December.

Norwegian Farmed Salmon: Prices
2.37 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether Norwegian farmed salmon are being offered for sale in the United Kingdom at prices less than the cost of production and transport; and if so, what action they are taking.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie): My Lords, allegations of dumping of farmed salmon on the European market by Norwegian importers are a matter for the European salmon farming industry to take up with the European Commission. The Scottish industry made such allegations in 1991 and the Commission has recently asked the industry to update the information provided on that occasion. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has encouraged the industry to provide this information to the Commission as soon as possible so that the Commission is in a position to proceed with an investigation.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend for that reply. While the Commission's very recent action on the minimum price should hold the position temporarily, will the British Government strive to obtain a long-term solution without which many salmon farms in this country face closure? Will the reminder be added that it behoves Norway, as an applicant for membership, to adopt a responsible attitude?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, certainly, on the latter point. The Government welcome the decision taken on 20th November by the European Commission to introduce minimum import prices. That is to put a temporary floor on the market and does not get in the way of the longer-term investigation of dumping. The
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Scottish Office has recently been encouraging the industry to set about the voluntary development of producer organisations. I trust that that will assist in reducing the market imbalances that undoubtedly exist.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, is the Minister aware that Norway produced 180,000 tonnes of salmon this past year, which was 40,000 tonnes more than predicted? Is the Minister further aware that that figure will rise to 220,000 tonnes next year? Is he also aware that the Norwegians have been dumping 5,000 tonnes of salmon per week on the European market and that that is having a shattering effect on the Scottish fish farming industry? Is it not a fact that Ireland, which is suffering just as much as Scotland, applied to the Commission for emergency action? I gather that Her Majesty's Government did not support that application. Can the Minister say why not?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, prima facie there certainly appears to be an indication that the Norwegians are dumping salmon on the market. But it is for that reason that the Government are urging the Scottish industry to provide evidence to support that allegation. In answer to the second part of the noble Lord's question, he is of course correct that Ireland made an Article 24 application to the Commission seeking an investigation. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland wrote to the Commission supporting the investigation which is now under way.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that last May Scottish civil servants went to Norway and spent three days discussing salmon fishing and farming with the Norwegians, particularly with the Norwegian fishing interests. Can the Minister tell the House whether, following up that long three-day discussion, we are any closer to a European salmon market with Norway and an understanding which will get rid of the suspicion that there is a certain amount of dumping by the Norwegians?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, as I indicated, the temporary solution is the introduction of minimum import prices. That is a position which will obtain until the end of January next year. What is important is to secure clear, unequivocal evidence of dumping. I trust that that evidence will now be provided to the European Commission. Some action was taken in 1991. The noble Lord is correct in that we want to pursue the matter to ensure that there is a fair and proper market within Europe which does not suffer the taint of dumping.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, can my noble and learned friend say why the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice has not been invoked to seek to obtain a temporary restraining order pending full and further investigation?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I am indicating that we are at the stage when it is necessary for the European Commission to secure evidence of the dumping which has been alleged not only by Scottish salmon fish farmers but also by the Irish. Once that evidence is available and in place a clear and complete

129
picture will be available. After that it will be for the Commission to decide what further action is appropriate.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the Minister say what other evidence is needed?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, the situation at the moment is that there is a clear indication of a considerable volume of fish coming to the market from Norway. There is also a clear indication that there has been a significant increase in production in Scotland and Ireland as well. It is more difficult to determine precisely, on the basis of the evidence available at present, just what is the extent of the dumping. However, as I indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Mason, prima facie there appears to be such evidence.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I am one of those people who go round the markets and see salmon for sale "off the block", as it is called, and that I have not seen any signs of salmon being labelled "Norwegian"? Are we being sold Norwegian salmon as Scottish salmon? I have never yet seen a label on a fish stall depicting the salmon to be Norwegian. It is all depicted as Scottish.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I hope that the source is clearly identified. That is one of the proper concerns of the Scottish industry because its reputation for quality is that much greater. That is evidenced by the fact that in both Germany and France, where Scottish-farmed salmon is on the market, it tends to attract a premium.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord said—did he not?—that it is up to the Commission to take action. Are we to take it from that that it is not possible for the Member of the Council of Ministers representing the United Kingdom to take any action at all in the meantime?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, if the noble Lord had listened to me he would have appreciated that action has been taken by a member state—namely, Ireland—in making its application under Article 24 of the appropriate regulations. What I indicated in answer to an earlier question was that by the time my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland wrote to the Commission that investigation by the Commission was already underway. That would seem to be appropriate.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that where national or international anti-dumping legislation is concerned it is always difficult and takes time for non-governmental organisations, such as trade associations, and for individuals (whether they be fish farmers or traders in any other business) to obtain the necessary facts to allege absolutely clearly what they know to be happening?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I appreciate that there are difficulties. That is one of the reasons why
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the Government have been encouraging fish farmers in Scotland to band together in producer organisations. One of the desirable consequences of that is that they should then be in a much better position to provide the necessary information and evidence to the Commission so that it can take appropriate action where there is such evidence of dumping.

Arts Funding
2.46 p.m.
Lord Donoughue Lord Donoughue asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their present and future policy towards maintaining financial support for the arts.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, this Government remain fully committed to ensuring that artistic activity in Britain can flourish. Details of future funding levels will be settled in the light of the Statement to be made by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 30th November.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. However, does she recall that the Conservatives' general election manifesto in 1992 stated—she will find the relevant passage on page 45 in words slightly different from "flourish"—that the Government will maintain support for the arts? Is she further aware that at this moment at Westminster there is a mass demonstration of representatives of all parts of the arts who are deeply concerned that financial support for the arts is about to be cut? Can she assure them through the House that financial support will be maintained as promised? Or is that just another election promise to be broken?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, certainly not. The Government have amply demonstrated their commitment to the arts. Funding for the Arts Council this year is over 40 per cent. higher in real terms than in 1979–80. But no sector can be immune from the current necessary public expenditure restraint. I am rather surprised that the noble Lord is not attending the meeting that is taking place this afternoon.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I welcome the assurance that my noble friend has given. Is she aware, however, that it is reported today that the Arts Council is to be given £5 million less than it receives at present? Is there any substance in that report? If so, why is it being done?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the Government have announced planning figures one year ahead. It is true that a £4.7 million, or 2 per cent., cut for the Arts Council was announced, but we must await the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Statement.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say whether the remark that she has just made may be regarded as hopeful? Is she really telling us that the £5 million cut will not, in fact, take place? Can we take that as an indication that we are worrying too much? What is the position? Will she tell us?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I do not know what the noble Lord assumes. I seldom know what the noble Lord assumes. The planning figure that was announced last year, which I mentioned a moment ago, indicates a 2 per cent. reduction for the Arts Council. But there will always be calls for more money for the arts, as for any area of public expenditure.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a few years ago a study by the Policy Studies Institute demonstrated that investment in the arts earned a substantial surplus on the balance of payments for Britain? In those circumstances, will the Government undertake to comrnission an independent study to discover what is the rate of return to Britain on investment in the arts? Does she agree that it would be irrational to reduce investment in the arts if that investment yields the substantial balance of payments return that the PSI identified?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that arts spending helps to enhance the nation's quality of life arid benefits the economy, not least through encouraging tourism. As I said, the Government will continue to fund the arts, the level of funding to be determined in the context of overall public expenditure planning.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, are the Government aware that the Arts Council is being obliged to cut off the grant for two of London's four great orchestras, although the saving would be only half of 1 per cent. of total arts expenditure? Would it not be better, in these days of stringency and government cuts, if the Arts Council were to cut its own administrative costs which are now running at the high figure of 9 per cent.?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the Government are doing their best to cut administrative costs. Ministers maintain an arm's length relationship with the Arts Council and do not intervene in matters of artistic judgment. It is therefore for the Arts Council to determine its own artistic policies and priorities and, consequently, the allocation of funding to individual arts organisations.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, will the Government's policy for the arts in the future contain some remuneration for the chairman of the Arts Council? Does the Minister agree that the job now takes at least three or four days' work a week and that the only person who can possibly fulfil that task is a tycoon or retired tycoon?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, that is entirely a matter for my right honourable friend. My only hope is that if it were to be a tycoon it would be an artistic tycoon.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the major contribution to our national life made by the commercial theatre, a sector that receives no subsidy and is supported entirely by people who are known as angels? I must declare an interest in that I am one of those people, surprising as it may seem.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, that is a new one. The rapid growth of business sponsorship in recent years, encouraged by the Government's business sponsorship incentive scheme, means that last year an additional £57.5 million went to the arts. That, for my money, is not to be sneezed at.

EC Draft Legislation: Scrutiny by Members
2.53 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will take steps to ensure that all proposals for European Community legislation are made available to Members of both Houses of Parliament on request in sufficient time prior to consideration by the Council of Ministers, or, where a Commission decision is sufficient, prior to enactment, to allow proper parliamentary scrutiny to take place.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, under existing scrutiny arrangements, all draft Community legislation is deposited in both Houses of Parliament within two working days of receipt in London. The Government will continue to press the Commission and the Council Secretariat to produce English language versions of documents as quickly as possible.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, that Answer is satisfactory as far as it goes. Is the Minister aware that one of the most important pieces of legislation sent to the UK from Brussels relates to the European budget? Is he aware that the preliminary draft budget for 1994, which involves the UK in a gross liability, after abatement, of over £6 billion, was discussed in the plenary session of the European Parliament on 24th May, with the exception of the budget for the Parliament, which was discussed on 22nd June? Yet it was not possible for the documents to be here in time for them to be examined adequately before the Recess. Is the Minister further aware that, even on a cursory, let alone a detailed, examination, the whole budget betrays a squandermania that is foreign to our traditions of control of expenditure?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the second part of the noble Lord's question has little to do with the Question on the Order Paper. As regards the first part of his question, I can only refer him to the letter that my noble friend Lord Caithness sent to him on 9th November this year, in which he made it clear that he was arranging in the future for copies of the overview of the 1994 budget to be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. In future years the Government will ensure that the overview is made available to Parliament, provided that it is produced sufficiently in advance of the formal preliminary draft budget publication, which will be in mid-June. He also added that the 1994 preliminary draft budget which came out in mid-June was made available

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to both Houses on 2nd July of this year. My noble friend gave an assurance that that would be the case in the future.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, while there is no legitimate criticism of Her Majesty's Government's handling of this matter, it is disturbing that a great deal of European legislation does not reach Members of either House in this country until it has been practically enacted? Will Her Majesty's Government take a firm line with the Commission and insist that proposed legislation is circulated to this country and to other countries well in advance so that Parliament can consider whether the proposals are right or wrong?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend makes a valid point. That is why only yesterday my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer emphasised the importance of both Houses of Parliament and all other legislatures having sufficient time to scrutinise adequately all legislation. I can give my noble friend the assurance that we shall continue to press the Commission to make available to us all documents as soon as possible. We shall then make them available to both Houses of Parliament within two days.
Lord Richard: My Lords, is the Minister aware that he is wrong so far as concerns the Commission in this respect? If his noble friend is right in his criticism he should direct it to the Council of Ministers and not the Commission. As I understand the position, when there is a draft proposal by the Commission it goes to the Council of Ministers, and then it comes here. I also understand that, if the Council of Ministers then alters it, it is for the Council of Ministers to send it here. So if there is criticism that the documents are not getting here, it should be addressed to the right body; namely, the Council of Ministers, upon which representatives of Her Majesty's Government sit.
Lord Henley: My Lords, if I was wrong I apologise to the House. I was trying to make it clear that Her Majesty's Government believe that both Houses of Parliament should have adequate time to scrutinise the documents. We shall continue to press that those documents arrive with us to give adequate time for them to be scrutinised. We shall then make them available to both Houses of Parliament within two days of their receipt.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the Minister has given a great many assurances, but he must be aware that hundreds of regulations and directives have been passed by the Council of Ministers without ever having been discussed in Parliament, and, indeed, in many cases without the regulations even having been seen by Parliament. Is not that the reason why we had the spectacle yesterday of the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking for more time to implement the water directive because the Government had underestimated the cost by no less than £8 billion? Had Parliament had the opportunity properly to discuss that directive, I feel sure
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that Parliament, which has to raise the money (I suppose the customers have to pay that), would have been alerted. As it is, we are faced with this enormous problem caused by lack of discussion by Parliament.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not accept the premise underlying the noble Lord's question. I believe that there is adequate scrutiny of all matters relating to Europe coming before this House. Obviously not every item of legislation has to be scrutinised by both Houses of Parliament. In the case of this House, all items go to the noble Lord's noble friend, the Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees, who will then make a sift as to which ones will go to which appropriate European sub-committee. Those sub-committees will then consider the matters, and then, if appropriate, and if the usual channels think it appropriate, they will come before this House for it to consider them. I believe that that is an adequate system of scrutiny for European legislation. This House and another place probably have as good a record as any legislature in the Community in terms of examining European legislation.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, as regards important legislation such as the European Community budget, to which I have referred, it is most desirable that, if necessary, the Select Committee of this House examines the budget well in advance and is able to examine witnesses in support of some of the items? Will the Minister give the House an undertaking that in future and prior to the enactment of the European budget there will be adequate time for its contents to be considered by the Select Committee and to call witnesses in relation to the items which are contained in it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I too accept the importance of the budget. However, what the noble Lord and I and others consider to be adequate might be somewhat different. All I can do is to repeat the assurances given by my noble friend Lord Caithness that in future these documents will be put in front of the House in adequate time to allow the House and the noble Lord to scrutinise them.

State Schools: Sports Fields
3 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve Baroness Macleod of Borve asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many state schools have sold off all, or part, of their sports fields.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, this information is not collected by the department. Responsibility for deciding whether to retain or to dispose of school playing fields rests with local education authorities and the governing bodies of self-governing schools.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. It is very disappointing. Do the Government agree that physical, competitive education is vital to the upbringing and welfare of the young people of this country?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, the Government's commitment to the importance of physical education is shown by its inclusion as one of the 10 foundation subjects in the national curriculum.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in a debate in this House a few months ago my noble friend Lord Donoughue drew attention to the fact that the Government had set aside £76 million for Manchester should it be successful in its bid to hold the Olympic Games? My noble friend asked a pertinent question which was not answered; namely, whether the Government would make that sum of money available to the lower echelons of sport if the Manchester bid was not successful. Unfortunately, Manchester was not successful. Is it not now reasonable to make available that £76 million to those at the bottom end of the sporting pyramid in order to prevent local schools from selling off some of their sports grounds? Is the Minister aware that there are innumerable cases of schools selling off desirable sports fields in order to keep their heads above water?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, the noble Lord's question about Manchester is a little wide of the Question on the Order Paper. The question of whether schools should dispose of parts of their playing fields is for the authorities which are in charge of those schools. In most cases they are the LEAs. The department is aware of only about 130 cases in which schools have applied for planning permission for part of the land to be used for activities other than sporting activities.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the Minister aware that his reply is most unsatisfactory? He has run away from the Question by saying that the Government do not keep statistics. Why is that? I do not object to sports fields being sold provided that they are being used for sport and not development. Can the Minister give me an answer to that question, and if not, why not?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, in August 1990 at the invitation of the then Minister for Sport, the Sports Council submitted a proposal to the Government for the establishment of a central register of recreational land. That was agreed and some £500,000 was included in the Sports Council's grant-in-aid settlement for 1991–92 specifically for that purpose. The National Playing Fields Association and the Central Council for Physical Recreation are co-sponsors with the Sports Council. The register was officially launched on 19th October this year and shows that England has some 73,000 pitches and 24,000 sites. The majority of those are owned by LEAs. I cannot include figures for greater London because they require some further information, but the register shows that some 404 sites have requested planning permission for other forms of development. Of those only 130 come from LEAs.
Lord Howell: My Lords, does the Minister agree that in view of his original Answer it is extraordinary that a year or two ago the Government circulated local authorities and colleges advising them to sell off playing fields? Ought not that advice to be withdrawn? Is not the fact that many fields are not available to the youth of this
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country, who as a result of the Government's policy have been priced out of using other sporting facilities, resulting in many of the difficulties which we see among the youth population? Does the Minister further agree that school sport is the foundation on which all sport in this country is built and therefore its demise is having a serious effect on our football, cricket and other teams?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that sport is an essential part of the education process of all young people. However, I repeat my previous statement that LEAs are responsible for the provision and maintenance of the necessary facilities in complying with the sporting requirements of the national curriculum.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that as a result of the Government's encouragement to sell off sports pitches there is now only one full-size soccer pitch in the entire borough of Islington and that belongs to Arsenal Football Club?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, schools and LEAs in urban areas have a specific problem. However, I am not aware that Islington is different from many local authorities in urban areas.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, is it not of concern that the Government do not collect such figures? Given the alarming statistics on juvenile crime, vandalism and truancy, is it not crucial that our schools should have adequate playing facilities? Is the Minister aware that the Central Council for Physical Recreation has stated that school playing facilities are being sold off at the value rate of £100,000 per day? Have the Government any policy to reverse that trend or is it still their policy to encourage it?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, the Government's general policy is that unused or redundant assets should be disposed of so that the resources realised and freed can be re-invested or used for the redeeming of debt. There is inevitably a limit on the level of credit approvals or capital grant that we can make available. Extra spending funded through capital receipts enables LEAs to boost capital programmes without incurring debts.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is my noble friend—
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, I believe that we should stop now as 30 minutes have elapsed.

Intelligence Services Bill [H.L.]
3.9 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about the secret intelligence service and the government communications head-quarters, including provision for the issue of warrants and authorisations enabling certain actions to be taken and for the issue of such warrants and authorisations to be kept under review; to make further provision about

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warrants issued on applications by the security service; to establish a procedure for the investigation of complaints about the secret intelligence service and the government communications headquarters; to make provision for the establishment of an Intelligence and Security Committee to scrutinise all three of those bodies; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Education Bill [H.L.]
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Blatch I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about teacher training and related matters; to make provision with respect to the funding and conduct of student unions; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Viscount St. Davids.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the law relating to dangerous dogs; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Dog Control and Welfare Bill [H.L.]
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to establish a dog control and welfare council and to amend Section 2 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Statutory Instruments: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee of seven Lords be appointed to join with any Committee appointed by the Commons to consider—

(1) Every instrument which is laid before each House of Parliament and upon which proceedings may be or might have been taken in either House of Parliament, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament; being

(a) a statutory instrument, or a draft of a statutory instrument;

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(b) a scheme, or an amendment of a scheme, or draft thereof, requiring approval by statutory instrument;

(c) any other instrument (whether or not in draft), where the proceedings in pursuance of an Act of Parliament are proceedings by way of an affirmative resolution; or

(d) an order subject to special parliamentary procedure; but excluding any Order in Council or draft Order in Council made or proposed to be made under paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974.

(2) Every general statutory instrument not within the foregoing classes, and not required to be laid before or to be subject to proceedings in the Commons only, but not including Measures under the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 and instruments made under such Measures;
with a view to determining whether the special attention of the House should be drawn to it on any of the following grounds—

(i) that it imposes a charge on the public revenues or contains provisions requiring payments to be made to the Exchequer or any government department or to any local or public authority in consideration of any licence or consent or of any services to be rendered, or prescribes the amount of any such charge or payments;

(ii) that it is made in pursuance of any enactment containing specific provisions excluding it from challenge in the courts, either at all times or after the expiration of a specific period;

(iii) that it purports to have retrospective effect where the parent statute confers no express authorities so to provide;

(iv) that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in the publication or in the laying of it before Parliament;

(v) that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in sending a notification under the proviso to subsection (1) of section 4 of the Statutory Instrument Act 1946, where an Instrument has come into operation before it has been laid before Parliament;

(vi) that there appears to be a doubt whether it is intra vires or that it appears to make some unusual or unexpected use of the powers conferred by the statute under which it is made;

(vii) that for any special reasons its form or purport call for elucidation;

(viii) that its drafting appears to be defective; or on any other ground which does not impinge on its merits or on the policy behind it, and to report their decision with the reasons thereof in any particular case.

That as proposed by the Committee of Selection the following Lords be named of the Committee—

V. Addison,

L. Airedale,

L. Brooks of Tremorfa,

V. Oxfuird,

L. Prys-Davies,

L. Shaughnessy,

L. Skelmersdale.

That two be the quorum of the Committee.
That the Committee have power to agree with any Committee appointed by the Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.
That the Committee have power to appoint one or more Sub-Committees severally to join with any

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Sub-Committee or Sub-Committees appointed by any Committee appointed by the Commons; and to refer to such Sub-Committee or Sub-Committees any of the matters referred to the Committee.
That it be an instruction to the Committee that they do not consider any instrument which is directed by Act of Parliament to be laid before and to be subject to proceedings in the Commons only; and that the Committee do not join with any Committee appointed by the Commons in considering any such instrument.
That it be a further instruction to the Committee that, before reporting that the special attention of the House be drawn to any instrument, the committee do afford to any Government department concerned therewith an opportunity of furnishing orally or in writing to them or to any Sub-Committee or the Committee such explanations as the department think fit.
That the Joint Committee have leave to report from time to time.
That the Committee do meet with any Committee appointed by the Commons at half-past four o'clock this day.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and a Message was sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Delegated Powers Scrutiny: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to report whether the provisions of any Bill inappropriately delegate legislative power; or whether they subject the exercise of legislative power to an inappropriate degree of parliamentary scrutiny; and that as proposed by the Committee of Selection the following Lords be named of the Committee—

L. Campbell of Croy,

L. Elton,

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe,

B. Perry of Southwark,

L. Rippon of Hexham (Chairman),

L. Shaughnessy,

L. Shepherd,

L. Wigoder.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Medical Ethics: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the third Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be named of the Select Committee:

L. Colwyn,

B. Flather,

L. Hampton,

B. Jay of Paddington,

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe,

L. McColl of Dulwich,

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B. McFarlane of Llandaff,

L. Meston,

L. Mishcon,

L. Mustill,

L. Rawlinson of Ewell,

L. Walton of Detchant (Chairman),

B. Warnock,

Abp. York.

That the Committee have power to adjourn from place to place;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee from time to time be printed and, if the Committee think fit, be delivered out;
That the Proceedings of the Select Committee on Medical Ethics in the last session of Parliament be referred to the Committee;
That the Committee have power to appoint Specialist Advisers;
That the Committee do meet on this day at a quarter-past four o'clock in Committee Room 4.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Communities: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the fourth Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider Community proposals, whether in draft or otherwise, to obtain all necessary information about them, and to make reports on those which, in the opinion of the Committee, raise important questions of policy or principle, and on other questions to which the Committee considers that the special attention of the House should be drawn;
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following be named of the Committee:

L. Bancroft,

B. Birk,

L. Boston of Faversham (Chairman),

L. Brain,

L. Bruce of Donington,

B. Carnegy of Lour,

L. Dahrendorf,

B. David,

L. Elibank,

B. Elles,

L. Hunt of Tanworth,

L. Lewis of Newnham,

L. Middleton,

L. Pearson of Rannoch,

L. Reay,

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn,

L. Slynn of Hadley,

L. Thomson of Monifieth,

L. Thurlow,

L. Varley.

That the Committee has power to appoint Sub-Committees and to refer to such Sub-Committees any of the matters within the terms of reference of the

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Committee; that the Committee has power to appoint the Chairmen of Sub-Committees, but that such Sub-Committees have power to appoint their own Chairman for the purpose of particular enquiries; that two be the quorum of such Sub-Committees;
That the Committee has power to co-opt any Lord for the purpose of serving on a Sub-Committee;
That the Committee has power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the Committee and any Sub-Committee have power to adjourn from place to place;
That the Committee has leave to report from time to time;
That the Reports of the Select Committee from time to time shall be printed, notwithstanding any adjournment of the House;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee or any Sub-Committee from time to time shall, if the Committee thinks fit, be printed and delivered out;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the European Communities Committee or any Sub-Committee in the last session of Parliament be referred to the Committee.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Lord Renton: My Lords, I wish to make a very brief point about Scottish representation. I see that there is one Scottish Peer among those named for selection for this committee, but in view of the special legal position of Scotland within the United Kingdom under the Act of Union I ask that it should be borne in mind that it is highly desirable that at least one Scottish lawyer should be on Sub-Committee E, which considers legal matters within the European Community.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I note what my noble friend says but I believe that it is difficult to be specific about having Scottish representation increased on the committee. However, there is always the power of co-option. If that should be the thought of the committee, no doubt it could so arrange.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, in view of the fact that the Treaty of Maastricht has now been ratified and the European Union has now been created, I find it surprising that no reference is made to that in the terms of reference. Are we to take it that the committee will not be empowered to consider matters arising directly from the European Union, and particularly the two new pillars dealing with home and foreign affairs?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I have just been advised that a report is in preparation on the specific point which the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has just raised. If he will be kind enough to await the receipt of that report his worries may be resolved.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Science and Technology: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the fifth Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider Science and Technology and that, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following be named of the Committee:

L. Chorley,

L. Dean of Beswick,

L. Desai,

B. Hilton of Eggardon,

L. Howie of Troon,

L. Nathan,

B. Perry of Southwark,

L. Perry of Walton,

B. Platt of Writtle,

L. Porter of Luddenham,

L. Redesdale,

L. Renwick,

E. Selborne (Chairman),

L. Tombs,

L. Walton of Detchant.

That the Committee has power to appoint Sub-Committees and that such Sub-Committees have power to appoint their own Chairman;
That the Committee has power to co-opt any Lord for the purpose of serving on the Committee or Sub-Committee;
That the Committee and any Sub-Committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the Committee and any Sub-Committee have power to adjourn from place to place;
That the Committee has leave to report from time to time;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee or any Sub-Committee from time to time shall, if the Committee thinks fit, be printed and delivered out;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Science and Technology Committee or any Sub-Committee in the last session of Parliament be referred to the Committee.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
Debate resumed on the Motion moved on Thursday last by Viscount Montgomery of Alamein—namely, That a humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
3.15 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, in opening this part of our debate, perhaps I may say how much I am looking forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Tugendhat. As a Member of this House, I have had the privilege of listening to the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, addressing the House as an advocate. That gives me a very good basis for looking forward with anticipation to his maiden speech as a Member of this House. I look forward also to the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, and my noble friend Lady Miller of Hendon.
I regret that I shall be unable to stay for the whole of the debate owing to a longstanding evening engagement to be attended by a member of the Royal Family. I hope to hear a good deal of the debate and to read the remainder.
I wish to draw attention in particular to three Bills outlined in the gracious Speech. The first is a Bill in which I, as Lord Chancellor, have a direct interest; that is, the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill. We must improve the effectiveness of the police and the courts in dealing with crime. That is the purpose of the Bill. The proposals are intended to improve the structure and management of the police service and to make changes to the administrative arrangements for magistrates' courts.
The Bill will put into effect many of the proposals contained in the White Paper on police reform, published in June this year. It will implement the Government's proposals on police discipline, following a consultation paper earlier this year. It will introduce those recommendations of the Sheehy inquiry which the Government have decided to adopt and which require primary legislation. Finally, it will implement the Government's plans for improvements in the management and organisation of the magistrates' courts service which were announced at the beginning of 1992 in the White Paper A New Framework for Local Justice. The proposals contained in all these documents have been the subject of full and open debate during the year. In the forthcoming Session we shall have the opportunity to examine them again.
There have been enormous changes since the 1964 Police Act, and the police service must now be organised in a way which meets the demands of today. The police Bill will modernise the structure of policing. The police service needs both a management framework which supports it and a clear steer from the Government and the public about what we expect from it. The proposals of the police Bill will achieve that in a number of ways. There will be greater management freedom for chief constables. For the first time, independent local people who are not councillors or magistrates will be able to serve on police authorities. Police authorities will have to find out what people in the area want from their police service and reflect that in local objectives. That must accord with the overall objectives for policing which the Government will set annually. Each police authority will publish annually a costed policing plan telling local people how the resources provided by central and local government are to be used by their
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police force. Overall, the police reforms are designed to enable the police service to manage itself more effectively.
A similar objective underpins the proposals for magistrates' courts. The prime responsibility will stay where it fits best—in the hands of local committees of magistrates. But the framework which supports magistrates' courts will be brought up to date. The service has fundamental problems and is overdue for reform. Many of the 105 administrative areas of the service are too small to use their resources effectively. There is a need for effective co-operation between the various agencies in the criminal justice field.
The legislation will also make clear that neither local management nor central government may improperly influence the decision magistrates take, or the legal advice they receive from their clerks, in individual cases. I believe that there is impetus for reform within the magistrates' courts service already. Many of the reforms have been adopted voluntarily by different areas of the service and are working well.
Next I turn to the Criminal Justice Bill. This will address a range of matters on which the Government believe that the impact and effectiveness of our criminal justice system need further improvement. In the time available it is not possible for me to outline all the measures that will find their place in this Session's Bill. I will, however, look briefly at several matters on which we shall be moving forward.
In the Bill we intend to provide the courts with new ways of dealing with persistent young offenders. It is in no one's interests, including their own, if the small number of school-age children who commit large numbers of crimes, particularly burglary and car crime, are allowed to remain at large in the community where they are out of control, play truant from school and repeatedly commit criminal acts against the general public. That is why my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced in March this year that the Government intended at the earliest legislative opportunity to create a new type of sentence—the secure training order. Measures to enable that to happen will form part of this Session's Criminal Justice Bill.
The order will be available for those 12 to 14 year-olds who have been convicted of three imprisonable offences and who have not responded constructively to supervision in the community. It will be imposed only for an offence which the court considers so serious that only custody will do, or where the public need to be protected. Secure training centres will be set up to provide high standards of care but also discipline for persistent young offenders. Regimes will embrace education and training designed to tackle each individual's offending behaviour. The maximum length of a secure training order will be two years and up to half the length of the sentence may be spent in a secure training centre. After release, the order will ensure the youngster remains under close supervision in the community.
The secure training order will protect the public from the repeated offending of the hard core of young criminals. The regime will be constructed with the aim of altering those youngsters' behaviour so that they are

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no longer a threat to society. The Government have not lightly taken the step of saying that they will introduce legislation which in part will have the serious effect of depriving children of their liberty and removing them from their families. The vast majority of children who offend will not be dealt with in that way. But it is also right that courts have at their disposal a sentence specifically designed for the comparatively small group of very persistent juvenile offenders whose repeated offending makes them a menace to the community.
I now turn more briefly to a very different type of provision that will also be in the Criminal Justice Bill. I refer to the innovation proposed in relation to an accused's silence. The matter was discussed last month in the debate on the Royal Commission's report initiated by my noble friend Lord Windlesham. The measures we shall introduce in the Criminal Justice Bill will not impose any new obligation on the suspect or on a defendant to provide information. He will still be able to remain silent, but once the provisions are implemented the judge and jury in appropriate cases will be able to be told that the defendant remained silent when asked questions—and the jury will be able to draw such inferences from that silence as it may think fit.
The range of safeguards for defendants—for instance, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act—are such that to allow a suspect or defendant to remain silent but not to allow proper inferences to be drawn from that silence is unnecessary, at least in some cases, and not in the interests of justice. It is an area where we think the balance has now tipped too far towards the offender and needs to be redressed. That can be done, in our judgment, without threatening to convict the innocent.
The Government are determined to take further measures to deal with those who trespass en masse with complete disregard for law-abiding citizens. I do not need to remind your Lordships of the disgraceful events at Castlemorton Common, Malvern, in the summer of 1992 which have been repeated, albeit on a lesser scale, in other parts of the country. The disruption suffered by local communities, the fear which is caused to residents by such mass gatherings and the filth left behind by the trespassers is intolerable.
On 31st March, we announced our measures to extend the provisions of Section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986. This gives the police powers to act against trespassers where, either because of the sheer weight of numbers involved or because of the behaviour of the trespassers, it is right that the criminal law should be invoked. In the Criminal Justice Bill we will introduce measures to extend Section 39 to apply in a wider range of circumstances, principally extending it to minor highways, applying it more easily to common land and reducing from 12 to six the number of vehicles required as one of the triggers for the powers.
We shall also introduce in the Bill the additional proposals announced on 31st March to deal with illegal rave parties on land. They include pre-emptive powers to prevent a build up of large numbers of people on land where the police reasonably believe that a rave will take place with the result that a local community will suffer
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serious distress on account of the cacophonous racket which is made during the night. The police will also be given powers to seize amplification equipment where an illegal rave is already in progress.
In addition to the previously announced proposals, we intend to include in the Criminal Justice Bill further measures to tackle the disruption and disturbance caused by other gatherings of trespassers. As with raves, we wish to prevent a potentially disruptive assembly rather than leave the police to tackle it once it has gathered. We also intend to introduce a criminal offence of aggravated trespass to ensure that the police have the necessary powers to prevent or deal with those who seek to intimidate, obstruct or disrupt a lawful activity.
The Criminal Justice Bill which will be introduced this Session will be wide ranging and its effects will be far reaching. It has not been possible to do more today than offer a snapshot of what some of its provisions will look like. But at the heart of the Bill is the Government's commitment to take decisive action against crime and the criminal; to put the maintenance of law and order at the top of the agenda; and to make sure that our laws and the criminal justice system as a whole protect the public in as fair a fashion as is possible.
In addition to those measures, the Government plan to reform the law on Sunday trading in England and Wales. Your Lordships will be aware that that issue has not proved easy to resolve in the past. The current Sunday trading laws are contained in the Shops Act 1950. The Sunday trading provisions are widely regarded as outdated and ripe for reform. They contain anomalies which have been ridiculed ever since the laws were enacted.
The Government have decided on a unique course. It will give Parliament the choice between the three major options for reform which have been proposed. The first option is total deregulation in the sense of the removal of any laws relating solely to Sundays. That is already the position in Scotland. It will allow all shops to open if they wish to do so. Secondly, there is the option proposed by the Shopping Hours Reform Council. It will allow all small shops to open on Sunday and large shops, with a floor area over 280 square metres, to open for six hours between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thirdly, there is a regulatory option proposed by the Keep Sunday Special Campaign and the Retailers for Shops Act Reform, which will close most shops on Sunday, with a small range of exceptions, but will allow all shops to open on the last four Sundays before Christmas.
The Bill also contains provisions on employment rights. The Government recognise that many shopworkers may have taken their jobs in the belief that they would not be asked to work on Sunday as Sunday trading was, for the most part, illegal. The Bill will give existing shopworkers the right not to be dismissed or to suffer other detrimental action for refusing to work on Sundays. The Bill gives shopworkers full rights irrespective of whether or not they have signed a contract to engage in Sunday working. It will apply to all shopworkers apart from Sunday-only workers who are employed when the Bill takes effect without a qualifying period or age restriction. The Government have also decided to extend the provisions so that future

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employees as well as any shopworker who, after the Bill's enactment, signs a contract agreeing to Sunday working will have the right to withdraw from their contractual obligation to work Sundays subject to three months' notice.
As between the options, there will be no government view expressed on their relative merits. Each member of the Government will act in the light of his or her own conscience and Ministers taking part in the debates will have the opportunity to state their own position. My personal view is that Sunday is a divine provision for rest and worship, well designed to fit the needs of the human spirit as well as the human body, and that it is a privilege accorded to us by divine commandment, not imposed as a burden, but intended to operate in a beneficial way so as, for example, to enable the needs of doctors and other care workers to be taken into account. Ultimately the observance of the Lord's Day is a matter of individual personal responsibility, and the employment protection provisions recognise that.
Speaking now for the Government as a whole, we hope that the Sunday Trading Bill will make good progress and that the vote on the options will be held in another place before the Christmas Recess. The Government have also indicated that your Lordships will be able to consider all three of the options for reform.
Among other measures affecting home and social affairs, I hope very much that experimental use of the new Standing Committee procedure, as recommended by the Select Committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe, will enable a limited number of measures dealing with law reform to be taken to some extent off the Floor of both Houses so that they do not have to compete for parliamentary time in the usual way. It may be possible thereby to enact a variety of law reform measures emanating from the Law Commission, I hope in the course of this Session of Parliament.
The section of the gracious Speech dealing with home and social affairs is comprehensive. I have sought only to indicate some of the highlights.
3.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have waited for nearly 45 years to have the opportunity to speak after the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I played Strephon in "Iolanthe" at school. The noble and learned Lord will know as well as I do that:
"The Law is the true embodiment
Of everything that's excellent.
It has no kind of fault or flaw",
and he, my Lords, embodies the law. What he may not know so well is that my mother was the Queen of the Fairies, and my mother described your Lordships as "puny mortals". She made it clear that if I were in any way thwarted in my wishes in front of your Lordships' House she would take appropriate action:
"Every kind of bill or measure
That may gratify his pleasure"
—that is my pleasure—
"Though your fury it arouses
Shall be passed by both your Houses".
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I give that warning only in case noble Lords should think that we shall not take the Home Office aspects of the Queen's Speech seriously in the forthcoming Session.
We look forward to the four maiden speeches which are due today. I shall not presume to say anything individually about those who are about to speak, but I can understand very well how they feel. I can assure them that we all feel the same way. We hope that they will not only survive and enjoy the experience this afternoon but will benefit from it to our benefit in the future.
Perhaps I may start by dealing with the issues which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor outlined as being in the legislative programme for the coming year. Then I want to make a few general remarks about the adequacy of the Queen's Speech as a whole in dealing with home and social affairs, which is the subject of our debate this afternoon.
The noble and learned Lord referred, first, to the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill. He referred to the plans, which are already well known so I do not need to repeat them, for the nationalisation of the police force, because that is what they will amount to. It is proposed that the membership of the police authorities shall be changed so that there are only eight local authority members, five members appointed by the Secretary of State and three elected from among local magistrates. Assuming that some of the eight local authority representatives will be of the party in Government, which must be true in most parts of the country, that proposal secures that the Government will have an effective majority on all police authorities, because the Government can appoint local people with business interests to the five so-called independent seats. That control will be secured by the provision that the chairman of the police authority will be paid and appointed by the Home Secretary.
That proposal in no way reflects what either the police themselves, local authorities with experience of police work, or the country as a whole expect of our police force. We do not expect to see the police force reduced to a body of men and women—and it will almost certainly be mostly men—who can be accommodated, because of the amalgamation of police forces, around a single table in the Home Office. That is what we shall get. There may be an argument for some aspects of policing to be on a national basis, but not this way; not by the back door, as is proposed.
It is fascinating that in the Government's response to the Sheehy Committee on the police service 90 per cent. of the conclusions reached by the Home Secretary in rejecting so many of Sir Patrick Sheehy's proposals were the views of the police authorities. Therefore, the Government are very happy to accept the views of the police authorities on matters arising from their knowledge of the police service. However, in relation to the composition of the police authorities they do no such thing. The Government are determined to bring the matter under the heel of central Government, as in so many matters in this country today. I remind the House that the expenditure of quangos appointed by the Government now amounts to some £42 billion a year,

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which is more than the total expenditure of all local authorities put together. That is the extent to which centralisation has crept, and in some cases galloped, forward over a period of 14 years.
It cannot be denied that the proposals for the new police authorities are opposed not only, as one would expect, by the Association of County Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, but also by the Association of Chief Police Officers, and the Police Federation. Adverse criticisms have also been made by the Police Superintendents' Association.
Of course some of the proposals are worthwhile. We shall look at some of the proposals—for example the proposals for self-management of police forces and removing them from the detailed control of the Home Office—with sympathy and care. However, that is not to say that the proposals which will be placed before Parliament will gain the acceptance of Her Majesty's Opposition. What is notable for its absence is any reference to partnership between the police service and its public. That is what the police and the public want. That is what the Government appear determined not to provide.
I turn to the issue of magistrates' courts briefly, not because they are not important but because I do not have time to cover all of the issues in great detail. Here it is proposed that the justices' clerks should become accountable to chief justices' clerks who will be appointed within the Lord Chancellor's Department. It is proposed that there will be a forced amalgamation of benches and of magistrates' courts committees. It is proposed that there will be compulsory term contracts for all justices' clerks and that there will be an inspectorate for the justices' clerks which will not be independent of the Lord Chancellor's Department.
The noble and learned Lord is himself a shining example of how the separation of powers is not always necessary for justice to be achieved. He represents a judicious blend of the executive and the judiciary which we all admire greatly. But to enshrine such an anomaly in legislation as is proposed here, and to have the magistrates' courts committees and their justices' clerks (and we must remember that the justices' clerks are the only source of legal advice to lay magistrates) under the control of chief justices' clerks appointed by the Lord Chancellor's Department—who will be, whatever the noble and learned Lord himself may be, purely part of the executive—is simply not acceptable.
I turn now to the issue of criminal justice. The proposals which the noble and learned Lord put before us are of great interest, perhaps more for what they omit than for what they include. I acknowledge that he has given us only a taster of what the Bill will contain, but he will forgive me if I fail to resist the temptation to ask about the matters which he did not consider. It may be that the drafting of the Bill is not complete, but there are important matters which need to be dealt with in a Bill of this kind. Frankly, the matters to which the noble and learned Lord referred are either wrong or relatively trivial.
I shall start with one matter which is wrong: the secure training orders and the new provisions for
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juveniles aged 12 to 14. This is trivial as well as wrong. It is proposed that there will be five secure training centres around the country, each of which will hold 40 young people. Therefore we are talking about 200 places. That is not exactly a strong and powerful response to any supposed problem of juvenile crime. But it is wrong as well as trivial because there is no new problem of juvenile crime. There is no statistical evidence that juvenile crime has been on the increase in the past 10 or 20 years. In practice there have been welcome increases in detection rates of some kinds of juvenile crime. But there is not a general problem of young people completely out of control.
It is also not the case that there is no way of dealing with 12 and 14 year-olds. That view has been expressed forcefully by members of the probation service to the lawyers themselves. Those 12 and 14 year-olds can be dealt with by a commitment to local authority institutions which can be secure. It is difficult to know why it is better to set up a range of five new institutions, nearly all of which inevitably geographically will be a long way from the homes of the young people in them, in contrast to the existing provision of secure local authority homes. Therefore, I must say to the noble and learned Lord and to the Government that that proposal will be vigorously contested by the Opposition.
The noble and learned Lord referred next to the issue of the right to silence. We went over that ground a month ago during the debate on the Runciman Royal Commission. However, he does not propose that there should be abolition of the right of silence. No one can physically force anyone to talk if they do not wish to do so. However, we are not referring to the professional, hardened criminals who use the right to silence. The Government will secure that those who are most frightened when taken into police custody will now be told, "Yes, you have the right to silence but the courts may draw an adverse conclusion from it".
I was interested to hear what the noble and learned Lord said. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate will help the House when he winds up. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that the jury may draw an inference from the exercise of the right to silence. Does that mean that the judge may not draw an inference: that the judge may only say that the accused has exercised his right to silence and not give any advice to the jury on what inference may be drawn? I was not clear on that point because it was a new way of approaching the problem.
Clearly the diminution of the right to silence, as the Lord Chief Justice and many others have made clear, is an issue which will attract substantial and weighty opposition not only from these Benches but, I venture to suggest, from Members of the Cross-Benches and many other people around the country. What is proposed is the abolition of a factor that has been part of our judicial system for many centuries. It will be under attack against the wishes of a large number of us.
The relatively trivial aspects (if I may so put it) to which the noble and learned Lord referred are the law of trespass and the proposed amendment to the Public Order Act 1986. No one says that travellers who invade private land do not cause considerable nuisance. I do not

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say that we shall oppose any of those specific measures. However, in comparison with the problems facing this country, such issues are relatively minor.
The noble and learned Lord then referred to rave parties, a somewhat vaguer concept of disruptive assemblies, and a new offence of aggravated trespass which I take to be a move against hunt saboteurs. I have no doubt that many of your Lordships will take a strong view on that; perhaps a stronger view than I might take.
What is missing from the noble and learned Lord's introduction of the criminal justice process is any reference to the issues of, for example, the disclosure of defence, or the need for greater corroboration of confessions. In view of the case in Leeds Crown Court yesterday when a young man was induced to confess after four days of questioning and 120 denials, I should have thought it perhaps not unreasonable for Mr. Justice Mitchell to draw attention to the nature of the questioning and to rule out the tape of the interrogation and of the confession. There is no reference to the issue of jury trial, case listing, and, above all, the proposal of the Royal Commission for a criminal cases review authority to deal with miscarriages of justice.
Only a month ago in a distinguished maiden speech, the noble Viscount, Lord Runciman, referred at col. 791 of the Official Report on 26th October to the need for,
"an independent, pro-active, adequately resourced, well-staffed review authority".
Proposals to that effect ought to be in this year's criminal justice Bill. If they are not, there are those of us who will seek to have them placed in that Bill. In any event the Government ought to deal with the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, in opening that debate that it would be possible to start with a non-statutory body before proceeding to the full statutory authority; and there are good precedents for that concept.
With regard to what the noble and learned Lord said about Sunday trading, I respect his personal views. He will understand if I disagree with them. It is interesting to note that when the Bill comes from another place it will provide all the options for your Lordships to consider. I am fascinated to know how that will be achieved. Presumably another place will have to decide between the three options and will put only one before us.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I do not believe that I expressed the position quite as the noble Lord said. I said that your Lordships would have an opportunity of voting on the three options. I anticipate that that would be done by putting amendments forward to enable your Lordships to vote on any options that have been knocked out in another place.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. As I understand it, the implication is that there will be one preferred option coming from the Commons, but that it will be open for your Lordships to put forward, through amendments, either of the two other options, or indeed any other option. That is one of the difficulties that the Government will face when the Bill comes before this House. However, as the noble and learned Lord stated,
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it is a matter on which there will not be a Government Whip; nor will there be a Whip in this House. We shall listen to the debate with a good deal of interest.
What is significant about all the measures proposed by the noble and learned Lord is that they hardly start to tackle the problems which really concern our people—the problems of crime. It is interesting that of the 27 reforms which the Home Secretary announced at the Conservative Party Conference, only one, a very trivial dogberry process of 20 pilot schemes of parish constables, deals with crime prevention. It is interesting that all the public utterances of Government spokesmen in recent weeks have been about attacking criminals rather than attacking the causes of crime. I remind the House that if we were to achieve even a 1 per cent. decrease in crime by increased use of imprisonment, we should increase the prison population by 25 per cent. Those criminals who go to prison are a tiny fraction of those who are convicted. Those who are punished represent only 30 per cent. of crimes which are cleared up. The numbers of crimes which are cleared up account for only 26 per cent. of crimes committed. The significant fact for the Government to remember is that the clear-up rate has decreased since 1979, when it was 42 per cent., to 26 per cent. today. Only 10 per cent. of the perpetrators of violent crime are punished. Fewer than 1 per cent. of the perpetrators of vandalism are punished. And who knows what proportion of the perpetrators of white collar crime are punished?
It is an understandable but deplorable reaction of a Government under fire over the whole range of their policies in matters of law and order to turn to retribution rather than reform. That is what the Government have done; and it does no service to the people of this country.
Since this is a debate on home and social affairs I believe that we ought to look at these matters rather more in context than we have done so far. Let us look back to the Beveridge Report and the world in which Beveridge was operating. He operated in a society in which there was general agreement about a very large number of social objectives. It was thought in those days that Keynesian management could provide a high and stable level of employment and that the benefits of the welfare state would provide temporary relief in times of high unemployment. He reported in a time of relatively stable and nuclear family life. It is very clear that that is no longer the case in large parts of our society. He reported at a time when, perhaps because of the war, there was a high degree of common national purpose about social policy in our country. None of those conditions is present today. If we look at the causes of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness in our society, many issues arise which are not simply subjects for debate today; they are subjects for the whole range of our debate on the gracious Speech; issues in relation to which the Government ought to be putting forward proposals, or at least showing the way in which progress could be made to deal with these evils.
I suggest to noble Lords that none of the proposals made today, and hardly any of the proposals made in the

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gracious Speech as a whole, make any real contribution to improving the quality and standard of life in our society.
3.51 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, let me first join the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, in expressing our good wishes to all four of our colleagues who will make their maiden speeches this afternoon.
Let me also begin by making one point in which I very much agree with the noble and learned Lord; namely, on the Sunday trading Bill. I very much welcome the fact that we are to have a free vote in this House as well as in the House of Commons; and that we are to have a choice between the three options which are to be voted on in the House of Commons. I believe that that is right. Speaking entirely for myself (on this issue, we all do) I would be inclined to vote for whichever of the three options is carried in the House of Commons, unless it is carried by the smallest of majorities. I believe that it is time for Parliament to make a clear decision in this matter. The subject has preoccupied Parliament for many years. It is about time that we reached a decision. As I have indicated, that is entirely my own personal judgment on the matter.
I propose to divide what I have to say this afternoon into two parts: first, my comments on the Government's proposals on the criminal justice system; and secondly, some rather wider reflections on the attitude of the British public to their political leadership.
I turn first, then, to the Government's forthcoming criminal justice and police and magistrates' courts Bills. These are to be introduced at a time when the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have been telling us that the fight against crime is to be placed at the top of the political agenda. There is nothing wrong in that. One might wonder why it has taken the Government 14 years to come to that particular conclusion. But, nevertheless, I welcome the position that they have adopted, taking account of course of the fact that in their period of office crime has risen, as we all know, by well over double. But we shall judge them not on their rhetoric, nor by the violence of the language used by the Home Secretary at his party conference, but on whether the specific proposals that they bring to Parliament will have any relevance whatever to the fight against crime. So far, the auguries do not look terribly impressive. We had, for instance, Mr. Howard at Blackpool announcing:
"Let us be clear. Prison works".
Yet his Cabinet colleague Mr. Douglas Hurd, when Home Secretary, gave us a very different message in his White Paper. He said that prison was:
"an expensive way of making bad people worse".
All the evidence demonstrates that Mr. Hurd is right and Mr. Howard is wrong.
When Mr. Howard was challenged about his statement that prison works and asked to justify it, he replied that American experience demonstrated that prison worked. A fortnight ago I was in the United States talking to two district attorneys and the heads of two medium to large American police departments. One
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of them had indeed heard of the statement made by Mr. Howard. They were all incredulous. How, they asked, could such an absurd statement be made? Did Mr. Howard not know that in many parts of the United States the criminal justice system was breaking down, with thousands of cases being thrown away because of the tidal wave of offenders swamping the system and the acute pressures on the American penal system overall? Did he not know in addition, just to take one illustration, that in the country where apparently prison works, in the city of New York so far this year 37 taxi drivers have been murdered. That is in one city so far this year. And that, we are told, is in the country where prison works. I will allow the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate, when he replies, to have the opportunity of explaining that quite extraordinary statement by the Home Secretary. I should be extremely grateful were he to attempt to justify it in direct terms.
Of course offenders must be sent to prison if they commit serious offences. Nobody disputes that. Of course, if they are given repeated opportunities to stay away from crime but nevertheless continue to commit offences, they must go to prison. The public has a right to be protected. But it would be the height of foolishness for us to turn our backs on the experience of the past two decades when we have developed a wide range of alternatives to imprisonment simply so that a politician can derive some temporary personal political advantage by pretending that he is prepared to be tough on crime and others are not.
Mr. Howard announced proudly at Blackpool that he would build six new prisons. He did not tell the conference that it would be many years before those prisons would be available. Nor did he tell the conference that his own Government had cancelled a substantial part of the prison building programme of the noble Lord, Lord Whitelaw. We are now experiencing, typically, the worst of all worlds. Prison numbers are once again rising remorselessly. Prison governors are warning that overcrowding has reached dangerous proportions. Soon the police cells will once again be used to house Home Office prisoners, thus taking scores of police officers off the streets so that they can act as gaolers—a procedure severely criticised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in his report on Strangeways. Prison administrators are warning of the risk of renewed disturbances—all the more so, if I may say so, as Mr. Howard apparently wants, as a deliberate act of policy, to make conditions "more austere". He made that judgment having visited precisely one prison, namely, Brixton. There, a major and successful effort is being made both by the governor and the staff to improve on the revolting conditions described by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Judge Tumim. The House will recall that we had a debate on the Brixton report in December 1990. Judge Tumim had reported that mentally ill offenders were housed in single cells and stripped of all furniture except a mattress. Cells were dirty, and so were the foam rubber mattresses. There was a smell of urine and some cells had faecal staining. Incoming prisoners were assessed in a dirty reception area, and the clinical load on medical officers was too great for more than a cursory examination. So much for

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the conditions at the single prison visited by Mr. Howard before he made that statement. I do not believe that any previous holder of the office of Home Secretary since the Second World War would have made a similar statement. He would have found it distasteful to make such an appeal to ignorant prejudice.
That is the context in which the Government are introducing the new Criminal Justice Bill. It would be a great pity if their own extravagant rhetoric obliges Ministers to carry into the Bill some of their more ill-judged ideas. Naturally the public are anxious about the level of crime. We all are. But what are wanted are balanced, sensible proposals to deal with the situation, not partisan polemics. Let me take an example which was touched on in the speech of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor: the problem which is caused by a relatively small number of juvenile offenders who commit repeated offences. It is a genuine difficulty. But what is the point of going back to what in fact is a new generation of approved schools which were scrapped years ago because they were a total failure? All the more so as the Government have allowed the number of secure places in local authority children's homes to be cut. The Government themselves bear the responsibility for that situation. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, will remember our debate on child runaways when this problem was specifically identified. Yet there are now fewer such places in children's homes than there were when the Government came into office.
Let me take as another example the case of the sick and unstable Mr. Michael Buchanan, who was released into what is described as care in the community, despite his mental condition. Last month Mr. Buchanan, a paranoid schizophrenic, was at the Central Criminal Court sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment for a series of offences, including one in which, under the influence of cocaine, he beat to death a retired Jamaican policeman. Unhappily, there have been a significant number of other such cases. Yet no adequate action has been taken to ensure that dangerously mentally unstable men and women are not released into what Ministers continue to describe as "care in the community" and which many of us know to be almost non-existent in at least some areas of this country.
Lastly—this is a point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey —with regard to the Criminal Justice Bill, I must express our disappointment too that the Criminal Cases Review Authority recommended by the Royal Commission apparently will not appear as one of the provisions of the Bill. That is more than a little odd because the Royal Commission was established primarily as a result of a series of well-publicised miscarriages of justice. Why, therefore, should there be such delay? In any event, it is extremely difficult to justify the Home Office continuing to deal with cases of that sort. All the more so as the Government appear to be moving increasingly towards making the Home Office into something which approaches a continental Ministry of the Interior.
That brings me to the forthcoming Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill. Seldom, I believe, has a more objectionable Bill appeared in a Queen's Speech. The principal objective of both parts of the Bill is to give
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overwhelming power to Ministers and their nominees. As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is aware, his proposals for the magistrates' courts are fiercely opposed by the Magistrates' Association and the justices' clerks. As the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, knows, Mr. Howard's plans for the police are strongly opposed by the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Police Superintendents' Association, the Police Federation and the local authorities and police authorities, including many distinguished members of the noble Earl's own party.
As the House will recall, we discussed the outline of the proposals in May in a debate which these Benches initiated. On that occasion the Minister had a single supporter in the House. Everyone else who spoke opposed him. The Government, of course, have simply ignored our views, as they have those of the police.
I believe that the Government's proposals raise issues of fundamental constitutional importance. They involve a transfer of effective power over policing from local communities to a politician in Whitehall. At present two-thirds of members of police authorities are elected councillors and one-third are justices of the peace. In future the authorities will consist of eight councillors (of different political persuasions, as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, reminded us), three justices of the peace and five personal representatives of the Home Secretary who might be in office at the time. Worse than that, the Home Secretary will appoint the chairman of each authority and, what is even more extraordinary, that chairman will be paid. So there will be a paid representative of a politician in London sitting in every operational police headquarters in this country.
This measure is being enacted at a time when performance related pay for senior police officers is to be introduced as well as short-term contracts. In both those areas this new breed of paid chairmen will have substantial personal power. We are being invited to agree to a series of propositions which I believe could have the most dangerous consequences for our tradition of fair and impartial policing. These proposals mark the first major step towards the creation of a national police force. If accepted, we can be quite certain that within a limited time some Minister will ask us to agree to the proposition that the majority of the members of the new authorities should be representatives of the Home Secretary. Then effectively all power will reside in the hands of a politician in London and senior police officers will know that if they want promotion they will be dependent on that one politician and his chosen band of supporters on the police authorities.
Do we really want to travel down that road? What does it have to do with the war against crime or the operational efficiency of the police service? The answer is precisely nothing. The proposals are not based on the recommendations of a Royal Commission or a departmental committee of inquiry. They are based merely on the whims of a single man —the former Home Secretary who is now the present Chancellor, Mr. Clarke. Mr. Clarke's principal aim was to diminish democratic local accountability and vastly to increase the power of Ministers. I hope that the House will

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recognise the grave constitutional issues that are involved in these proposals and will insist on major amendments to the Bill.
In conclusion, I should just like to say that our debates on the gracious Speech take place at a time when the reputation of the profession of politics has fallen to a dangerously low level. A public opinion poll earlier this year showed that public satisfaction with politicians was rated at 30 per cent. whereas that for the police (to take just one example) was rated at 70 per cent. Yet the people who have 30 per cent. support now intend to reform, as they describe it, those who have the backing of 70 per cent. of the British people.
There are many explanations for public disenchantment with the political process. There has been a long period of recession; there is an all-too-clear recollection of promises made at the last general election which have been dishonoured with such remarkable speed; no doubt a few more of them are going to be dishonoured next week. There is a sense of pessimism, not least about job security. But above all I think the public believe that politicians are insulated from the anxieties which they experience in their own lives and indulge in doctrinaire political games which are largely irrelevant to the needs of this country.
Let me give just one example. In September of last year 140 staff of the Prison Service warehousing and distribution department at Branston and Leeds were made redundant. A private contractor was to take over the service and he, of course, proposed to pay the new employees a great deal less money and insist on far worse working conditions. "Wonderful" said the enthusiasts for market testing. But unhappily the Government had not told this contractor—indeed, I fear they had not told others either—about the European Community Acquired Rights Directive, which made it impossible for the contractor to behave in the way he intended to do. So when he heard about it he withdrew his bid, and then the 140 members of the Home Office staff who had just received their redundancy notices received another letter from the Home Office asking whether they would be good enough not to be made redundant. Many, not altogether surprisingly, refused and the Government—the taxpayer—had to meet a bill for over half a million pounds.
What a way to treat loyal servants of the state. What sort of men do we have in this Government who are so dismissive of men and women who have worked their lifetimes for the public service? Of course, Ministers will tell us how much they regretted that, but they will say that it can be justified. Unpalatable action has to be taken, they will say, in order to obtain value for money. But when their own interests are involved, obtaining value for money does not seem to be what I would describe as being at the top of the political agenda. For instance, there are now 90 executives agencies of government. Each has a chief executive and each has been given day-to-day operational control of activities: previously the direct responsibility of Ministers of the Crown.
Chief executives, not Ministers, reply to letters from Members of both Houses of Parliament. They, not
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Ministers, reply to Questions in Hansard for Written Answer. Yet not a single junior Minister has been made redundant on "value for money" grounds. In 1945 Mr. Attlee did not have a single executive agency. He was responsible for an empire and the whole wartime system of rationing and control. He needed the support of 33 junior Ministers. There are now 62—nearly twice as many. I take just one example. Mr. Bevan, as Minister of Health, running a department with greater responsibilities than the present Department of Health, had a single junior Minister. Mrs. Bottomley requires four junior Ministers.
The reason for the size of the Government is simply the need to provide agreeable employment for a significant proportion of its Back Benchers. It has nothing to do with improving the quality of Government or of providing value for money. My expectations of a different style of conduct from the Government are not particularly high. With a small majority they clearly want to maintain the size of the payroll vote. But if the Prime Minister wants to be taken seriously when he proclaims the need for a return to basic values, he might do worse than return to the standards of previous Administrations, whose reputations today stand so much higher than his own.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, reverting for a moment to a slightly less adversarial style, perhaps I may venture to express the gratitude of the House to the noble and learned Lord for his exposition of the plans of the Government in the particular area that we are now discussing, and for giving us some indication of what the Government are going to say in relation to various Bills. I feel sure the House also recognises very well the extremely hard work of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack in so many areas of the law, in legal administration, in finance, in the organisation of courts and legal institutions, on legal aid and on procedure, not to mention the other measures of very widely differing character on which he is able to give us his assistance.
The gracious Speech mentions in a few words "improvements in the criminal law" and no doubt the major effort by the Government in this area will be devoted to the Criminal Justice Bill. I hope I shall not be thought to underrate in any way the very great importance of that Bill, which I wholly recognise, if, knowing that others of much greater authority will be speaking on it in this debate, I direct my own remarks to a rather different area: namely, the general topic of improvements in the law, including, but not limited to, the criminal law, hoping to persuade the Government and perhaps one or two of your Lordships of the very great need in this country for reform of the law in substantive matters, as opposed to administrative and procedural matters.
I believe that it is in fact very regrettable that in this country, by comparison with major Commonwealth countries and our partners in the European Union, we find ourselves seriously out of date, leading, as I shall hope to develop in a moment, to great waste of time, great waste of money and, more seriously even, to the law in general falling into disrepute in the eyes of the

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public. I was very disappointed not to see in the gracious Speech any reference to implementing any report of the Law Commission. The same was true, as I have pointed out before, in gracious Speeches in 1991 and 1992. Therefore I was very glad to hear from the noble and learned Lord in somewhat general terms his willingness to introduce or to see introduced into the programme some measures of law reform, presumably under the rubric of other measures.
It is true that there has been a general official lack of recognition of the work of the Law Commission as a body established by Parliament not so long ago to reform and to codify the law. I willingly exempt the noble and learned Lord from that description, but I believe that to have been true generally in administration. This was not universally the case. Up to the end of 1984, 59 out of 71 recommendations had been implemented in whole or in part but, quoting the latest report of the Law Commission, attitudes have changed in more recent years and there has been a lack of willingness, evidently, in the departments to bring measures forward.
I venture to suggest two things: first, a specific reference in gracious Speeches to measures of the Law Commission and not just "other measures". That would give very great encouragement to the hard-working and devoted people who work in the Law Commission to produce drafts which they hope to see implemented; and, secondly, a determination—not limited to the noble and learned Lord but spread across Whitehall in the departments—to find time for specific legislation as recommended by the Law Commission.
We ought to recognise that defects in the law are not just technical matters; they have important social consequences. One only has to think of the areas of divorce, tenancies, privacy and the family home. They spread throughout society and affect the needs of society. There are numerous measures in that area which are ripe for reform. The noble and learned Lord was not specific regarding those that he was thinking of bringing forward. I hope that they will not simply be technical measures but will be important. There are many measures on which reports are ready to be implemented, in some cases with Bills annexed which can be brought before Parliament.
I want to focus on one area of law and order—something with which we are at the moment much concerned: that is, the law relating to offences against the person or, in modern language, violence. I am sure your Lordships know that the Law Commission and its predecessor, the Criminal Law Revision Committee, have been working for years on a general criminal code and, in 1989, produced a draft of such a code in an enactable form. The view was taken at that time that it was too big a morsel to ask Parliament to digest and that Parliament could only be fed small pieces at a time. It was thought better to present separate sections relating to separate topics which would later be combined and put into a total code. One of those topics relates to offences against the person. It is now the subject of a report published on 6th October of this year—Paper 218. Annexed to it is a draft Bill with full commentary and supporting arguments.
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I suggest that there are two complementary reasons for taking that Bill seriously. First, the existing law is "a scandal". Those are the words of the president of the Law Commission, who speaks with the authority of a High Court judge. Even when it was passed in 1861 the law was,
"piecemeal legislation containing a rag-bag of offences with no, attempt to introduce consistency as to substance or as to form".
Your Lordships will easily recognise in those trenchant words the characteristic style of my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner. Nobody defends the existing law. There is not a person cited in all the footnotes of the report who has a good word to say for it. Everybody wants it swept away. The report gives chapter and verse of people's views on the matter. There is therefore a large body of opposition to the law as it stands and a large body of people who want it changed.
Secondly, it is not just that the law is archaic, quaintly archaic though indeed it is. It contains sections in regard to choking, administering laudanum and denying food or clothing to an apprentice—it is the world of Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Phineas Finn. In itself there is no harm in that; we could leave those laws on the statute book to be laughed at by law students. It is not just a question of removing quaint archaisms, nor a question of legal perfectionism. The fact that I want to bring home is that the law is simply inefficient as a vehicle for controlling violence. It is obscure. It is dependent on a large number of judicial decisions which are not always clear—and I include decisions of this House as well. It is liable to cause miscarriages of justice and appeals and give a wrong message to those engaged in violence, who may think that it is only an old-fashioned incantation and not relevant to today.
We are dealing with extremely large figures and I shall give your Lordships a few examples. In 1991 there were over 16,000 cases in the Crown Courts under the three central sections of the Act, Sections 16, 20 and 47. In the magistrates' courts there were 73,000, and that makes around 90,000. One must add many thousands of cases of common assault. We are therefore dealing with a huge number of cases in which errors may occur.
The costs of error in any one case are enormous, and the Law Commission carried out an investigation into that. In one recent case of a miscarriage of justice due to an obscurity in the law, the costs wasted amounted to around £50,000 plus the cost of maintaining an innocent man in prison for a number of months. As the report says, huge sums of money spent in controlling violence are a matter of public concern. It is ridiculous that they should be inflated by avoidable disputes among lawyers. A good, clear, up-to-date law is just as important in controlling violence or crime as good procedure and good administration.
We have always been met with the argument of lack of parliamentary time. I had intended to develop that subject but was glad to hear the noble and learned Lord suggest that we may be able to have recourse to a new procedure as recommended by the Jellicoe committee, using a special Select Committee. Indeed, the case cries out for that sort of treatment. Immense consultation has taken place on all these matters. There is not a body nor an individual who may be interested who has not been

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consulted. It is all in the report. Ninety per cent. or more of the recommendations are totally non-controversial. Surely some means can be found to deal rapidly with the few areas in which there is no doubt room for discussion.
Let us not forget that Parliament is perfectly willing to pass into law codes or conventions annexed to treaties which we cannot discuss or amend at all. I refer not only to Maastricht, with its 200-odd sections, but also to the fact that every year there comes before Parliament a treaty which has annexed to it some codes as to contracts, or carriage by air or sea, and Parliament passes them without any discussion at all. Can we not do the same in relation to these codes which have been so carefully examined, thought upon and vetted by draftsmen of the highest calibre and presented after almost unanimous agreement? I hope that it will be possible to introduce the Bill either in the present Session or early in the next. I was glad to see that The Times reported that the Home Secretary is looking favourably upon the commission's report.
I add briefly two tailpieces to be included, if possible, under "other measures". Two measures are needed in the interests of trade. First, we should ratify and bring into law the Vienna Convention on International Sales. It is a United Nations convention and we took a part in its drawing up. It is widely accepted in Europe and the United States. Many people in the City of London and in business have said that it is desirable that we should become parties to it. The drafting of the necessary legislation should not present any great difficulty or take up a great deal of time.
The other measure for which I venture to suggest there is urgent need is a new arbitration Act; that is one on which work has already been done over a number of months but does not seem to proceed. Everybody else is modernising their laws to obtain business—Scotland, Russia, Hong Kong and Australia have all done so. My noble and learned friend Lord Mustill, who is a great authority on the subject, is clear on the need for a modern Act. However, we have been told that there is no space in 1993–94, although I must say that Her Majesty's gracious Speech up to now looks rather thin in content. We may have to accept that there is no space this year, but, if a space were reserved for 1994–95, it would put needed pressure on the draftsman to finish the job. Of course that is a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry, as is the sales convention, but we must speak when we can when speaking in only one section of the debate. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will feel able to give his support to those two measures if any time is available.
In conclusion I must offer an apology. Due to a public engagement I may not be able to stay to the end of the debate. I shall certainly look forward with anticipation to hearing the four maiden speeches and shall be present in the remaining stages of the debate on the humble Address.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Tugendhat: My Lords, I should like to devote this maiden speech to an aspect of home affairs that has not so far been mentioned in the debate although it did loom large in the gracious Speech. I refer to Northern Ireland.
It is now some 23 years since I first became a Member of another place and many things have happened in different parts of the world which would have seemed quite extraordinary to those of us who listened to the gracious Speech of 1970. Communism has collapsed; Japan has become perhaps the greatest economic power in the world; Mr. Arafat and the Prime Minister of Israel have shaken hands; and Mr. de Klerk and Mr. Mandela have signed an agreement. Yet I believe that most of us who listened to that gracious Speech would have found it hard to believe that the mess in Northern Ireland would be as it is now, in the mid 1990s, not so very different from what it was in the early 1970s.
The communities are still divided, violence is still endemic; British troops are still patrolling the streets and there is no political settlement. I believe that that ought to be a cause of national shame. There are those who say that this is the fruit of history: there are those who blame it on the characteristics of the Irish people both North and South. Undoubtedly, the failure to reach a settlement is the responsibility and the result of the failures of many people in many places and of many factors.
But at the end of the day Northern Ireland is part of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Therefore, the failure to resolve that matter is a failure of our political process, of our Parliament and of our Government. It is something which ought to concern us very deeply. I do not believe that, with the possible exception of Italy, the Mafia and corruption, there has been a failure on a similar scale anywhere else in western Europe.
I therefore welcome the priority that the Prime Minister is attaching to Ulster in the programme which has been laid before Parliament in the gracious Speech. If he succeeds in bringing peace to that Province and instituting a process of constitutional development within a peaceful framework, he will undoubtedly have earned a place in history. I applaud, too, the fact that he is working so closely with the Government of the Irish Republic without whose commitment, co-operation and willingness to compromise, no settlement is possible.
However, I would urge him to take into account the wishes of the British people as a whole as well as those of the people of Northern Ireland. By virtue of the blood which has been shed, the financial support which has been provided and the effect of the continuing crisis on the fabric of our national life, our views—the views of the people of England, Wales and Scotland—deserve to be weighed in the balance alongside those of the people of Northern Ireland. Therefore, I do not believe that any single group, whether Unionist or Nationalist, in Northern Ireland should be allowed a veto over the

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peace process. The problem must be dealt with in the context of the United Kingdom as a whole and of the history of Britain and Ireland.
But on one vital point I believe that all the people of Northern Ireland have a right to an absolute assurance. It is that Her Majesty's Government will always respect the will of the majority, as expressed through the ballot box, to remain part of the United Kingdom or to join the Republic of Ireland. In my view, history and reality dictate that both those objectives should be regarded as equally valid. But although I believe that both should be regarded as equally valid, I have a clear preference. I hope very much that the majority of the people of Northern Ireland, however composed and whether Catholic or Protestant, will always wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. The Irish—both Catholics and Protestants—have played a notable role in our national life and it would be ironic and sad if, as our society becomes more multi-cultural and varied, that Irish strain in our national life should be weakened.
But that is a matter for the future. The problem now is to find a way to enable the two communities to live peacefully together on the basis of the existing frontier. Clearly, there are no easy or obvious solutions. I would, however, make three points. It seems to me that the trouble with the Stormont system was that, in effect, it excluded the Catholics from the exercise of political responsibility. I believe that the trouble with direct rule is that in effect it excludes the leaders of both communities in Northern Ireland from the exercise of political responsibility. My third point is that we should seek to avoid any system which has the effect of encouraging the political leaders of each community to appeal only to the members of their own community; that encourages Protestants to appeal only to Protestants and Catholics only to Catholics.
For some time in my life I had the pleasure of living in the kingdom of Belgium. I believe that one of the key reasons for the disintegration of the Belgian state, which I regard with regret, is that politics is divided there very much, on communal lines. The way in which politics are structured has the result that Flemish politicians appeal only to the Flemish community and Walloon politicians only to the Walloon community. It seems to me that in Northern Ireland —a society similarly divided with the additional and horrific element of violence—we should try to set up a system in which politicians must appeal across the divide. I feel that there is no more effective way of encouraging moderation and toleration than making it a precondition for winning office.
So I believe that we should bypass a province-wide system of devolution. Rather, I would urge that we should think in terms of single-tier local authorities, some of which would no doubt have Catholic majorities; others of which would no doubt have Protestant majorities., but in all of which electoral success would in large part depend on securing votes across the great divide. Of course, such an arrangement would have to be buttressed by measures to guard against discrimination and ensure equality of opportunity. Of course, as far ahead as one can see, the police and all aspects of security would have to remain under Westminster control. Certainly there should be as much
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cross-border co-operation as possible and machinery for continuing contact between London and Dublin on Northern Ireland matters.
But I believe that if Her Majesty's Government follow the principles and broad lines which I have suggested a system of local government could be constructed in Northern Ireland that would encourage reconciliation among its people and responsibility on the part of its political leaders. The benefits of that would be felt not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the island of Ireland and, which is our responsibility and our main concern, throughout this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—an entity which I hope will remain in being for a very long time to come.
4.39 p.m.
Baroness Hilton of Eggardon: My Lords, it falls to me to carry out the welcome task of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, on a wise and excellent maiden speech. We are all aware of his distinguished career in the other place, in Europe and in international affairs. It is clear why that career has been so distinguished. He is able to bring that perspective to bear on the home affairs of this United Kingdom. We look forward to hearing him make many further wise and excellent speeches in future.
The text of the police Bill has not yet been published, but it has been widely foreshadowed in various ministerial pronouncements and by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. Rumour has it that that Bill will be before your Lordships before Christmas. I therefore apologise in advance as I shall probably be making a very similar speech at Second Reading in the rather nearer future than I had anticipated. I shall also today be echoing many of the remarks that have already been made in the excellent speeches made by my noble friend Lord McIntosh arid the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich.
Some of the Bill will incorporate those parts of the Sheehy report which remain after major surgery; in particular, the short-term contracts for senior officers, which I welcome in principle as a means to effective and energetic management. The danger is that, in the context of police authority chairmen appointed by the Home Secretary, the police culture, which is often over-deferential, will not increase the freedom of chief constables' actions but will in fact diminish them because, in the interests of retaining further contracts, they will be all too eager to please those Home Office-appointed chairmen. Therefore, despite the reference by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to greater freedom for chief constables, I think that the legislation will act in a perverse way and will reduce the freedom of chief constables.
I welcome particularly the reduction in the number of ranks in the police service. This has been talked about for many years, but the police service and the Home Office have been unwilling to grasp the nettle of the excessively extended hierarchy of the police service. The consequences of having a very extended hierarchy are that most rewards, status and ambitions relate to promotion and there is very little attempt to win that

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status within the currently occupied rank. Too short a time has been spent in each rank and too much attention has been paid by middle managers to achieving the next one. A flatter hierarchy will produce better communications internally as well as with the community outside since more information will feed up from the bottom, from constables and sergeants. It will also allow more autonomy and status for constables, sergeants and inspectors.
However, I cannot understand why the reduction of some 2,500 middle managers is not being equalled by an increase in the number of constables and sergeants with the considerable savings that will be made in salary terms. If it is not done by natural wastage, there will possibly be short-term additional costs in terms of severance pay. I think that to reduce the number of police officers in this country by 2,500 is contrary to much of what the Government are intending.
We all know where effective policing is delivered. It is delivered on the streets and neighbourhoods of our cities and, in view of the increase in rural crime, more importantly in the villages and small towns of our countryside. Effective policing is about building confidence and contacts with the community since effective policing is really only carried out by the community itself; it is not carried out by police officers whose role, in many respects, is to collate information and to act as symbolic indicators of what the law will tolerate. Sergeants and constables are the only people who are out there in the community acting to build confidence, collating information and developing relationships so that crime is prevented, information collated effectively, and criminals can be arrested.
Last week I was in Newcastle on the Scotswood estate where some serious riots occurred less than three years ago. After the riots two community constables were dedicated to working on the estate. They established links and built up local confidence. Villains were identified and arrested largely because local people felt able for the first time to come forward as witnesses to identify the youths who had been driving the cars and creating general mayhem. A benign cycle was developed in the community and the estate returned to a reasonable level of tranquillity.
However, that is an estate where there is something like 80 per cent. unemployment among adult males. There is no hope for the young people on that estate, and policing has now been reduced to a white van which circulates occasionally just to make sure that things are quiet. All those precious links and confidences and the flow of information that had been built up are now dissipated and the underlying problems remain: young people without hope, alienated from our society, to whom repressive or purely reactive policing will only lead to further alienation and further riots. A very small injection of police foot patrols in an area like that can prevent crime, reduce racial harassment, hooliganism and vandalism and thus improve the quality of life for communities in both town and country. I believe that the Home Office is missing a golden opportunity to convert
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that reduction in the middle ranks into constables and sergeants who could be out there on the streets being effective.
My most serious reservations about the police Bill relate to those matters which have already been referred to so tellingly by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and my noble friend Lord McIntosh. I refer to the legislative proposals for the new police authorities, with their five Government-appointed members and the Government-appointed and paid chairman. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor referred to them as "independent local people". I do not understand the word "independent" because since they are people who will be appointed by the Government I do not understand how they can be other than political appointees. Even if the Government declare that they do not know what their political allegiance is, those people will have been chosen by central government and therefore cannot in any measure be called "independent". Independent of what? I suppose it means independent of democratically elected local authorities.
The present tripartite system of sharing power between the chief constable, the local authority and the Home Office has had its stresses and strains, but it was set up after a Royal Commission and not just at the whim of a Home Secretary. The tensions within such a system, I believe, show effective democracy at work rather than a sort of dictatorship from the centre. Those tensions between the tripartite elements have largely died down. No doubt the Home Office is irritated sometimes when chief constables and local authorities will not do what they are told, but nevertheless effective partnerships have developed between police forces and their local authorities with real co-operation and real responsiveness to the local community's wishes. Many of those partnership initiatives in several of the London boroughs and elsewhere in the country have led to real reductions in crime and drug dealing and, as I said earlier, have led to the building up of confidence and of local community links which have led to the arrest of more criminals.
My impression is that a system that has taken time to establish and is just beginning to deliver results is irresistibly attractive to this Government who are more concerned with image than reality. The criminal justice system is also exercising the same fatal attraction. Just as constructive initiatives such as community service orders have started to reduce levels of reoffending and have reduced the prison population to manageable and potentially therapeutic proportions, it is all thrown into reverse by a Home Secretary who believes that crime is reduced by increasing the prison population.
The legislative proposals for government-appointed and paid chairmen for police authorities, working to key national objections set by the Home Office, effectively centralises control of the police service. I do not understand how this, as has been claimed by the Home Secretary, increases local representation and I should be grateful if the Minister could explain how those government appointees to the 43 police forces will be more responsive to local people.

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In his response to the gracious Speech last week, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said that these reforms would not only bring the police closer to the community but would also empower the individual. In my opinion, the only individual who is being empowered is the Home Secretary.
A further consideration is cost. In setting up the new-style 43 police authorities, one wonders who will be paying for the chairmen, their offices, secretaries, expenses and those of the other five appointed members who will probably expect some sort of honoraria even if they are not fully paid. If they are to be overseeing police performance to some extent, presumably the chairmen will need something called a research assistant. Financial managers will probably also be needed. I should also be grateful if the Minister could indicate what estimate has been made of the cost of setting up the new-style 43 police authorities.
In conclusion, I return to my main concern, which is that the reforms are effectively a creeping nationalisation of the police service, a shift to centralised control, increasing the marginalisation of local democracy. That is undemocratic and unconstitutional since there has been no proper public debate about whether we want a national police force in this country.
Some parts of this country already feel like colonies under the arbitrary rule of a remote administration. Concentration of power in the centre in that way appears to be like a colonial administration setting out to discipline the untrustworthy and unruly natives in the towns and counties of darkest England. My final question to the Minister is whether he believes that the Government have a democratic mandate to set up a national police force in that way.
4.50 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, as someone who has most recently been introduced into the House, I am, I believe, the newest of the new Members. Being so wet behind the ears, I feel even more than usual diffidence about making my maiden speech. Before explaining what has prompted me to intervene so early, I should like to express the sense of honour and privilege which I feel at having become a Member of this great seat of parliamentary democracy. I have always admired the informed quality of your Lordships' debates, and the civilised, courteous, and concise manner in which those debates are habitually conducted—free of rancour and unnecessary conflict.
I should like also to express my gratitude to the Clerk of the Parliaments and his colleagues who, this very morning, instructed me and the other new Members, patiently and skilfully, in the ways and mysteries of your Lordships' House. I hope that I shall prove eventually to be a good pupil.
I decided to intervene in the debate on the gracious Speech to draw attention to a regrettable gap in the Government's legislative proposals, and to make a modest, practical suggestion in relation to it.
There is much in the gracious Speech about home affairs, about justice, and about law and order. But there is nothing to indicate that the Government intend to introduce legislation to strengthen the effective legal
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protection of the basic rights and freedoms of the citizens of this country. The reference, in the Queen's Speech, to the Citizen's Charter as being central to the Government's programme is a reference to what is in essence a charter for consumers.
"Citizen's Charter" is a misdescription. It is not a charter of constitutional rights and freedoms, but a useful means of making public services more responsive to consumer needs. The so-called Citizen's Charter does nothing to create effective remedies before our courts for breaches of fundamental human rights and freedoms by Ministers and public authorities.
The record of this House is a fine record of attempting, again and again, to give more effective legal protection to the constitutional rights and freedoms of our fellow citizens. On four occasions between 1976 and 1980, the indefatigable Lord Wade introduced Bills in this House to give the rights and freedoms of the European convention the force of law in this country and to create national remedies for their breach by the state or its agents. Lord Wade gained a Second Reading in this House four times, and a Third Reading twice. His Bill of Rights was sent twice to another place, where it was blocked by the Government.
In 1985, Lord Broxbourne took up the cause. His Human Rights and Freedoms Bill was given a Second and a Third Reading, and received robust support from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, and from the former Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. There was indeed wide support from all parts of this House. But yet again the Bill was opposed by the Government. Two years ago, my noble friend Lord Holme of Cheltenham introduced a debate calling attention to the case for incorporation of the convention. The Government remained implacably opposed.
The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, observed in that debate two years ago that the whole House would have profited from the guidance of those who hold and have held high judicial office. That guidance has since been given; for several of the most senior serving members of the English judiciary, such as the noble and learned Lords, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, Lord Slynn, Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, and the Master of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Bingham, have all now given clear and unequivocal public backing to the incorporation of the European convention into our legal system.
That represents a major and most welcome shift in judicial attitudes. And it is by no means all; for the Labour Party, which was traditionally hostile to the domestication of the European convention—even as recently as two years ago—happily now makes common cause with Liberal Democrats on that issue. So do the Scottish National Party and the democratic political parties from both traditions in Northern Ireland—Loyalists and Republicans. And reliable opinion polls have shown overwhelming support from the public across the country on this issue.
Why then, one may reasonably ask, do this Government continue to refuse to heed the wishes of this House and of the people on this great constitutional question? Why is the United Kingdom in such unsplendid isolation among the countries of the Council

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of Europe, almost all of which (apart from this country and the Republic of Ireland) have made, or are in the process of making, the convention directly enforceable in their national courts? Why is it that the United Kingdom—for want of effective domestic remedies—as the worst record of serious breaches of the convention? Why do we continue to compel our citizens to take the long and expensive road to Strasbourg, while denying them speedy and effective recourse to our own courts?
I hope that I do not sound too cynical when I answer by adapting Lord Acton's famous aphorism: it is because bureaucratic power is delightful; and absolute bureaucratic power is absolutely delightful. It is very much more convenient for Ministers and civil servants to leave complaining citizens to their international remedies than to empower them to obtain speedy and effective remedies at home. That is why the appallingly over-burdened European Court of Human Rights, which was intended to be an international court of last recourse, has become a constitutional court of first resort for so many British victims of the misuse of public powers.
Several of the measures contained in the Queen's Speech are controversial, and, if enacted in the form suggested by the Government, may well give rise to further breaches of the European convention. I refer, for example, to the threatened undermining, or weakening, of the right to silence in the proposed Criminal Justice Bill, to which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor referred. That may well result in breaches of the presumption of innocence guaranteed by Article 6 of the convention. As another example, I refer to the proposed measure to regulate student unions, which may well result in breaches of the students' right to free expression and free association without unfair discrimination.
So I come finally to my modest proposal. There is, alas, no likelihood that the present Government will introduce a measure to give judicial protection by our courts to fundamental human rights and freedoms. But would it be possible, I wonder, for this House, using its historic powers, to increase parliamentary protection, not as a substitute for an enforceable Bill of Rights, but as a practical way of strengthening parliamentary scrutiny of proposed legislation, and so reducing the risk of Parliament's authorising yet further breaches of human rights.
A year ago this House set up the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee as an experiment, following increased pressure on the House for more detailed consideration of the powers delegated by legislation. That committee has already demonstrated the importance and value of the experiment. I suggest trying another experiment: setting up a committee of this House to which, where appropriate, Bills introduced into this House might be referred from time to time, to report whether any of their provisions appear to be inconsistent with the international obligations undertaken by the United Kingdom when ratifying the European Convention or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
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No doubt it will be said by Ministers that machinery already exists in Whitehall to scrutinise proposed legislation in this way, and I am sure that that is so. I fully accept that Ministers and their advisers do not intend deliberately to introduce measures which may involve violation of the international Bills of Rights. But we would do well to remember what Archbishop William Temple once said. He explained,
"Whenever I travel on the underground I always intend to pay for the journey; but the fact that there is a ticket collector at the other end just clinches it".
I am sure that the Government's intentions are entirely honourable, but the existence of such a parliamentary scrutiny committee on compliance with international human rights standards might just clinch it.
5.2 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, it is a great privilege and a singular pleasure to be the agent of your Lordships' House in acclaiming a most notable maiden speech. Like my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, I know that it is not the first time that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has spoken in your Lordships' House. Indeed, I count myself as fortunate that I was a member of the Appellate Committee when he first addressed a committee of your Lordships' House. Therefore I, no less than my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, was not surprised by the excellence of the speech with which your Lordships have been favoured.
The noble Lord was uncharacteristically uncontroversial today. However, your Lordships will want to hear him on future occasions when he has no such parliamentary inhibitions. The taste that your Lordships had today will make your Lordships wish that that occasion will be soon and frequently repeated.
The noble Lord made a suggestion about the way we should deal with human rights. I remain convinced that we should incorporate the European Convention in our domestic law. But, if we are not going to do so, your Lordships may consider it worth while to turn over in your minds the constructive suggestion made by the noble Lord as to how we might proceed in the meantime. On behalf of all your Lordships, I congratulate the noble Lord most heartily on a very fine maiden speech.
There is much in the gracious Speech in the way of legislation which appeals to a former Home Office Minister of very ancient time. I do not propose to deal with those measures, partly because of the lack of time and partly because others who are due to speak today can speak far more authoritatively on those subjects. I wish to deal with a matter that was adumbrated but does not appear finally in the gracious Speech. It is the issue of one-parent families and the Child Support Act and agency. It would be idle to pretend that those issues are not in a deplorable tangle. It will be useful to see why they are in a tangle and to draw some lessons from that analysis. Moreover, your Lordships' House is essentially the kind of forum to discuss such matters in a careful, sober and well-informed way.
That brings me to the first of three reasons why it appears that the issues are so muddled. The first is that

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the policy was declared to a party conference. Balfour used to say that he would no more think of getting policy from a party conference than he would from his valet. Valets are now thin on the ground but party conferences are very much the same; in fact, with their fringe meetings, they are perhaps the more so. The way in which the policy relating to the matters that I have mentioned was recently discussed by Ministers was apt to obfuscate those issues. Democratic dialogue is one thing; populist demagogy is quite another. It is small wonder that the first thing that happened was an alienation of the vast mass of sole women parents who have responsibilities for children and who naturally felt that a beeline was being made for them.
The second matter which confused the issue was the leak of a Cabinet paper disagreeing with the analysis of the Home Secretary. A leak of that kind is all too frequent and it is quite deplorable. I wrote to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser, when I thought that he was to reply to the debate. I drew attention to that matter and asked whether we could be told what investigation had been made of the leak. Not many people could be the possible originators of it. However, it ought to go clearly on the record that anyone who uses a leak, whether for commercial advantage—say, in selling a newspaper—or for partisan advantage in politics is on the level of a receiver of stolen goods. The sooner that is recognised, the sooner the steady leakage of partisan information will cease.
The third matter that has muddled the situation is the Child Support Act and the Child Support Agency itself. The legislation was the subject of very severe criticism in your Lordships' House but, as a result of skilful government debating techniques and the cunning of the government business managers, your Lordships made very little impact on the mischief of that Act. It was the most bureaucratic measure that has come before Parliament, certainly since the Great Revolution.
The matter which particularly affects the present issue is that the adjudication on child support was taken away from magistrates and given to government officials. Of course, magistrates have local knowledge and can take account of the infinitely various circumstances and the financial consequences of marriage breakup. However, the power was taken away from them and given to officials. Not only that, an appeal from them lay not to the courts, as was originally suggested, but to an administrative tribunal. Not only that, what the child support officers had to apply was a series of completely incomprehensible formulae, one supervening on the other. Nobody pretended that any wife or husband, or anybody requiring child support, could possibly understand them. Even my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, who is a noted mathematician, did not on that occasion venture his powers to explain how those formulae would work.
The result has been an outcry from the fathers who have been chased for greater maintenance under the formulae. Some of them were already supporting their wives and children; some had made what is called a clean break as a result of a divorce whereby they handed over property, money or the matrimonial home in
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exchange for a fairly moderate maintenance arrangement. Such arrangements are now all liable to be upset and some have already been upset by child support officers most improperly persuading the wives to withdraw their right to maintenance and then, having no maintenance, to proceed under the Act with the application of the formulae.
That happens inevitably not only because that is a bureaucratic arrangement but because, extraordinarily, the activities of the child support agents, and particularly the head of the agency, are pay related. In other words, the more the agency could get out of the fathers, the better off the agents would be. Naturally, they went for the soft targets. Those were the fathers who were already paying some maintenance or who were excused from doing so as a result of a clean break agreement, rather than those who are the real objects of the Act; namely, those fathers who have disappeared, washing their hands altogether of any obligation to their children.
The result of that third matter is that practically all the fathers, as well as the mothers, were alienated and it is not surprising that there is now no mention of the matter in the Queen's Speech.
I believe that it is incumbent on us to see how the matter can be put right. First, we must accept that the dimensions are very great indeed. It seems to me that the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Social Security were entirely right in drawing attention to the enormous cost. Indeed, in spite of the leaked Cabinet paper, the Home Secretary was entirely right to say that it is now well established that there is a link between family breakdown and delinquency. He quoted a number of recent researches, by no means from figures of the Right. In fact, the research goes back to the 1930s, when Professor Carr-Saunders demonstrated similarly that there was that link between broken homes and juvenile delinquency, the juvenile delinquency being shown to be due to the broken home rather than the poverty which so often accompanies a broken home.
What are the dimensions? What is the nature of the question? There are now well over 1 million homes with only one parent. I believe that we can dismiss the minute proportion which are headed by a widower or a widow. About 50 per cent. are the subject of a divorce. The head of the family is a divorcee. Nearly as numerous are the families headed by a woman who has had what is now called a relationship—a sexual relationship short of marriage—and has been abandoned with a child. I do not believe that one can altogether divorce that category from those who have been divorced, because the encouragement which society has given to divorce inevitably puts some slur on marriage itself and encourages those who take on what is called a relationship without thought of marriage and, indeed, without thought of the support which will be needed for any child who is engendered.
Therefore, half of the problem relates to divorcees. However, I believe that it would be very difficult now to go back entirely on the 1969 Act, which was the source of that alarming increase in the number of divorces. And

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indeed, as I have said, that cannot be entirely divorced from the number who are now living together outside marriage.
Three things can be done. First, surely it is entirely wrong that a woman who stands by her marriage is worse off financially and proprietarily than one who divorces. That is putting a premium on the breakup of marriage and the consequent number of one-parent families and the increase in delinquency. That is the first point. The law of matrimonial property needs revision so that a woman who stands by her marriage is at least no worse off than a woman who divorces her husband.
In fact, there is a Law Commission Bill which deals with that problem. The Law Commission put forward a paper called Matrimonial Property: A new Approach which had three Bills attached. One of them your Lordships allowed me to carry through into law. It dealt with the occupation of the matrimonial home. However, the two more important ones dealing with ownership of the matrimonial home, co-ownership of the matrimonial home and co-ownership of the matrimonial chattels still remain for implementation. I pray in aid what was said by my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce earlier today.
The other two measures that might be put in place to halt the increase in divorce is, first, to take seriously the cry, "children come first" and to say that there shall be no divorce while the children are under the age of 16. One would of course have to allow judicial separation, but I venture to think that the number of divorces that one would have then would be reduced to a trickle, to the immense benefit of the children concerned.
The other proposal that has been made is to allow couples preparing for marriage to engage not to divorce. In other words, there would still be the remedy of judicial separation available in the case of very grave matrimonial misconduct. But why should not people be able to contract on that basis in what is, after all, the most solemn contract that exists?
5.22 p.m.
Lord Windlesham: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to those already expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, and the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, on their maiden speeches. Both were of the highest calibre, for reasons which have already been given by successive speakers. We look forward to hearing frequently from both noble Lords.
In the debate on the Address in another place last week the Prime Minister gave a high place to the concern of the Government and of himself at the level of crime and the widespread fear of crime that exists. Hence the proposals for a Criminal Justice Bill which have already been the subject of a number of today's speeches. I am sure we all agree that it is an entirely proper and timely subject, deserving a high place in the legislative programme.
If we stand back to survey the scene, we see that in many countries of the developing world the perception of a steady, and apparently remorseless, increase in the incidence and severity of criminal offending, sometimes by very young people still in their teens, has become a
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dominant issue. Public concern hardens over time into public anger and demands a political response. I refer to a perception, and I do so advisedly.
No one knows the full extent of criminal offending. However, what we do know is that the bulk of crime goes unreported to the police and is not recorded in the crime statistics. Not all of the sources point in an upward direction for all categories of crime; for example, the 1992 British Crime Survey (which was published recently by the Home Office) states that, contrary to public belief, vandalism of private property has shown no significant change in the survey since 1981, and that it has actually declined since 1987. Nevertheless, although it is certainly true that the published statistics which sometimes show very dramatic rises in the number of crimes reported do call for careful interpretation, we must accept that for the most part they validate the general perception.
If that is so, what is to be done? No government can afford simply to stand aside wringing their hands, blaming social and behavioural changes which are beyond the reach of politicians to do anything about. Ministers can do two things: they can speak and, with the consent of Parliament, they can legislate. Over recent months no one has been able to claim that the Home Secretary or other Ministers have shown any reluctance to speak out in public. On the contrary, the rhetoric has been resonant and continuous. Ministerial speeches have reflected and, to an extent, have shaped the public mood. Commitments have been given; expectations have been raised. Politically, the stakes are high.
Now comes the difficult part: how to translate the rhetoric into action. This calls for special skills, essentially a test in statesmanship, in reconciling political objectives with the day-to-day operation of a sprawling, but nevertheless interdependent system of criminal justice. Often, and the present time is no exception, the clamour for action coincides with acute pressure to restrain public expenditure, whereas most of the proposals require additional financial resources before they can be implemented. Typically, there is little, if any, new money available without making cutbacks elsewhere.
What is meant when we refer to the phrase, "the system of criminal justice"? Let me offer a word or two by way of clarification. Once a crime has been committed and detected —and we must remember that it is only a minority that are detected—the sequence goes like this. First, police investigations, then the institution of criminal proceedings; pre-trial procedures (including decisions on the mode of trial); the trial itself; the verdict; the sentence, if the accused is found guilty; custodial or community sentence; and finally, the right of appeal. At each stage the process can be terminated if there is lack of evidence of guilt beyond reasonable doubt to sustain the charge or to convict the defendant, or if there is procedural impropriety.
At each stage the working of one part has an effect on what happens in other parts. Consequently, changes which are aimed at producing intended effects at one stage may lead to unwelcome consequences elsewhere. For example, there are already indications of the impact

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of recent ministerial statements on sentencing in the courts. The result has been a perceptible increase in the use of custodial sentences and in their length, both contained within the statutory framework laid down in the Criminal Justice Act 1991. That has led to higher totals of prisoners than some of the prisons are designed to contain. Six new prisons have been announced, all to be designed, built, financed and managed by the private sector, but it will be several years before they are ready to receive any prisoners.
In the meantime, the existing prisons will become more and more overcrowded. Tension will mount with, regrettably but foreseeably, enhanced prospects of disorder. Prisons are also very expensive to build and to run, and inevitably they will he a significant drain on resources.
Whatever practical justifications there may be for the more punitive approach now being adopted, crime reduction does not rank high among them. We need look no further than the United States to see the spectacular failure of imprisonment as an instrument of crime control. That point was developed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, in his opening speech from the Benches opposite.
The reason crime cannot be imprisoned away needs to be more widely understood. The explanation can be found in the disturbingly small proportion of criminal offences which result in detection and punishment. According to Home Office figures for the year 1991 the national clear-up rate for crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales stood at 29 per cent. If crimes cleared up are expressed as a percentage not of recorded crimes but of all criminal offences as estimated in the British Crime Survey then the figure falls to well under 10 per cent. The proportion of crimes resulting in conviction is lower still, at 3 per cent.
If only 3 per cent. of all crimes result in a conviction, and since some of those convicted will be fined or receive a non-custodial sentence, the very small part that imprisonment can play in reducing crime is evident. The British Crime Survey—which, I remind your Lordships, is a Government publication—concludes:
"these figures underline the limitations of the formal criminal justice system as a mechanism for controlling crime, and emphasise the need to look beyond it to other approaches".
Therefore, reliance on the greater use of imprisonment and crime reduction are not identical policies. Indeed, in some instances they may conflict. If, for example, due to the inability of the prisons to take additional numbers of sentenced prisoners or increasingly of those remanded in custody while awaiting trial, police cells are brought back into use (as seems highly probable) then substantial numbers of police officers will be diverted from their main purpose of preventing and investigating crime.
I conclude with this thought. As I stated at the start of my speech, I accept fully the gravity of the challenge posed to a civilised society by the present scale of criminal offending. The plight of victims of crime has received greater recognition over the past decade than ever before, although much remains to be done. I agree
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on the urgent need for the Government to take action and to show resolution and leadership on an issue which affects the everyday lives of so many people.
Yet I doubt whether I am alone in the House this afternoon in feeling uneasy about where current policies may take us. It is still too early to reach any final judgments, and it is still too soon to see whether the punitive tone adopted by Ministers will be reflected in the legislation which we shall be considering. But today I have tried to sketch a background against which the detailed measures can be assessed when they reach us in a Criminal Justice Bill later this Session.
5.36 p.m.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, I too want to address my remarks in particular to the reference in the gracious Speech to allowing the courts to deal more effectively with young offenders. I share the unease of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, at the way in which the discussion of the subject has developed. The measured remarks of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor on this aspect were, both in temper and vocabulary, in welcome contrast to the strident and dogmatic utterances of the Home Secretary. As has been said, there is a real danger of making scapegoats of young people as distinct from identifying and dealing with the real problem of criminal activities among one group of young people.
The spate of comments from penologists, both professional and amateur, and politicians in recent weeks is in danger of drowning out the voices and the views of young people themselves. I very much welcome a recent report issued by the National Children's Home, which put questions to and listened to the answers of young people. That report was called The Lost Generation, and I shall refer to it later. I must declare my interest as vice-chairman of the NCH and acknowledge my great debt to our president, the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy.
Of course, some young people and children are capable of the most wicked and even vicious behaviour for which, of course, they should be punished and even locked up to protect society, at least for the time that they are behind bars. Of course, usually it is at most for the time that they are behind bars. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and my noble friend Lady Hilton of Eggardon both referred to the relative ineffectiveness of imprisonment. We cannot remind ourselves too often of the fact that 80 per cent. of 15 and 16 year-olds who go into custody are reconvicted within two years of being released. That figure is well above the figures for alternative methods of dealing with this problem, which have already been referred to in the debate this afternoon.
The report to which I referred is concerned not only with specific proposals but also with the attempt to make scapegoats of young people, which we are now seeing. Young people in young offenders' institutions are a diverse group but they have some characteristics in common, the most obvious of which is a background of sustained unemployment. For our purpose today, I wish to emphasise another common factor: having been in care they have had inadequate preparation for

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independent living when coming out of care. In fact, 40 per cent. of prisoners under 21 have been in care compared with 3 per cent. of the population in that age group.
That factor suggests some ways in which we might help to create circumstances which will make it less likely—it is not certain by any means—that young people will offend. We are told, rightly, that families have an important part to play in preparing youngsters to lead decent lives. However, 40 per cent. of youngsters in custody cannot take for granted a family background, with the discipline, restraint and guidance that we associate with being part of a family. That is why during the summer the NCH set out to examine the lifestyle and attitude of some of the most vulnerable members of our society, many of whom, I emphasise, end up offending and going into custody. That body concentrated on 120 people, 90 per cent. of whom were 16 to 20 year-olds in rural areas, towns, inner city areas, drop-in centres, youth centres and leaving-care schemes. It was a diverse group, but two thirds of them had been in care. Those youngsters are typical of thousands of young people roaming around in the community. They have the same aspirations as other people of their age. Those aspirations are simple enough: the hope of a job, a secure home, and enough money to enjoy life with family and friends. For those young people, those aspirations are largely pipe dreams; few have any realistic possibilities of obtaining any of them. One-tenth of those young people live at home with families; one-tenth is in regular paid employment; one-tenth is working casually; and two-thirds are unemployed and dependent on benefits, with an average income of £34 a week. I do not believe that one can live on £34 a week. Frankly, I do not believe that figure. I believe that many of those young people supplement their income by shoplifting and casual or regular thieving.
The Family Budget Unit estimates that the true cost of caring for a child is £57 a week. Half of those young people say that they would consider shoplifting or other forms of theft. What is the reason? It is that two-thirds of them are in debt to loan sharks. Four-fifths of them take casual work while they claim benefits. Those youngsters, rightly or wrongly—of course they are wrong to steal and to claim benefits while they are taking casual work—are being driven into petty crime from which they can graduate to more serious crime by the circumstances in which they live. I do not seek to exculpate them. However, none of them is capable of living on the income that he receives. None is being given the life that we ourselves would insist upon for our own children or grandchildren. No doubt some of those youngsters would benefit from a boot up the backside. But before we run too regularly to that excuse for our own inactions, I wish that someone would advise me on how to tell the difference between the sheep and the goats—between the deserving and the undeserving among that group, and indeed among groups of inadequate people generally.
The question left firmly with us is this. How can we help such young people to help themselves out of
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poverty? The top priority is perfectly obvious, if simple—it is jobs. If proper work were available, we should be able to sort out the people who refuse to accept work on unreasonable terms. The Lost Generation—it is the title of the NCH report—are the casualties of a society in which 3 million unemployed people are regarded as tolerable. We just say how sad we are and pass by on the other side. The gracious Speech contains no proposals for tackling that cancer in our society. That is the first aspect to which we should address our minds. No one knows how many 16 and 17 year-olds are unemployed. Ministers find it highly convenient that no statistics are available for such people. However, we know that in the first nine months of 1992, 77,000 youngsters aged 16 and 17 years, were claiming severe hardship benefit at a maximum of £34 a week. Those claims are extraordinarily difficult to establish. It is incredibly difficult to jump the hurdles even to obtain that £34 a week. I am afraid that too many youngsters find it easier to break into a car and to develop those skills which come from the environment in which they live as opposed to the skills which they ought to be acquiring and which previous generations were acquiring in full-time pay and employment.
The youth training guarantee is a bad joke. The other side of the bargain—the deprivation of 16 and 17 year-olds from receiving income support—remains. Income support is a rotten substitute for a job. However, as the NCH points out, it is essential to restore income support to young people who seek employment and training and to raise the level of income support to the full adult rate. If we made unemployment more expensive, we might concentrate the minds of the Government Front Bench on tackling unemployment and on how to get people back to work.
A further recommendation in the report is the need to establish a common statutory minimum for leaving-care grants for young people coming out of care. The amounts vary from one local authority to another, ranging from £67 to a lump sum of about £2,000. We must give youngsters a chance as they start out in life.
Equally as important as a regular income and a lump sum of money to start living independently, is the need for Government and local authorities to put more investment into cost effective projects run by agencies such as NCH which successfully support vulnerable young people in the community. Such schemes save taxpayers money by reducing the need for expensive statutory crisis services. The young people covered by the NCH study were at least in touch with helping agencies. Many others are on their own out there, isolated, depressed and at risk, with no families to turn to. I know that such investment will cost money. I know, too, that it will be cheaper than letting young people drift into crime and then locking them up. I hope that in developing their strategy, the Government will not merely think up new and ingenious means of custody but will also find ways in which they can help young people not to drift into situations where they qualify for incarceration.
5.49 p.m.
Lord Westwood: My Lords, I ask for your Lordships' indulgence as I stand before you this afternoon. I suddenly realise what my father meant some 40 years ago when he told me how he felt when addressing your Lordships' House for the very first time. My mind suddenly goes back to the early 1960s when it seemed that the country was swamped with a new music or dance craze on an almost weekly basis. I feel like one of those dancers. Everything seems to be moving except my feet.
As already mentioned by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and other noble Lords, the gracious Speech states that Her Majesty's Government will introduce a Bill to improve the organisation and management of the police so that they will be better able to combat crime. Without wishing to be in any way controversial, I would have thought that your Lordships in particular, and the whole country in general, save perhaps for the criminally intent, will be highly pleased to learn that it is the intention of the Government to step up the fight against the rising crime figures. However, we must all wait and trust that the proposed alterations and amendments to police organisation and management bring about the desired improvement to the current statistical data in relation to crime detection and crime prevention.
For 20 years, I earned my living working in the food retailing sector of our business community. Although I am no longer involved in that business, I was absolutely delighted to learn that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to bring forward a Bill to reform the law on Sunday trading in England and Wales.
Standardisation of the existing law would have been widely welcomed by consumers and traders alike, but reform of the law will be warmly embraced. I hope fervently that the reform legislation will give the nation a complete and unambiguous set of rules on Sunday trading. For far too long the ambiguities, and to a certain extent uncertainties, about trading on a Sunday have perplexed and confused many traders and consumers and local government, leaving them in a virtual state of limbo. It is to be hoped that noble Lords and Members of another place will be able to establish the ground rule principles that will, without any doubt, satisfy all quarters of our country's communities. It seems illogical to me that, for example, one can go out on a Sunday and purchase Italian, Indian and Greek food and yet one is not permitted to purchase that great British dish, fish and chips, from a traditional fish and chip shop. I am sure that anomalies such as that will be removed with the forthcoming legislation.
However, it is on neither of those subjects that I wish to dwell today. Rather, I would draw your Lordships' attention to that aspect of the gracious Speech which deals with the fact that legislation will be introduced to allow the courts to deal more effectively with young offenders and to make improvements in the criminal law.
The Criminal Justice Bill will allow much tougher action to deal with persistent juvenile offenders as well as righting the balance between victim and defendant.
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Measures will include alterations to the right of silence; new powers for the taking of DNA samples; clamping down on those who abuse bail; providing new powers to stop or prevent raves and mass trespass offences; and protecting witnesses from intimidation. In addressing those matters the Bill will seek to incorporate some of the recommendations of the Runciman Report arising from the Royal Commission on criminal justice. Obviously, exact details will not be known until publication.
As the Bill passes through Parliament it is to be hoped that an attempt will be made to achieve reform of the criminal justice system's treatment of child witnesses. I should declare a personal interest in the well being and protection of children. My wife serves on the national executive committee of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Consequent upon her commitment to the cause of the NSPCC over many years, I too have become more aware of the ever increasing needs of the most vulnerable members of our society, our children. I therefore make no excuse for voicing my concern that children should be explicitly considered in the forthcoming legislation.
As we were advised by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, the Bill will give courts new powers, allowing them to send persistent juvenile offenders aged 12 to 14 to secure training centres for a period of up to two years. They would receive education and training to help them to break their cycle of offending behaviour. The Bill will also double, from one year to two years, the maximum sentence available to the courts for 15 to 17 year-olds sentenced to detention in a young offenders institution.
The Bill, I am led to believe, will improve the enforcement of existing controls on obscene material and trade in child pornography—a practice which, I feel certain, all noble Lords must abhor. It is an horrendous affront to the society in which we live and, far more importantly, a violation of the rights of our children. The Bill will increase the maximum penalty for possessing indecent pictures or photographs of children. It will give the police the power to arrest, without a warrant, those believed to be involved in the trafficking of child pornography or other obscene material. It will provide the police with increased powers of search and seizure and give trading standards officers greater powers to enforce the Video Recordings Act of 1984.
The new measures are indeed to be welcomed. However, with specific reference to future cases involving children, there are many other issues which should be considered and taken into account. I referred to the need to protect witnesses from intimidation. A courtroom can be, and indeed is, a very daunting place, even for mature adults. It surely follows that for a young child, a courtroom must seem somewhat akin to a torture chamber. I am fully aware of suggestions that judges should perhaps remove their wigs in cases where young children are involved. However, judges are not the only people who wear wigs in court. Counsel wear wigs. It has to be recognised that the entire courtroom scenario is shrouded in austere formality.
One of the primary functions of our courts is to hear evidence. It must make sense for the court to hear all the

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relevant evidence. That could be better achieved in cases where children are witnesses if some of our traditional formalities were perhaps less evident. After all, in many cases children are being asked to give evidence about events in which they themselves were the victims of abuse.
Delays within our judicial system in hearing cases of alleged child abuse do little to assist the satisfactory outcome of many cases. Children's memories are put to the severest of tests when it may well take six or even eight months for a case to be heard. We all have access to our own memories, but the passage of time distorts our ability to make accurate instant recall. To exemplify that I would ask all noble Lords individually to cast their minds back to 1988 and recall where they took their main holiday that year. Some noble Lords may not be able to recall that information immediately. Imagine, therefore, how difficult it must be for a young child to plumb the depths of his or her mind in a courtroom when asked by counsel about an event which happened a long time beforehand. Children concerned in cases of the nature I have described often suffer from trauma and self-recrimination in spite of the fact that they may well have been the innocent, molested and abused victim. Delays in our judicial system can exacerbate that regrettable situation.
I feel passionately too that if at all possible we should seek to increase the awareness of the judiciary in matters concerning child abuse. Surely, it cannot be correct to refer to an eight year-old girl, as happened relatively recently, as someone who was "no angel". I am unable to concur with those who considered that that young girl was sexually experienced. The child, after all, was only eight years old. I am not naive enough to imagine that children pass through their early and formative years without feeling the need to experiment with their own bodies. For generations children have indulged in exploratory games such as "doctors and nurses". However, to refer to a girl of only eight tender years as someone who was sexually experienced was surely an incorrect assessment and evaluation of the circumstances. The danger of lesser sentences being passed on those found guilty of child abuse because a child—and a young child at that—is considered to be someone who is sexually experienced, must raise questions in the minds of all caring adults. The matter should be rightly addressed within the proposed reforms and the suggested awareness training.
I hope that the forthcoming reforms will permit much wider use of what I believe is referred to as video linking. At present, video evidence from children is limited in acceptance and use. To increase the use of that medium may well assist in diminishing the anguish of child witnesses and in some way help to heal the wounds and scars which abuse cases undoubtedly inflict upon our children. Perhaps the interests of our children would also be better served by better communication between the Crown Prosecution Service and social workers in cases involving alleged child abuse prior to those cases coming before the courts.
My Lords and fellow citizens of the Union, I thank you for your indulgence.
6 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Liverpool: My Lords, it is my privilege on behalf of your Lordships' House to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, on his maiden speech. He spoke at the beginning about being a dancer, and he showed himself very deft on his feet. He spoke from the heart with real passion about his concern for children. I hope that your Lordships' House will hear again from him. We can never hear too many voices which try to tell us about life from the point of view of children and their needs. I congratulate the noble Lord very warmly.
I want to pick up two subjects from the gracious Speech: Sunday trading and secure training centres. There is a major campaign for deregulation backed by the large financial interests of the big battalions of the supermarkets, complete with handouts on varicoloured papers and inks for writing letters to MPs. I welcome very much the firm support of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for keeping Sunday a different day as part of the pattern and framework of our society. I speak as chairman of the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility. Behind me there is a unanimous vote this year from the General Synod in support of maintaining that framework and measures which keep regulations in place.
I firmly believe that those of us who want to keep the character of Sunday as a different day should support the joint option of Retailers for Shops Act Reform (often better known as the Marks and Spencer proposal) to keep Sunday special. It is conceded that large stores may open for the four Sundays before Christmas. That concession having been made, I regret very much that people should be saying that it means a moving away from any principle. Those who take that attitude would prefer not to have the concession. But we have tried to seek a middle way which will find precisely the acceptance from all sides that the law needs.
There is much anxiety about the future of the family. Sunday, as it is at present, is statistically the day when parents see their children more than on any other day. Statistically, it is the day when more visits are paid to elderly relatives. To give shopworkers another day off in the week will add to the number of homes in which there is no day when the whole family can come together.
Very late in the day the Government have conceded employment protection for those who do not wish to work on Sundays. The Churches, which have joined with others in pressing for that protection, welcome the agreement, although one must question how effective such safeguards will be. Today's Independent carries leaked information from a major company alerting managers to the fact that if they want to be promoted, their willingness to work on Sundays will be taken into account. That does not promise much for the effectiveness of employee protection.
But employment protection does not touch the major issue of the character of Sunday. The option proposed by some of the large stores—the Shopping Hours Reform Council—is total deregulation by another name. It removes any safeguards to the character of Sunday. I

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wonder why the Government have persisted in putting forward total deregulation as another option. I do not think that they believe that it will be any more successful than it was a few years ago. I believe that it is a stalking horse to try to show what is not true; namely, that the Shopping Hours Reform Council's proposals are a middle way. In fact they are total deregulation by another name. That would knock another nail in the coffin of small shops, which provide a vital service to those who do not own a car. Many elderly people, lone parents and those on low income are dependent on local shops. In order to survive, many corner shops need the trade from shoppers who top up their main shopping. Only small shops have been open on Sundays. During the past 30 years the number of independent grocery outlets has fallen from 116,000 to 32,800. Any further fall would be bad news for the poor.
I believe that a touch on the rudder in favour of small shops would strengthen the health of our society. Opening the high street every day of the week would add to the process of secularisation. My friend and colleague the most reverend Archbishop Derek Worlock (who is now very much better, I am glad to say) preached on Sunday in the metropolitan cathedral in Liverpool. He asked whether this measure was being pursued for the sake of freedom in a pluralist society or whether the options presented were anything more than the application of the profit motive to Sunday trading at the expense of freedom to worship, the strengthening of family life and the day of rest and physical recreation. "Look", he said, "what happened to Good Friday".
I have no doubt that in our debates the experience in Scotland will be quoted. The Convenor of the Church of Scotland Church and Nation Committee, Andrew McLellan, writing to me on behalf of that committee says that any suggestion that the system in Scotland is successful and is good practice is misleading and a contradiction of the facts.
We believe that the rhythm of a different day on Sunday helps to offer help and wholeness to families and the community as a whole. In our common life we need symbols which point beyond market forces, symbols which remind us that we are citizens who belong to one another and are not simply consumers.
Secondly, I want to mention the plan to provide five secure training centres for 12 to 14 year-olds. Like other noble Lords, I understand the very real concerns and fears that exist on many great housing estates about some young people. One of our clergy with long experience of urban priority areas has talked to me about the hard faces of some young people whom he now sees, faces which he did not see a few years ago. I hope that the Government will take very seriously the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Windlesham, and Lord Harris of Greenwich. We are concerned about acting effectively. The claim that prison works has been challenged very sharply in your Lordships' House today.
We have to ask what is most likely to bring about change in such young people, not simply what will enable us to feel that we are taking decisive action. There are young people who are highly dangerous. Secure custodial provision is needed for them. Section
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53 of the Children and Young Persons Act. 1933 provides for the use of custody for juveniles when very serious offences against the person have been committed. I personally know of some very good facilities which are not being used because local authorities say that they cannot afford to place young persons there. Setting up a parallel development of five secure training centres—five for the whole country—could invite a policy of dumping by local authorities which need to save money. Five centres will inevitably mean a high proportion of offenders being in custody a long way from the home network of family, probation services and other agencies which in the end will be needed to support any real change of heart.
My mind goes back to when I worked in Canning Town in East London. I visited a boy from our youth clubs who was in a Borstal in Nottinghamshire. He started at once to make great promises about how different he intended to be. I said, "Don't make me any promises: come and see me the day you get home and let us talk about it." Well, he never came. The day he returned home he was back in the scrapyard where his father and his mates were. That was the environment where he had got into trouble, and the very good work that was done in Borstal was lost.
I am terribly afraid that we are simply taking one more turn around an old circle. Borstal was a great and honest dream of one of the greatest prison reformers of this nation, Alec Paterson. There was nothing wrong about the dream, but it did not work. The young man I saw was typical of so many. All the evidence is that you are more likely to bring about lasting change in someone if he or she has to face himself or herself, together with some good support, in the same context in which they are going to have to work out their future life.
I have questions for the Minister. Will the large costs involved—the estimate I have read is £452 a week to hold one young person in a secure training centre—be taken from the existing budgets in the criminal justice sector, and, if so, from where? On the same day as the announcement, I led a delegation of ecumenical Church leaders to Michael Howard when, in a previous manifestation, he was Secretary of State for the Environment. We were protesting about the cuts in the urban programme. That programme has supported a great number of projects, many explicitly about the prevention of crime. We were seeing those cut away at the very moment when huge new expenditure was being talked about for something which many of us feared would not be effective in preventing crime.
Does the Minister worry that five secure training centres will label their charges as "pardoned offenders" and that it will be a sort of graduation into what has been called a criminal élite? Reduction in the use of custody over the years and the increased use of cautioning were both achieved without a general increase in recorded offending rates. If we are more concerned with bringing about lasting change than in satisfying our feelings that we have done something about it, we shall continue to keep custody as a last resort.
6.13 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, it has been my life-long ambition to speak in this building, but I must confess that even in my wildest dreams I did not imagine that it would be in this Chamber rather than in the other place, whose name I have been advised I must never utter. I am, however, relieved to learn that your Lordships show a special tolerance to newcomers, and at this very nervous moment, especially as I am the fourth maiden speaker this afternoon, I am particularly grateful.
One of the major planks of this Session will be the Criminal Justice Bill. This is a subject on which I believe I have three special areas of experience. The first is as a magistrate, the second is as a victim and the third is as someone who has spent 20 years speaking to members of the public. I have been a magistrate for 22 years in both adult and juvenile courts. There are very few crimes that I have not seen and hardly any excuses or explanations that I have not heard. We pride ourselves on the independence of our judiciary, and there must be no interference with that independence either from well-meaning pressure groups or from the suggestion of fixed penalties that have more to do with financial policies than with the administration of justice. In return for this independence we ask our judges to recall that their judicial oath,
"to do right by all manner of people",
includes the victims as well as the perpetrators.
My second qualification is as a victim. I suspect that hardly any of your Lordships have been held up with a double-barrelled shotgun at your head for half an hour, which seemed like a lifetime. It happened early one morning when I went to the hairdresser. Unfortunately, an armed gang were waiting to ambush a bullion van that was making a delivery to the bank next door. I assure your Lordships that it was not funny, even if you are the stuff that heroes are made of—and I am most definitely not. But what was funny was when I later telephoned my husband to come and collect me because I had been held up at the hairdresser's, he did not come right away because he thought that when I said that I had been held up at the hairdresser's, I meant that I had been held up at the hairdresser's and not "held up" at the hairdresser's, if you follow me.
I have a cousin who was a captain in the New York Police Force and is now retired. He used to tell me that his definition of a liberal—with a small "l" and not referring to noble Lords opposite—was someone who had not yet been mugged. I have to tell your Lordships that my cousin was right. After that experience, I viewed crimes committed with weapons in an entirely different light.
My third qualification is that I have for the last 20 years, on behalf of my Party, travelled up and down the country speaking to people at the grass-roots. At the sharp end, there is very little difference between the concerns of people, whatever their party politics. They are worried about street crime, burglaries, all kinds of violence and drugs. They are appalled at the inability of bringing persistent young offenders to book. But above all they protest, as I do, that it seems as though
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protecting the public is not the foremost priority of our penal system. And it is just that little thing that I would like to talk about today.
There are four theoretical reasons for sending people to prison. The first one is to reform them. Reforming prisoners is just like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Children and youngsters have to be taught right from wrong in their homes and in the schools before they become criminals. Experience shows that it is all too rarely that anyone sees the light through the bars of a cell.
The second reason is to deter potential criminals. No one commits a crime expecting to be arrested for it. I respectfully agree with the Lord Chief Justice that the real deterrent would be the knowledge that if you commit a crime there is a very high probability that you will be caught. But I do not think that goes far enough, because part of the deterrent has to be that if you are caught you will be prosecuted and, if you are prosecuted and you have done it, it is to be hoped that you will be convicted and, if convicted, you will be punished and the punishment should be an appropriate one. "Appropriate punishment" means that maximum sentences should be long enough and, in suitable cases, that the courts should be willing to impose them. Some offences demand that the penalty should almost invariably be imprisonment, with minimum sentences. I would put rape and other violent crimes right at the top of that list.
The third reason of course is that of punishment. We can all go where we like. We can do what we like with our time —the Whips permitting of course—and we can eat what we like for dinner. Losing our liberty is the punishment. I do not believe that we should add to that punishment by making prisoners live in squalid and degrading conditions that are an absolute disgrace for a civilised first world country. I do not believe that it is pampering a man to allow him to perform his bodily functions in private and in a toilet rather than for him to be locked up for hours with a chamber pot. I do not believe that it is pampering a man to allow him to have clean clothes, or to bath or shower every day.
Let me add that although I am not of the "lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key" persuasion, on the matter of punishment I hope that our judges will limit the use of concurrent sentences. When someone is convicted of killing two people by reckless driving, there should be two consecutive sentences. When there are three convictions for burglary, there should be three sentences. Our courts ought not to be a kind of discount store—commit two crimes and get one free.
Above all, and lastly, imprisonment is intended to protect society and prevent crime. The simple fact is that when someone is locked up they cannot mug other people in the streets or burgle or break into their homes. The recent experiment of not taking previous offences into account failed, as it was clearly doomed to do. I do not advocate the return of preventive detention when someone could receive three years for stealing a bottle of milk. But it is obvious that if someone commits a crime, having previously been punished for it, then that

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in itself makes it a much more serious crime. An ever increasing series of penalties will prevent such people from reoffending for an ever increasing period of time.
Protecting the public at home and in the streets is as much a part of our national defence as protecting them from foreign invaders. The risk of being mugged in the street or having one's home broken into is more of a reality than being invaded by the Russians or the Iraqis. It is true that longer sentences will cost more and we shall need more prison warders. But we must be prepared to pay for that. The cost of keeping criminals in prison should not be the criterion. The punishment must fit the crime and the criminal.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, it is my pleasant privilege to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, on a serious but entertaining speech. I, too, come from the London Borough of Barnet and I can tell her and your Lordships' House that the noble Baroness is well respected. She is chairman of the Barnet Family Health Service Authority and over the years has made a notable contribution to the promotion of women in politics. She is a good example of that and it is time that she came to this House. I understand that she is chairman of the Three Hundred Group, which encourages women to stand for office. It is good that we have another example of an intelligent woman joining your Lordships' House. The noble Baroness happened to be the fourth of four distinguished maiden speakers and the debate has been much informed by their speeches. Two of the speakers I have known and worked with for many years—the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Tugendhat. I congratulate them all on what they have given to us today.
We are debating a Queen's Speech of a government which I believe have been in power for too long. I believe it shows how much out of touch they are not only with the people whom they represent but also with those who are experts in the field in which they have chosen to legislate. I admired the speeches of my noble friend Lady Hilton arid others who looked critically and with concern at what may happen in the proposed Criminal Justice Bill and in the reformation and reorganisation of the police forces. I want to touch on a different issue which illustrates how many matters the Government propose to introduce which are intended to correct other matters that they introduced earlier during their period in office.
I refer first to deregulation. Most of the regulations that the Government seek to remove are ones for which they have been responsible. I have no doubt that some of the regulations are damaging and the cause of unnecessary bureaucracy, and of course there must be changes. But some are essential, such as health and safety. I refer, for example, to the regulations which restrict the use of flammable fillings in furniture; those requiring low flammability in children's nightwear and those demanding the insulation of new houses. All those are examples of essential regulations and we must therefore be careful when the Bill comes before your Lordships' House.
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Another example is the maintaining of high standards of social services. As one who is involved in the provision of nursing homes for the increasing proportion of people who are elderly, frail and needing nursing home help, I was appalled to see the letter sent out by the Department of Health on 6th August. It said that the Government intended to deregulate within the private sector of nursing home provision. That may be dangerous. It was interesting that among those who criticised the proposal were those in the private sector who are seeking to provide high standards and who do not want the sharks to get away with exploiting the elderly and needy. We must therefore ensure that if there is to be deregulation, we watch it extremely carefully.
That leads me to comment on another disturbing increase, as my noble friend on the Front Bench said, in the number of quangos in our society. I well remember when the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, became Prime Minister, the assurances she gave that she would wage war against quangos. In 1980 she said that there will always be pressure for new bodies but we must be robust in resisting them. But the figures have increased and we have more quangos and more people appointed by the Government to work with them than ever before.
The danger of quangos is that in almost every case the powers are being taken away from people elected to represent the needs of local people and given to those appointed by the Secretary of State. If this Queen's Speech programme is carried through, the powers of the Secretary of State will be enormously enhanced. That will be extremely dangerous for our society. We should be moving towards more accountability as regards local people who understand local needs and less towards people appointed by the Secretary of State.
It is interesting that the advisory panel which made the recommendations in terms of deregulation, consisted only of businessmen. Nobody on the panel represented the consumer or the employee even though its recommendations affect both groups enormously. It was interesting also to note that the chairman of the DTI deregulation advisory panel is the chairman of a company which gave the Conservative Party £44,000 last year, and the vice-chairman of that same body last year gave £25,000.
If we look around at what is happening in our society we see that more people are being appointed for party political reasons. That is extremely unhealthy. One can understand it, and the proposals for the reorganisation of local government will provide the same kind of dilemma. If one is not popular at a local level, then one may try to take more power to oneself. I think that is very dangerous and retrograde.
We have seen that in the health service and the creation of NHS trusts, the reform of district health authorities, the shake-up of schools and colleges and plans to reorganise police authorities. All those measures hinge on the transfer of power away from local government to the growing class of quangocrats. My noble friend Lord McIntosh on the Front Bench gave a figure. I believe he said that they would spend about £46 million, and others have said that the figure is well over that.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the figure is in billions.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am grateful. A survey was carried out by the Guardian which showed that £54 billion of taxpayers' money was involved.
I want next to touch very briefly on the points which may flow from phrases in the gracious Speech such as to
"reduce the share of national income taken by the public sector"
and,
"develop their policies on social security so that help is concentrated on those most in need and expenditure is kept within affordable limits".
Those are terms which are shorthand for the destruction and undermining of the welfare state. The Prime Minister has very often used the phrase "getting back to basics". Because of my experience in government over the years, to me the basics that we should get back to are the provisions made over the years by successive governments to create and develop our welfare state; to create and develop our health service, to provide freedom from want, from poverty and ignorance. I believe those are the great objectives which were established in the years which followed the war. I believe that the decisions taken then stand as symbols of very effective government.
This Government is the most leak-prone government that there has ever been in our country. I suppose the situation is that if they do not release documents then other people will get them into the public domain. It is an argument for open government. The Observer revealed that there have been seven teams of top civil servants drawing up plans to demolish key parts of the welfare state. All those parts affect the most needy in our society. Many of the proposals which have been made under instruction—the civil servants have a mandate as to what they are to report on—challenge many of the promises which the Conservative Party made in their 1992 manifesto.
I believe that we shall have a very hard period during the next 12 months. If the Government are insistent on pressing forward with legislation which they have in a sense threatened in the gracious Speech, there will be great controversy in this House. There needs to be such controversy because I believe that there will be fundamental challenges to the basics of our society.
6.33 p.m.
Lord Knights: My Lords, perhaps I may first offer my congratulations to our four maiden speakers this afternoon. They have all brought great wisdom to our proceedings for which we should be grateful. Secondly, may I seek your Lordships' indulgence. I am obliged to return to Birmingham later tonight and should that require me to leave the Chamber before the debate is adjourned—the list of speakers still to come seems to indicate that that might well be possible —then I crave your Lordships' indulgence and I offer my apologies.
It seems to me that one of the features of the past 25 years or so has been the extent to which law and order has become a topic for political debate. I can still recall the surprise which I felt on an extended visit to the United States in 1968. There I first experienced the
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heated public debate on that particular issue which was then being fought out by the two contenders for the presidential nomination, President Johnson and Richard Nixon. They both were claiming to be the one best able to create safe streets in American cities. We know from what the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, said this afternoon how successful they were.
It seems to me that we are in much the same position today. Whatever the reasons for this development may have been—and some may think the influence which the topic can have on election results is clearly one of them—the debate is obviously going to continue at a very high level during the present Session.
At the same time I sometimes think that this highly charged and often emotional debate, with its often polarised views, can have some unfortunate effects. The results of careful, disciplined research, including that conducted by the Home Office itself, can be jettisoned at a moment's notice in the face of perceived public opinion, at least as it is expressed by the media. It can result in what should be long-term policies being abandoned for short-term advantage with knock-on effects on the morale of those who face the problems on the ground.
I believe that the new measures referred to in the gracious Speech for dealing with young offenders may well fall into that category. No one denies—noble Lords have said the same thing this afternoon—that those who persistently offend (about 200 to 300 are involved) should be deprived of their liberty for a period not only in order to protect the public on whom they are preying, but also to deny them the opportunities to influence other young people towards criminal activities like theirs. As noble Lords will know, peer pressure is considerable at this age. During this period when their liberty has been taken away, they should undergo education and training. On their release they should be supervised and supported, as may be necessary, in the community. Whether the new secure training centres, with these two processes largely divorced, are going to be the answer, is another matter. It may well be argued that what is wanted is more secure places available to local authorities rather than more powers for the courts.
Another feature of this period has been the way in which responsibility for maintaining law and order—which was regarded originally to a very large extent as a local responsibility—has been transferred to central government. In my time I have seen locally provided and organised Courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions, administered by the county or borough, transferred to the Lord Chancellor's Department and renamed Crown Courts. The costs of trying indictable offences, which were a charge on the community, again through the county or borough council, have passed to the Exchequer. The decision to prosecute and the subsequent prosecution process have been passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions answerable to the Attorney General. The forthcoming Bill promised in the gracious Speech is apparently going to do the same with the administration of the magistrates' courts.
Taken together with the creation of the new quango to run our police forces, it seems to me that local authorities will be left with no statutory responsibility

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whatever for the maintenance of law and public order other than the regulatory fields such as parking and consumer protection. This is at a time when the whole thrust of the Government's crime prevention and reduction policies, we are told, is to involve the local community. The way will be open to local authorities, if they are minded to take it, to withdraw entirely from this area and to say to the Government "What are you doing about our problems? It is your responsibility".
I have expressed on an earlier occasion in your Lordships' House my belief that there should be a statutory provision requiring local authorities to develop strategic policies in a real partnership with all other relevant bodies to deal with the identified crime problems in their areas. I believe that such a measure will be even more necessary in the future if we are to go down the road to which the gracious Speech is pointing us. I am bound to say that I am doubtful about whether the reforms that were outlined in the White Paper Police Reform, on which the Bill will be based, will make the police better able to combat crime as is the intention.
I turn now to the role of any additional personnel made available by the abolition of the ranks of chief superintendent and chief inspector. I believe that my reading of this is contrary to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton of Eggardon—I am sorry that she is not in her place. My reading is that some 3,000 police officers are to be made available as a result of those savings. Even if extra officers are available, we must balance against that gain the additional demands which will he made on the police as a result of the new provisions which have been promised in respect of squatters, new age travellers, the obstruction of country sports, and on improving liaison with the victims of crime. There will probably also be the task of looking after prisoners because the prisons are full.
In combating crime, the task which the Bill is intended to assist, the police are dependent to a very large extent on information from the public which enables them to identify active criminals and then to target them. That principle was underlined by the Audit Commission in its recent report, Helping with Enquiries: Tackling Crime Efficiently. The new 3,000 police officers will no doubt be able to help with that, but we must bear in mind that it will work out at one extra police officer to some 17,000 or 18,000 members of the community. That information will flow much more easily if the police are clearly recognised as part of the local government machine rather than the central one. if the police are seen as "our police" as opposed to "the police" that task can be made much easier.
But it is the effect that the reforms could have on the constitutional position of the police which I find most worrying. Here I share the views that were expressed so well by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. One of the foundations of policing in this country is the impartiality of police officers. That is implicit in their oath of office as constables. As a former Metropolitan commissioner, Sir Robert Mark, once put it when addressing recruits passing out at Hendon:
"The police serve no party or faction. They are free to stand between minorities and those who would oppress or bully them. They must be free to invoke the law fearlessly against those who govern as well as those they govern".
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It is difficult now to follow that argument when the prosecution process has been taken out of police hands. That was the first little nail in the coffin. That impartial position of the police and the independent judgment of chief constables will, I believe, be influenced markedly if these new provisions become law. Will a chief constable continue to be able to say "No" to a Home Secretary when the Government set his key objectives and when the extent to which he achieves those is judged by a police authority, the paid chairman of which is appointed by the Secretary of State who also has the authority to determine his fixed-term appointment? I believe that those are fundamental questions, and they will not be answered quickly or easily.
6.44 p.m.
Lord Alexander of Weedon: My Lords, perhaps I may first apologise for the fact that a long-standing speaking engagement later this evening will make it not possible for me to stay until the end of the debate.
It is tempting to talk about the issues affecting criminal justice which will loom large in debate this Session, but we have recently had an opportunity to talk about the report of the Royal Commission and there will clearly be many later occasions for discussion. So I should like to talk this evening about the civil law because I think that the civil law is of importance and raises issues for anxiety of which we should not lose sight in the wider debate on law and order.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, has spoken about the substantive law, so I shall be brief. I, too, welcome the proposal to take non-controversial law reform measures off the Floor of the House. It has been unfortunate that in recent years so little of the work of the Law Commission has been implemented. The Law Commission is highly competent, does detailed work, is a national resource paid for out of the public purse and we do not serve ourselves well or use that resource well if we do not find an opportunity to implement its work through legislation.
I should like to talk this evening particularly about procedures and to touch on the concerns which I believe are widely held about the difficulty which so many people have in gaining access to civil justice. These have once again been highlighted in a pamphlet published only yesterday by the Society of Conservative Lawyers which is called Paying for Justice. The essential problem is a very simple one. Too many people simply cannot afford the price of going to law.
Part of the problem is undoubtedly caused by the reduction in eligibility for civil legal aid. Some 70 per cent. of the population used to be eligible for legal aid. Now it is estimated that the proportion has dropped to some 48 per cent. The contributions sought from those on very low incomes are such as often effectively preclude them from taking up the grant of legal aid. So there is an immense difficulty in the way of people of limited means who seek to assert or defend their rights.
I do not believe that we can seek to meet this problem by demanding greater public expenditure on legal aid. The bill has, as we know, grown rapidly in recent years. We have to recognise the pressures on my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, as on other

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government Ministers, to rein back public expenditure, but this should, I believe, give urgency to seeking other ways of helping people to have their disputes resolved.
I know that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is sympathetic to this approach. At Justice, the all-party law reform group, one of whose principal current concerns is the diminishing access to justice, we have welcomed his recent proposal for conditional fees in personal injury, human rights and insolvency cases. We support the impetus that he has given to having disputes resolved informally, both through the small claims courts and, wherever possible, through conciliation or alternative dispute resolution. I believe that there is much more that we can do as a society to seek out alternatives to costly, adversarial litigation in the courts.
I also believe that it is important that we should encourage those agencies which are able to give legal advice and assistance at low cost. In this respect, as we all know, citizens advice bureaux play an absolutely crucial role. They are an invaluable, low-cost resource. In 1992–93, they handled some 7.75 million inquiries at an average cost of just over £6.00 per inquiry. The law centres, for their part, are able to provide low-cost help in litigation. I would hope very much that in the not too distant future we can draw both the citizens advice bureaux and the law centres into the mainstream of legal aid funding.
But the one particular proposal I would like to highlight today has been advanced by Justice for almost 30 years. It is the proposal for a contingency legal aid scheme. That may in a sense sound prosaic beside some of the great issues that have been debated today, but it is designed to help people to enforce their rights and, since rights without remedies are illusory, I invite your Lordships to consider just what such a scheme means. It has been strongly endorsed by the recent pamphlet from the Society of Conservative Lawyers.
What is involved in a contingency legal aid scheme? Its essence is simple. It enables litigation to be financed on the basis that part of the sum recovered in a successful action goes to the scheme to provide its funding. So it would involve the creation of an independent, non-profit-making organisation. A claimant who wished to make use of the service would first consult a solicitor in the usual way. The solicitor, if satisfied that the case was one which deserved support, would apply to the fund in the same way as an application is now made for conventional legal aid, but there would be an important difference. There would be no inquiry as to the means of the applicant. The applicant would give authority to the solicitor to pay to the contingency legal aid fund a contribution which represented a specific percentage, say 15 per cent., of any sum recovered in the action. The contingency legal aid office would grant legal aid only if it believed that there was a reasonable chance of success, because, after all, it would have a clear stake in that success. Once legal aid was granted, the case would proceed in the usual way. If lost, the litigant would recover from the fund of the contingency legal aid office his own costs and the costs payable to the defendant. If successful, the
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legal aid fund would receive the agreed proportion of the award. The fund would be built up by contributions from the amounts recovered by successful applicants. The aim would be that, after a short period, the fund should become self-financing.
Justice has consistently supported such a scheme. The Royal Commission on Legal Services was not persuaded in 1978 that the scheme was viable. But the idea did not lie down. It was revived by the Law Society in 1987 in a consultation paper Improving Access to Civil Justice.
What are the arguments against the scheme? They have traditionally been that it would not work in practice. We would, so it is suggested, find that the costs outweighed the amount coming from successful claims. It was feared that the fund's support would be sought only in unpromising cases. That seemed to be no more than an instinctive concern, and many of us thought that it was too gloomy a prediction.
But we now have experience of schemes in action in other jurisdictions. In particular, there is one encouraging experience in Hong Kong. A contingency legal aid scheme was established in 1984. By 1987, income was exceeding expenditure. By April 1993, damages had been obtained in 212 out of 224 concluded cases. So the scheme was being used to back potential winners. We should not draw the conclusion that that is due merely to the entrepreneurial skills of Hong Kong society.
Experience in Australia is shorter, but it points in the same direction. Western Australia established a scheme called the Litigation Assistance Fund in 1991. In June 1993, the manager of the fund expressed the opinion that, although it was early days, the evidence as to the fund's viability was encouraging. South Australia is following suit and similarly establishing a scheme.
So there is now evidence that the contingency legal aid fund, once established with the help of temporary and ultimately repayable finance, can be operated in a way which is self supporting. The Society of Conservative Lawyers concluded:
"We believe this proposal is viable and has an important role to play in the future funding of legal services".
That gives welcome support to the long-standing view of Justice.
This is an area in which we have to be imaginative. In our society there is increasingly a gulf between rights that we provide, presumably because we believe that it is right that they should exist in a civilised society, and the ability of people to enforce those rights. That is a gulf which we must seek to bridge. We must respond positively and imaginatively. One part of that response—it may be right to concentrate upon one idea only this evening—would be to introduce a contingency legal aid system and seek to make it work. I urge my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to look again at this idea, and to give it his sympathetic backing.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships' House because for a few minutes I wish to take the discussion away from what has been the main theme of the debate—law and order. I am sorry

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that I am unable to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, in his characteristically constructive speech. I have a certain family interest in the all-party organisation, Justice, and I am aware of how much good service he gives to it as its chairman. I hope that the ideas he has put forward this evening will be followed up by the Government in due course.
I want to raise, as a matter of some urgency, what is likely to be the imminent announcement by the Government of changes in the rules of ownership for ITV contractors. I make this speech in this debate only because it had been thought that there might have been a Statement earlier today. According to press reports, the Government are giving way to the impatience of the big battalions in the ITV system. The press reports indicate, with some precision, that the Government are inclined to change the law to allow one big company to take over another. Until now, as a result of the Broadcasting Act, there was the so-called nine/six rule under which the big nine companies were not permitted to engage in takeovers among themselves.
The Government's handling of this matter has been, in some ways, extraordinary. It has raised a flurry of rumours and speculation, and what used to be a commercial broadcasting system with a proud public service record has been turned in recent days into a kind of gambling casino in ITV shares—a kind of great game of monopoly. When the dust settles, the result is likely to be a system dominated by two or three television conglomerates in place of the present regional diversity of independent companies. Yet those arrangements have been in place for less than a year. The companies that have been lobbying the Government for change so vigorously, and apparently so successfully, gladly accepted the conditions of the new contracts only a short time ago.
I am bound to say that I find the arguments that they bring to bear for wanting change to be weak. They argue that from January, the general moratorium on takeover bids within the ITV system, which we gained from the Government rather grudgingly during the proceedings on the Broadcasting Bill, will come to an end, and that at that point the bigger ITV companies may be legitimate targets for European predators. I find the term "European predator" somewhat pejorative, because we ourselves are Europeans. In my days of responsibility for the commercial side of the broadcasting system, I deplored the lack of British enterprise in aspects of that system. We relied to a large extent upon Canadians, Americans and Australians to provide enterprise in aspects of commercial radio in this country.
It is, in any case, a bogus argument to believe that because one is bigger, one is a more difficult target. In some ways, one might be a more attractive target. Equally, some spurious arguments have been produced about savings in overheads if there are fewer, bigger ITV companies. If the Government go ahead with this—I urge them even at this late hour to have second thoughts about it—they will fly directly in the face of the advice of the ITC. It recognises, as I do, that the stresses and strains that exist within the ITV system are very real. Nevertheless, it urges, as we have done from these Benches on a number of occasions during the past
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year, that the wise course for the Government to take would be to allow the new arrangements to settle down a little; to see how they work; to see the kind of people who emerge to run it; and then to take advantage of the fact that the Government will need to take major broadcasting decisions in 1996 with the renewal of the BBC Charter, to look at the situation as a whole.
However, if as appears to be the case, the Government are determined to go ahead with the proposal, I hope that at least they will safeguard the national regions of Scotland, Wales and Ulster. The Secretary of State for Scotland is known to have made vigorous representations for Scotland and no doubt the same has been done for Wales and Ulster. I hope that they will be protected from the kind of takeover bids which may well emerge.
If that protection is to be allowed by the Government—and rumour has it that that is the way in which the Government's mind is working—I have some sympathy for the English regions. They too have their rights as do Scotland, Wales and Ulster. It is important for your Lordships to understand that the argument about the change of ownership —that it will be all right because the Independent Television Commission will be able to insist that the original licence conditions for local programming will continue to have to be observed—is only half the story. What is important about broadcasting in this country is that it should not become a wholly London-dominated affair. It is the contribution that the regional companies of the ITV system make to network programming as distinct from local programming that is important for the health of the whole system and the interests of the viewers. If these takeovers are allowed, there will be a great sucking of creative talent into London, to the great disadvantage of the system as a whole.
If the Government go ahead with that mistaken course, I hope that they will bear in mind that 1996, when they must take decisions about the future of the BBC, will remain an important year in terms of the future of British broadcasting. I suspect that by that time the revenues of the three main elements now in broadcasting—the licence revenue of the BBC, the advertising revenue of the commercial television companies and the new sources of subscription revenue for the satellite and cable companies —will become increasingly equal.
I hope that by 1996 the Government will be able to summon up their courage to deal with the situation created by Mr. Rupert Murdoch and BSkyB on the British broadcasting scene. Now that BSkyB is increasing its number of channels and expressing itself as being confident of its future, is it not time for the Government to begin to tackle the issues of cross-media ownership and bring them within the rules imposed on the terrestrial competitors? BSkyB remains able to enjoy a large degree of relief from the European Community regulations regarding programme origin. It is allowed more advertising minutage than its competitors in independent television. In addition, within the satellite field the main encryption system, Videocrypt—that is the gateway to access to satellite broadcasting—is owned by News International and

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provides a means of setting the conditions of entry for BSkyB's potential satellite competitors. Of course, News International owns 37 per cent. of this country's national press.
Developments in television will happen; there are technological developments which will take place. Multi-channel satellite and cable broadcasting are here to stay and I do not argue differently. Indeed, at best they can genuinely add to the range of choice by providing specialist so-called "thematic" channels showing extended coverage of great national events. But by 1996 there must be a serious attempt to provide fair deals across the whole face of British broadcasting. I hope, therefore, that when the Government come to deal with the future of the BBC, they will do so within the framework of a new broadcasting Bill. I hope that it will be a comprehensive and careful Bill and not a dogmatic and doctrinaire Bill, as was the previous Broadcasting Bill. I hope that it will tackle the whole future face of British broadcasting—not only the pattern of ownership of ITV and the future of the BBC, but also the provision of proper and fair treatment in competitive terms for the new satellite and cable broadcasters.
7.5 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I wish that I could follow the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, but I cannot because I know absolutely nothing about broadcasting. I propose to make only a short speech and to concentrate almost entirely on the proposals for secure training orders for juvenile offenders.
I was pleased to hear the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor comment on his success in obtaining what I presume is all-party agreement for special procedures in both Houses of Parliament for certain Law Commission Bills. It is a very important procedural, innovative parliamentary matter. Anyone who has had anything to do with those who run the business of both Houses must know how difficult it is to effect any change, even of a minute nature, into the procedures of Parliament. It is a notable victory and bodes well for Law Commission Bills, which deserve the attention that they will receive as a result of the initiative.
I was also pleased to note that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has made money available for the programme of training the judiciary in racial awareness. That was the advice of the Ethnic Minorities Advisory Committee chaired by Lord Justice Brooke in advising the Judicial Training Board. It seems that all aspects of the criminal justice procedure will have benefited from training in racial awareness and that must be a clear gain. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord in making that money available when clearly he is so pressed by the Treasury to do exactly the opposite.
I turn to the secure training orders. The gracious Speech uses the phrase:
"to allow the courts to deal more effectively with young offenders".
I hope to show that the probability is that the new court powers will be very costly and counter-productive.
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Incidentally, the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, greatly regrets that she cannot be present. She has asked me to say that she would have been here to speak against the new court powers but has a long-standing engagement chairing and speaking to a conference in northern England. As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for children and as a chairman of a new organisation known as New Approaches to Juvenile Crime, the noble Baroness would have put the case against the proposals far better than I. Those who have referred to the proposals have spoken against them. I submit that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, adds a voice from the Conservative Benches to those from the Opposition and Cross-Benches.
The current powers of courts to detain young offenders from under 14 to 17 years old are adequate in ensuring that juveniles can be detained where necessary. That point was forcefully put by the noble Lord, Lord Knights. The gap in provision occurs in relation to facilities and not in relation to powers; that is, facilities for those who have to deal with people who have been sentenced.
There is no need to increase the powers of the judiciary. What is needed is not more power to detain juveniles but a small number of additional secure places in some areas of the country. Again, that is something which my noble friend Lord Knights mentioned and has been a recurrent theme in the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich.
The supply of those secure places available to local authorities would be infinitely cheaper than the implementation of the Government's proposals. I am told that the cost of providing those new powers would be some £250,000 for each place and that it would cost between £1,000 and £2,000 per week for each inmate. That amounts to a considerable sum of money.
In addition, a reduction in the use of secure units for those who should not be there—it is well known that there are certain young boys in secure units who are less delinquent than merits the secure placing and also there are non-delinquent children who find themselves locked up—would release some of the secure units available to local authorities for the more serious young offenders.
I feel strongly that we should learn from previous experience that all forms of institutional care in custody for young offenders have very high re-conviction rates. About 75 per cent. are re-convicted within two years of the date of release. The evidence is provided by official statistics as well as by academic studies. I ask the Government whether they have any official statistics or basis which supports their apparent confidence that secure training orders will be any more successful than previous provision of that kind. If so, I should very much like to know what is the evidence. All the evidence that I have seen indicates that the proposed secure training orders will increase the number of young offenders in custody and thus increase the number of those who re-offend within two years from their date of release. Surely that is the reverse of what we all want.
I must emphasise the damaging effect that the institution of secure training orders will certainly have in reversing the policy hitherto observed by Conservative Administrations of punishment within the

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community because young people will be held a long way from their home areas. The Association of Chief Police Officers gave evidence on that subject to the Home Affairs Select Committee of another place earlier this year. It said:
"In areas of the country where secure places are not available, the young offenders are taken long distances which often reduce the opportunities for family contacts to be maintained, thus actually increasing the difficulties of the offender and weakening family support when it should be encouraged".
There speaks the Association of Chief Police Officers which gave evidence on the Government proposals. It believes that they will compound and aggravate that sense of separation from communities and will have deleterious effects on existing policies supported by the Government, because they are designed to fall in the opposite direction. Which way do the Government wish to go?
The new detainees in expensive accommodation far from home will be subject to all the attendant bullying and induction into new criminal methods of behaviour which characterise, I regret to say, young offender institutions. Instead of the proposed new elaborate statutory scheme, all that is needed, as I said at the outset, is a small number of additional secure places in some areas of the country where there is a deficiency to accommodate the very small numbers of persistent young offenders who have committed serious offences. The potential of the existing provisions has not yet been used fully as it should be.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, the hour is late and, like all your Lordships, I am tired. Therefore, I shall be briefer than I was intending to be. I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lady Miller on her excellent maiden speech. We have served, though not together, in the north of London as magistrates for many years. I served for just over 25 years. In that time we have known and grown to know a good deal about the people of our country. Therefore, I wish to congratulate my noble friend on her excellent maiden speech.
I congratulate also my noble friend Lord Lucas on the way in which he contributed to last Thursday's Opening of Parliament. He made an exceptionally good speech and I congratulate him on it.
I wanted to speak on several different topics which are brought before us in the Queen's Speech but I have decided to speak briefly on only three of them. I went to my dictionary of quotations and I discovered that in the 16th century Shakespeare covered most of what I wanted to say in his reference to the seven ages of man which starts:
"the infant
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms".
My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has spoken recently of the importance of the family. I am deeply worried, as everybody else must be who has reached a certain age and who knows something about our society, about the way in which the family is disintegrating. I believe that the Prime Minister has brought us back to looking at the problems of the family and where it and we are going.
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As we understand it, every infant is conceived by a man and a woman. Every infant has a right to expect to be brought up by both parents: otherwise, why conceive? Do fathers realise how very important they are? Do mothers understand what a tremendous contribution fathers are able to make to the character of their child? Guidelines as regards adoption are now being discussed. My noble friend Lady Miller and I have had many difficult problems to solve in the granting of adoptions in the course of our time with the magistracy. Fortunate indeed are the parents and children who have a satisfactory relationship after adoption. When discussing the needs of children in this House, we always stress that they are paramount in our thinking.
The second quotation is:
"And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school".
It seems that there was truancy in the 16th century. But in these days, truancy is often caused by boredom and boredom often leads to crime. The young criminal is responsible for far too high a percentage of crime. What should we do?
People say to me, "In the 14 years of your Government, juvenile crime has increased enormously. Why is that and what are you doing about it?" I say that, in my 14 years' experience, we have hoped that the do-gooders would prove to be right. Unfortunately, their policy has failed. I welcome the stronger line that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is taking. I shall read with great interest what he says in the future on that policy. I also hope that stronger deterrents will stem what is proving to be a socially unacceptable level of criminal action and activity. As we know, some of it comes from thoughtlessness and some of it is well planned: but the punishment must fit the crime.
In this fast-changing world, it is difficult for parents and teachers to satisfy the need for excitement and adventure that is part of most children's growing up. I read to my horror that 80 per cent. of children watch television regularly. But what programmes have they got to watch? I think it is ridiculous that all the channels put out practically nothing to educate or help children in any way —except, perhaps, football.
We are abrogating our responsibilities if we do not cater far more for children's leisure time. Children like to have a structured environment. I know that much is done to organise sport after school hours. But so much more should be done. There are hundreds of men and women all over the country who will give their time and expertise to encouraging the young. The local authorities and schools should put their sports centres at the disposal of voluntary organisations. As a result of encouraging more young people to take part in all sports—perhaps I am thinking of football at present—who knows, we might even win an international match?
I should like to make one more plea on education. I regard the matter most seriously. I hope that the department will encourage more male teachers in the junior schools. If a child is brought up by a lone mother,

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he hardly ever hears a male voice—something which usually carries much more authority than a woman's and is, therefore, very frequently to be commended.
My third point relates to the judiciary. I quote again from Shakespeare:
"And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances".
I cannot see through the back of my head, so I have no idea whether there are any members of the judiciary sitting behind me. But, in my view, some of our learned judges have been pilloried in the press to a quite unreasonable extent. I have a feeling that the court reports are written by people who have not been in court and who have not read the transcripts. The gracious Speech tells us of a change at the magistracy level of justice. Those of us in this House who have many years of experience in the field are likely to give some passages in the proposed Bill a very bumpy ride.
I agreed with every word of the excellent speech made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. He talked about the Child Support Agency and the problems that it is creating in past and present family relationships. The matter is becoming most serious; indeed, I received three more letters this morning from people who have been held up by the agency. I hope that the Government too will take the matter most seriously. I hope they will recognise the fact that that group of people is creating havoc—and that is a temperate word—in some of the families in this country. I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord for bringing the matter forward.
There are many areas of the gracious Speech which are of great interest to most of us. I wish the Government well in all that they are doing. Like the Prime Minister, let us get back to the basics of loyalty, family unity, enterprise and much higher standards in all our walks of life.
7.20 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, as always, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod. If I did not misunderstand her, I believe that she supports the general line taken by the present Home Secretary, Mr. Howard. Well, like myself, I am sure that the noble Baroness takes the side of the underdog. I have attended various functions recently where I have met every kind of person who gives his or her life to penal matters—for example, judges, governors, prison officers, social workers and so on—but I have not heard a good word said on behalf of that gentleman. However, I think that it is right in this House that such a thoroughly unpopular man should be defended; indeed, I think that it is very healthy. I hope that the day will never come when we all pander to what is popular. I thank the noble Baroness for that service to free discussion.
Perhaps I should begin by saying how much I sympathise with the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, as regards his "accident". I hope that he will soon be restored to health. We know him here as as skilled a
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parliamentarian as we possess and as popular a personality. I must say that I am a little embarrassed by his absence because I was going to reply to him quite sharply. On the last occasion he said that I was "talking rubbish". However, in his absence I think that I had better say, "Let bygones be bygones". I am bound to say that that reply was considerably toned down in Hansard but, at any rate, I wish him well. I know that he will defend himself with his usual acumen as soon as he is able to rejoin us.
My general line will be similar to that of the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Windlesham. My speech will not be as vigorous as that of the noble Lord, Lord Harris—indeed, I am not capable of that amount of vigour—and not as gentle or as subtle as that of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham as, similarly, I am not capable of such gentleness or subtlety. However, generally speaking, I am on the same wavelength as both of them. Of course, my leader dealt with a number of other points.
On 21st October, I asked the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, in a Starred Question whether the Government still accepted the "principles" of the Woolf-Tumim Report. The House will remember that the documents attached to it said that the 1991 Act was giving effect to the principle of the Woolf-Tumim Report. After various exchanges, and one or two personal comments which I think it is best to pass over in view of the absence of the noble Earl, the latter finished his reply by saying that,
"there is no change in the policy. It is only a strengthening of policy".—[Official Report, 21/10/93; col. 639.]
In other words, the policy of Mr. Howard is a strengthening of the policy of the other half dozen Home Secretaries; for example, Mr. Hurd, and others. That is what the noble Earl said as reported by Hansard, although I did not actually hear it at the time. At any rate, that is how it reads in Hansard.
I return now to today. I wonder whether there is anyone here who agrees with the new policy. I am not sure about the noble Baroness. I do not know whether she agrees that the new policy is a strengthening of the one that was pursued by the previous half dozen Home Secretaries, some in the post-Thatcherite period. However, I should like to draw the House's attention to a certain matter. I hope that no one mentioned it while I was out of the Chamber earlier. If so, I shall rather be wasting your Lordships' time.
On 11 th November there was an article in the Guardian by Mr. David Faulkner. Some noble Lords will know of Mr. Faulkner while others will not know much about him. He was a very high man indeed: he was Deputy Secretary in charge of criminal justice policy at the Home Office until 1992, when he left in what I am sure were honourable circumstances. He was in charge of the policy which has been defended by Ministers and others for many years. This is what he had to say about the new policy, which up until now in the debate has been defended only by the noble Baroness, although I suppose that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor must have implied some defence of it:
"the Government's change of direction in its policies on crime and criminal justice is probably the most sudden and the most radical which has ever taken place in this area of public policy".

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Who is right, ministerial spokesmen or Mr. Faulkner who was the civil servant who drew up the policies? He said that it was a complete change. Change is not always bad. Occasionally, but not on this occasion, change is welcome. That change means that previous Ministers are totally discredited. I would not like to think that, because they are highly regarded here. However, I am afraid that Mr. Faulkner took that line, and he said much more to the same effect.
What has happened in the past year to bring about this extraordinary change? I hope that noble Lords, and even the most obdurate Minister, will realise that that is a question which has to be answered. Ministers may tell us that it is a change for the better.
Just over a year ago I attended the Conservative Party conference. It was the first time that I had ever done so. When I was a young fellow, a young Conservative, I could not afford to go to the conference. I went to the conference last year and heard Mr. Clarke, who was Home Secretary at the time, make a speech. I wrote in something that I published later that, apart from a few rather feeble jokes, it seemed to me to be a speech which could have been made to the Howard League. It was a perfectly respectable speech. Now, a year later, a completely different tone was struck by Mr. Howard, who I gather won hysterical applause at the Conservative Party conference. What has occurred in the meantime?
We shall no doubt be told that there is mounting public concern. Various other speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, touched on that. However, according to the official figures—although one could argue about them—there has been an increase of 4 per cent. in crime in the past year, which is much less than in the previous year when the increase was 11 per cent. It is considerably less than the average over the past two decades. Yet in the past year the whole attitude of Mr. Clarke has been repudiated and the new attitude of Mr. Howard installed in its place.
What are Mr. Howard's credentials, apart from his high office and great legal talents? If I were ever in trouble should be happy to employ him, except that I could not afford his fees. Otherwise I would be happy to go to that very astute gentleman.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, pointed out the change in policy. One is bound to ask what occurred. There have been some horrifying cases, which have been widely publicised. I do not blame the tabloids for making our flesh creep, but in the course of the past year we have been given the idea that there has been a new crime wave. That is all bunkum. Nevertheless, it has been decided by the present Government that a complete change is necessary on the strength of the feelings of Mr. Howard.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that Mr. Howard had once been to Brixton. I have heard it argued that he has never been to a prison, but I am ready to accept the more charitable view that he once went to Brixton. Suddenly he comes along and repudiates the views of six Home Secretaries, Mr. Faulkner and all the officials with this new policy. He had a gut feeling that it was about time, with the Conservative Party Conference coming up, to state a new policy. I gather that he has had
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his reward for the time being. I ask the House to consider whether all the accumulated wisdom of the previous Home Secretaries, officials, governors, social workers and prison officers should be set aside on the strength of the feelings of a gentleman whose only qualification, on a charitable view, is that he once visited a prison.
What I have said is perhaps too easy. What we do about law and order is a difficult question. My own party, the Labour Party, stands for law and order. Let us all agree that we should all stand for law and order. However, it is difficult to find a policy which promotes law and order, helps to prevent crime and at the same time carries on the traditions of penal reform which my own party likes to think that it stands for and which on the whole Conservative Ministers of past years have also stood for in one way or another. Is it possible? It will be very difficult, but it would be a betrayal of past policies, not only of my own party but also of those who have been in power, if we suddenly adopted the infamous policies associated with Mr. Howard who, I am afraid, is now referred to in the circles in which I often find myself—among people concerned with these matters—as the Prince of Darkness.
Obviously that question will not be settled tonight. There will be no vote in the House of Lords. If there were, it would not be likely to be favourable to what I have said. However, I must put that on record, as someone who first visited a prison 50 years ago and who now visits a prison once a week.
Perhaps I should say something about young offenders because I wrote down something about that subject. What was it? I wrote a book on young offenders which came out in August. Noble Lords may not have heard of it. I shall quote what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, wrote to me about it. He said:
"I think that it should be prescribed reading for all our judges, perhaps most of all for the magistrates".
Perhaps the House will forgive me for that little bit of personal publicity.
I have to say to my noble friends that the matter is not as easy as some of them seem to imply, and I am not in favour of secure units run by the Home Office. The problem of finding units for a few hundred people near their homes is a difficult one. I leave the matter there for the moment.
I am shocked by the Government's deplorable relationship with the Prison Officers' Association. No one must suppose that I am a hero among the prison officers when I visit prisons. I do not receive that kind of glorious welcome. However, I have a great regard for those people. They dedicate their lives to jobs which none of us would undertake even if we were paid huge sums of money. They deserve better than they are getting from the Government.
I do not want to end on too polemical a note. Everyone must be somewhat favourable towards the Prime Minister's initiative in favour of traditional moral values. He seems to want us to go back 40 years. Other noble Lords may hardly remember what was going on 40 years ago. I was in my prime at about that time. If we are to go backwards before we go forwards, I would rather go back 2,000 years to the teachings of Jesus

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Christ. That is a matter of choice, of course. I welcome one aspect; I do not know whether I am in line with my party on the matter. I welcome the Government's initiative in taking new steps to restrict pornography. I am glad about that. It is a matter on which we can congratulate them.
I hope and believe that the Prime Minister and his colleagues will read the autobiography of Mary Whitehouse which will come out on Thursday. If the Government want Christian inspiration—Christianity was not noticeably present in that speech at the conference—they might do worse than read Mary Whitehouse's book.
I seek to find what is best in the Government's approach to morals. I recommend to them two passages in the Gospels. With regard to the woman taken in adultery, those who favoured traditional views (the Pharisees) wanted to stone her. That was rejected as a Christian policy. I venture to believe that a Christian policy involves more than an out-and-out condemnation of sin. We have spoken tonight of prisoners. I turn yet again to the passage in St. Matthew's Gospel, at Chapter 25. I refer to the story of the sheep and the goats. Jesus Christ said, "I was in prison and you came to me". The righteous asked him, "When were you in prison and we came to you?" Jesus Christ replied, "Inasmuch as you did it to one of my least brethren you did it to me". I venture to submit that message to the Government and I do not yet despair of their listening to the immortal words.
7.42 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I fear that I shall strike a discordant note. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, said, the debate has centred much on law and order. I wish to touch on public services other than law and order. To some extent that will lead me into the role and size of the state. Part of what I have to say may seem to belong properly to economics, but I shall also address ethical and social questions and, as one cannot speak twice, I hope that I shall be forgiven for making my intervention today.
It is profoundly alarming that public expenditure currently consumes about 45 per cent. of GDP. The scale of government borrowing is now similar to the mid-1970s. Real growth in public spending has been 4.3 per cent. since Mr. Major came to power as opposed to 1.1 per cent. under Mrs. Thatcher, as she then was. Even on the slightly downward trend projected by the Government, the additional borrowing over the period 1990–91 to 1997–98, compared with earlier forecasts, will amount to some £250 billion. That will more than double the stock of public debt which is rising at a rate unprecedented in peacetime. I am indebted for those figures to a report by the fiscal expert Dr. Bill Robinson, recently published by the Social Market Foundation.
I am no ultra-libertarian wishing to go back to state expenditure of 10 per cent. as in the time of Sir Robert Walpole. I do not even aspire to 25 per cent. which is the share recently argued for by a Conservative political philosopher. Although the vision of a slimline state has great attractions, I do not believe that that degree of
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slimming is attainable. Therefore I would quite happily settle for a 60:40 economy—60 per cent. private and 40 per cent. public—but I see no early prospect of hitting even that modest target. Despite the reference in the gracious Speech to reducing the share of national income taken by the public sector, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, referred, the Government do not expect to reach that balance before the end of the century and may well be blown off course. Therefore everything that the Government do, and how and through whom they do it, requires constant scrutiny.
How can the 45 per cent. state be reduced? The major privatisations of state industries and utilities are behind us. We have entered a hazier zone in which public services are being subjected to the disciplines of quasi-markets, market testing and contracting out. Those developments, aimed at greater efficiency, are fiercely attacked—witness to the Civil Service unions' strike on 5th November—by those who invoke the "public interest" and the "public sector ethos" while sneering at "commercialisation" and "the profit motive".
The important debate on this issue is not well served if conducted only in slogans and catchphrases. Even those of us who advocate market solutions where possible should not mouth the words "market" or "marketplace" like a mantra. Such simplistic dialogue merely obscures the real issues.
What appears to be so deeply repellent to high priests of the "public interest" is what they see as "creeping privatisation" undermining the "public sector ethos". However, one has to beware that ethos too. Far too often it translates into the urge to employ as many people as possible in the delivery of public services, sometimes in the misguided belief that it is the answer to unemployment. It is true that it can be the answer to unemployment, but only in totalitarian societies which sooner or later collapse.
In turning to criticisms of privatisation and the profit motive, there are two errors, one economic and the other ethical. Profit rewards a private supplier with, say, 10 per cent. return on capital. Public services delivered direct by the Government are paid for out of taxes topped up by borrowing. If government borrowing rises, the cost of that borrowing may also be 10 per cent. In that instance, there is no essential difference in economic terms between the reward to profit and the interest on borrowing except that government borrowing adds to the PSBR and the private supplier's profit does not.
The ethical point is that those paid directly by the state for delivering services are evidently rent seekers from the state and resistant to changes in their numbers or working practices. That puts them in no stronger moral position, I suggest, than the entrepreneur in search of ever-evanescent profits. Anyone who has read that great Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter, will recall his almost poetic evocation of profit as always a transition stage between one equilibrium and another, slipping always from the grasp of his doomed hero, the entrepreneur, as soon as the entrepreneurial function is

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performed. Profit is a bird of passage always on the wing as opposed to interest, which is permanent, inexorable and heartless. Spare a tear for profit, my Lords!
"Ah", cries the protagonist of the public interest, "but the private contractor will cut costs only by cutting corners". That is what the striking unions claimed the other day. But were those corners really necessary? If a contract is not properly fulfilled, it will not be renewed and the provider will go out of business. It could even be claimed that the accountability of the private provider is more stringent than that of the public provider who, by definition, cannot go out of business.
Finally, in the area of the delivery of public services by private contractors or independent trusts, there remains the important point that those are not "privatisations" in the true sense of the word and it is dishonest of critics to pretend that they are. The simple reason is that the Government remain a monopsony or near-monopsony buyer. The consumer of the service makes no direct payment for it. As general purchaser, the Government or their sub-agents, as local purchasers, are still using public funds. I shall consider the virtues and vices of that system in a moment. But it is certainly not true to say at present that such major services as health and education have been privatised while the purchaser remains the Government, purchasing out of general taxation and borrowing.
I apologise that I seem to have strayed from social concerns, but I believe that the background was necessary. In the light of those thoughts, I turn to actual government programmes of reform. There are several things afoot. The Citizen's Charter is mentioned in the gracious Speech, along with a general commitment to a programme for improving public services. That presumably includes such initiatives as Next Steps in the Civil Service, the private finance initiative and the health and education reforms. Over and above those looms the huge balloon of the welfare state, to which I would add pensions reform, whose omission from the gracious Speech I regret. Perhaps I may ask whether the Government will provide some of their own time to debate Professor Goode's report in this House. The topic received only the most cursory discussion in another place. The promise by Mr. Lilley of a number of discussion papers hardly conveys much sense of urgency. I hope that we shall have a chance to get our teeth into that subject some time in this Session.
I turn briefly to each of the areas to which I referred. I believe that the Citizen's Charter has already yielded an improvement in central government services. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill—I congratulate him on a splendid maiden speech—about the European Convention on Human Rights. However, I see no reason to allow the best to be the enemy of the good. So far as it goes, the Citizen's Charter is a step in the right direction.
On Next Steps in the Civil Service, Sir Peter Kemp, in another recent paper for of the Social Market Foundation, alleges that these are faltering owing to the resistance of the mandarinate. Therefore, the Prime Minister's welcome of the Cabinet Office report published yesterday is encouraging. It is obviously important that those who occupy the top places in the
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Civil Service should be in sympathy with the reforms. But it is equally important that the frontline delivery should be as efficient and effective as possible.
My understanding is that some 70 per cent. of the Civil Service is now either on, or a candidate for, agency status. Sir Robin Ibbs, in his report, thought that this could be applied to 95 per cent. of delivery mechanisms. Is that the Government's aim and, if so, when do they expect to achieve it? I sent the Minister a note on this point. Can he say what savings have been made to date? I believe Mr. Waldegrave mentioned £100 million, which is a start, but one has constantly to bear in mind that the Civil Service costs £20 billion a year; that is, about two-thirds of the cost of the National Health Service.
The private finance initiative is next on my shopping list. The object is to introduce private finance into public sector projects, not only for roads, bridges and tunnels, but to get hospitals and schools built or improved more quickly than if they had to wait their turn in the public capital expenditure queue. Despite a very upbeat, glossy PR publication by the Treasury on the 15th of this month, with a confidence-building portrait of Mr. Clarke, I understand that progress has been disappointing. There has been much exhortation by Ministers and plenty of guidance, conferences and seminars. But so far, according to the CBI director-general, Howard Davies, there are few holes in the ground. How do the Government propose to reactivate that?
Climbing up the expenditure ladder to education and health, we come to two cherished public services in which the Government remain largely a monopsony buyer. But in reforms there have to be horses for courses, and I do not believe that the same model of reform applies to each.
In education, the criticism remains that for all the recent education legislation (and more to come), too little scope is given to new providers or diversification. It is a disgrace that the application for the "Islamia" secondary school was turned down on account of some arcane rule when there was a clear demand for it. The Tory flagship, Wandsworth, is locked into three large secondaries of 1,800 pupils each, when parents, and indeed the director of education, would much prefer 600, 700 or 800. They cannot get out of the gridlock. The private finance initiative, technically available to education, seems to have made little impact here. The way to achieve more diversification and more genuine pluralism may be via vouchers. Or, as the political philosopher, John Gray, suggests, following Ivan Illich in Deschooling Society, by education credits not tied to any specific courses or institutions. Either vouchers or credits are in effect a tax remission, so the logical final step may be towards lower taxes and full privatisation, turning the parent into the real purchaser, in which case the Government's sole role would be to regulate the standards of licensed establishments. I do not expect to see any of that in my lifetime, but I hope that the continuing government stranglehold on education will at least be weakened before I die.
Health is different. It stretches right across life, with expenditure peaks in childhood and old age and no knowing when illness or accident may strike. So a

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voucher or credit system would not work. I have mentioned monopsony more than once. Here, it seems to have worked in keeping health expenditure down to around 6 or 7 per cent. of GDP, including the private sector, as opposed to 14 per cent. in the United States, where nearly 40 million people are without cover—at least until the Clinton plan is realised, if it ever is. I find it hard to envisage any government surrendering that advantage, however much they may devolve purchasing and providing to an internal market system.
The health reforms are unpopular, not because they are not sensible but because they shed light on the hitherto shrouded fact of rationing that inevitably exists in a free but cash-limited system. Yet that is vastly preferable to what currently pertains in the United States. If our system is to be retained and improved, efficiency will have to be at a premium here as elsewhere.
The Minister will be aware of criticisms of the increase in administrators at the expense of doctors and clinical expenditure, most recently voiced by Mr. John Redwood from his satrapy in Wales. Some of that may be an inevitable result of installing new management systems or of the reclassification of existing personnel. But it causes disquiet and tends to discredit necessary reforms, which incidentally I do not believe a Labour government would overturn. In a letter to The Times of 20th November, the director of the Institute of Health Services Management defended the new bureaucracy, saying that it was here to stay and claiming that the whole NHS administration still accounted for only 2 per cent. of costs. Do the Government support that view, and can the Minister say what savings are estimated to arise from the recent announcement of the impending abolition of regional health authorities?
I come finally to the looming question of welfare reform, of which pensions are much the most important component. I have two observations to make. First, it seems to me a misjudgment to suggest, as does a recent report by the London School of Economics for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, that not only is the present share of welfare in national income perfectly sustainable but that the additional 5 per cent. of GDP that will be required to meet demographic pressures at present benefit levels will be sustainable also. Five per cent. of GDP means another £31 billion at current prices, equivalent to an income tax rate of 45 per cent. or VAT at 30 per cent.—and more than the whole cost of the National Health Service.
The second point is perhaps the most important one. I am indebted for it to Mr. Anatole Kaletsky, who wrote, in a penetrating article in The Times on the 11th of this month, that the single most striking fact about public pensions, health and education provision in Britain today is that all are grossly inadequate. To argue, he goes on, that the welfare state can continue on its present basis on the grounds that the nation can afford to finance it with a modest tax increase of £30 billion or so is, in his words, a red herring. I would say that we shall simply be running and failing to catch up, the only result being that we shall have public expenditure, not at 45
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per cent., but at 50 per cent. (higher than when the IMF had to be called in in 1976) with more and more people living in near penury. As Kaletsky concludes,
"Some clearer and braver thinking about the future financing of health, education and pensions from true friends of the Welfare State will be required".
I do not know whether Mr. Portillo will provide it, or the Labour Party, or the Liberal Democrats. But somebody has to provide it.
There has to be new thinking. The post-war settlement's shelf life cannot extend into the next century with exactly the same ingredients on the label. It is no good relying on growth to pull our chestnuts out of the fire. Paradoxically, it was the Thatcher Government that made the mistake of thinking that they could increase the volume of public expenditure while cloaking it under the mantle of a decreasing share of GDP in a boom period. When recession follows, public expenditure has already been ratcheted up and the additional recession costs lead to a crisis in public finance, which is what we now have. Nobody has mentioned that point today. Even a return to growth will not solve the problem. The British long-term growth path is not a high one, and in prevailing conditions it is likely to remain modest. Growth is not the answer to the crisis in state finance.
I do not, however, want to conclude on a negative note. If new thinking is required, it is fair to say that the United Kingdom and the United States of America, the Anglo-Saxon bloc as it were, is at the forefront of it, particularly in the area of new means of delivery of state-funded services. I know that buzz words and phrases should be treated with circumspection. "Re-inventing government" and "The new paradigm" are two that are currently in the air. The Social Market Foundation and The Times are jointly organising an Anglo-American conference on the latter theme on 1st December. Conferences and seminars can degenerate into parlour games for think tanks. I do not believe that this one will. The stakes are too high. Something important is stirring on both sides of the Atlantic. If those who go to conferences, and those who do not, can keep in mind the vision of a slimmer state and greater well being for the people, we shall be getting somewhere. "Ethos" lives in various shapes and forms and is not exclusive to free-spending paternalistic statists or high-minded platonic guardians.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: My Lords, I find it very interesting to speak after a Scots lawyer of such great distinction as my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, and also to know that my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate has the good fortune to take his title from the village very close to us, a very beautiful one on the shores of the Forth. That encourages me that the points that are to be made will be well heard.
First, I should like to touch very briefly on Sunday trading. It is a curious fact that Sunday trading in Scotland, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, is unregulated. That is due purely to an inadvertence in legislation many years ago when it was

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considered that such a dreadful thing could not happen in Scotland. However, times have moved on. Much of the present Shops Act dates from the 1930s. Over the past 30 or 40 years, to my certain knowledge, living there, Sunday shopping has gradually grown in Scotland without regulation and as far as I can see without detriment.
I therefore suggest that the wisest course to be taken when the Sunday trading Bill comes before your Lordships is to vote for total deregulation. As has been shown by the experience in Scotland over many years, there is no point in having any restrictions on either the size of the shop or the nature of the transactions which may be undertaken legally. We should bring the whole of the United Kingdom into line with successful practice in Scotland.
I should like to deal very briefly with field sports. In his introduction to the debate my noble and learned friend spoke of trespass en masse, raves and such. There is no doubt that the hunt saboteurs are part of a large number of interlinked groups whose object is to impose their will, by force if necessary, on those with whom they disagree. That is not something we should tolerate. Some of us may agree or disagree to varying degrees about which sport should be allowed and which should not; but we must not allow unruly mobs to travel about the country disrupting legal pastimes. It is to be very much hoped that the new law which the noble and learned Lord foreshadowed will bring such action to an end. Whether or not the sports are desirable is a quite different point. It is discreditable to the country when such "revolutionary" groups attempt to impose their rule.
I saw in the evening paper yesterday—I suppose the report is reasonably true—that a whole gang of such people assailed the headquarters of a society which is in favour of a legal sport. They broke up the place, barricaded themselves inside and eventually the police came and carted them off. That is not a sign of a country at ease with itself. We should perhaps wonder about that.
Finally, there is the problem of New Age travellers, who also claim rather similar rights. But that is by the way. In Scotland people are protected up to a point by the 1865 Trespass (Scotland) Act. Interestingly, perhaps, I may just briefly say that that measure was never debated. Not a word was said in debate when the Bill passed through both Houses. It went straight through on the nod. If the regime for New Age travellers becomes more restrictive in England, as was foreshadowed by my noble and learned friend's remarks at the beginning of this debate, it is absolutely inevitable that they will seek greener pastures, even if those pastures are further north, colder, wetter and windier. They will head north to where they believe that they can get away with whatever they wish.
Therefore I hope that my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate can assure the House that adequate parity of treatment or regime will exist in Scotland with that which is proposed for England, so that we may be spared an invasion of people who are both unwelcome and often extremely tiresome.
8.4 p.m.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cochrane, will forgive me if I do not follow him into the interesting points that he raised. This is not that sort of debate. It is a debate in which we all ride our hobbyhorses off into the sunset, an event which took place, I see, several hours ago. Therefore I make no apology for returning to the question of the right of silence, not in order to repeat anything that was said when we debated the matter on October 26th, but because I feel that there are certain matters which need to be clarified and the parameters may to some extent be changing.
It was mentioned then that there are four separate periods in the investigation and prosecution of a crime and each required different treatment. There is the occasion, not in every crime, when somebody is arrested or taken into custody at the scene of the crime. There is the period at the police station when the suspect is being interrogated before a solicitor arrives. There is the period at the police station when he is being interrogated after a solicitor arrives and almost invariably gives advice that no further questions should be answered. Finally, there is the period at the trial when the defendant himself does not give evidence.
It may be that I misunderstand the situation but it seems to me that the third and fourth periods have largely been removed from our consideration by what has been said since our debate a month ago. The position when a suspect is being interrogated in the police station after his solicitor has advised him not to answer questions was dealt with totally fairly by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate when he wound up the debate on October 26th. He said:
"it may be very difficult to draw an inference of guilt if somebody says, 'I did not speak because I was told not to do so by my solicitor'".—[Official Report, 26/10/93; col. 840.]
I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord. I cannot imagine any trial judge exercising his discretion by making any kind of adverse comment on the failure of a defendant to answer questions when he has been given legal advice not to do so. So, for practical purposes, that part will disappear from our consideration.
As to silence at the trial, I endeavoured to write down—correctly, I hope—the precise words which were very carefully used by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in opening this debate. He said that the Government's proposal was that in future—I hope I quote him correctly—
"the jury … will be able to be told that the defendant remained silent when asked questions".
If those were the words of the noble and learned Lord, it seems to me that they are not apt to cover in any way the defendant's remaining silent at the trial. They are only apt to cover the period when he is at the police station being interrogated before his solicitor arrives and gives him legal advice.
In those circumstances there are two considerations that we now have to bear in mind. First, the position in the unusual case where a suspect is caught, as it were, red handed at the scene of the crime and is asked questions there but says nothing. I think that is highly

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unusual. From my recollection, the defendant almost invariably says, "It's a fair cop, guy." It would be most rare for a man who had been caught at the scene of the offence—running away from a broken shop window or whatever—to exercise his right of silence and say, "No, I have nothing to say" when a police officer asks him what he is doing there. That is therefore an area of very little consequence.
The only area that is of real consequence is when, where there is an interrogation taking place at the police station before a solicitor arrives, the suspect declines to answer questions. In those circumstances it appears that the judge is now to be given discretion to make a comment upon that situation to the jury.
Two issues arise from that point. First, what is it that the judge is supposed to say? I am second to no one in my admiration for Her Majesty's judges. They absolutely reek of discretion. Nevertheless, before they can exercise it, they have to know the accepted parameters of their direction. Are they to say that the jury can infer guilt from the mere fact that the defendant is silent? We went through this matter the last time round. I was encouraged when the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate said:
"there is no proposal that it should be possible for somebody's guilt to be inferred simply on the basis of his failure to explain".—(Official Report, 26/10/93; col. 840.)
I must confess that I was depressed when, a few paragraphs later he said:
"it may be very difficult to draw an inference of guilt if somebody says, 'I did not speak because I was told not to do so by my solicitor'".
That appears to envisage the possibility of an inference of guilt being drawn from the fact of silence.
Is the judge to be allowed to tell the jury in his discretion that they can treat a failure to answer questions as corroboration of other evidence, or that the jury are entitled to take into account the defendant's silence when they are assessing the truth of any subsequent explanation? That is perhaps a much more reasonable position. The one thing that a judge surely cannot be encouraged to tell a jury, is what I believe is now being suggested namely, that the jury must attach such weight to the silence "as seems appropriate". That is a recipe for miscarriages of justice by the bucketful. That is the first aspect of judicial discretion: what is the judge to say and what are his choices?
The second aspect I want to raise is this. On what material is the judge to base his discretion? There is one area of course where it is quite apparent that the judge can exercise his discretion: where the defendant appears to him to be a weak, retarded or disadvantaged individual. Then of course a judge would not seek to exercise his discretion and indicate to the jury that silence could in any way be held against the defendant. But what of the many cases in which the judge simply does not know the facts of the case, where he does not know why the defendant has remained silent? The judge may think that he does but in fact he does not, and he cannot be told.
There are many cases of this sort and, if I may, I should like to give perhaps three or four simple instances. There is the defendant who has an alibi and is
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innocent, but his alibi happens to be that he was sleeping with his best friend's wife at the time the crime occurred. It is not an unknown situation and there are many defendants in that situation who would say, "I will not give evidence; I will not answer questions and I would sooner take the risk of being wrongly convicted." How is the judge to know that that is the situation? How is he to avoid the temptation to indicate to the jury that they can regard the defendant's failure to answer questions as in some way sinister?
Let me take a second case. I remember many years ago a defendant who was a young man of perfectly good character and the offence was not a serious one. I was appearing for him, and he was able to prove without difficulty that the offence was in fact committed by his brother, who was a young man with a long criminal record. He instructed me in no uncertain terms that he was not going to put forward that defence. I was not going to be allowed to put forward that defence and he himself remained silent throughout the interrogation and silent in court. How can a trial judge exercise his discretion when he has no idea of why the defendant remains silent?
There is a third case which will no doubt be familiar to the noble and learned Lord. It is a case which occurs sufficiently often for the Royal Commission to have made a comment on it in passing in a rather different context. This is the case of a couple who have a child who is ill-treated and it is perfectly clear that one or other of the couple caused the injuries but not necessarily both of them acting together. Both of them remain silent on interrogation and both of them remain silent in court, with the perhaps undesirable result that the jury have to acquit them both because there is not sufficient evidence against either of them, considered separately. How can a judge exercise his discretion fairly in that situation? He may be fair to the one who is guilty but how can he be fair to the one who is innocent?
On a slightly more lighthearted note, perhaps I may refer to a case in which I remember being concerned, where a defendant had an alibi and arranged with his witness that when the witness came into court to give evidence he was to watch the dock and he, the defendant, would then give various hand signals that would indicate to the witness whether the answer to various questions was "yes", "no", "don't know" or "can't remember". The defendant was on remand in prison and was unwise enough to put this arrangement in a letter which he sent out of prison to his witness. The letter was intercepted by the authorities and it came to the attention of prosecuting counsel. Prosecuting counsel, with a degree of generosity, showed the letter to defence counsel and said, "If you call the defendant and his witness you will see what line the cross-examination will take". As a result, the defendant remained silent in court and the witness was not called. I am not suggesting that in that case the defendant was necessarily an innocent person, but nevertheless I suggest that if the judge had made a comment about the defendant's silence it would have been one based on a

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complete misconception as to what the real position was, and therefore in fact it would have been an inappropriate comment.
Those are only four cases that I can recall, and I must have come across many other cases of the same sort over the years. There were hundreds of barristers practising in the criminal court as frequently as I did, so there must be a very substantial number of cases each year in which the Judge is not going to know the position and cannot be told the position. He may well be tempted to make an adverse comment about the defendant which is thoroughly and completely unfair and which the judge would never dream of making if only he knew the truth.
I do ask the Government, even at this late stage, to think again about their proposals in this area. It is conceivable, if the proposal goes ahead, that one or two prisoners may find that they are no longer being wrongly acquitted: that is possible. But I believe that it is a great deal more likely that a substantial number of people may find themselves being wrongly convicted.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he would be kind enough, since I have a copy of Hansard which contains the debate on the Royal Commission, to identify for me the passages which he relied on to tell your Lordships what I said.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, I was relying on col. 840 of Hansard for 26th October.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I did not speak in that column, col. 840. I wonder if the noble Lord would be kind enough to look again. I started at col. 822 and ended at col. 824.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, I am so sorry: I said "the Lord Advocate" and not "Lord Ackner". I was referring to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate, whose speech occurred at col. 840. If I did inadvertently wrongly name the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, I can only apologise to both noble and learned Lords.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. I would like at the outset to express my gratitude to the Home Secretary, who was kind enough personally to send me a list of the 27 new proposals which he contemplated, together with a brief description of each. Among those I noticed the right of silence, and therefore devoted to it my observations in the debate to which reference has just been made.
I sought to deal with three errors. One of them was that since time immemorial there has been deeply ingrained in the common law this so-called but wrongly described "right of silence". I endeavoured to indicate that it all arose out of the caution in the Judges' Rules which was laid down in 1906, but obviously I did not make my point clear, because the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that it was part of our judicial system many centuries ago. It was not even one century ago and I wish to make that point.
The other point I wish to make is this. There is a constant reference to the fact that the current Royal Commission, by a majority, was in favour of retaining
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the status quo. It is quoted that it was following, or agreeing with, what the previous Royal Commission had said some 10 years ago.
Ten years ago there was not in existence what is now the Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1988. That order has been in existence for five years and it abolishes the so-called "right of silence". That has been operated in Ireland in jury and non-jury trials. I hope to learn at some time why the current Law Commission did not hear evidence from Northern Ireland as to how the provision is working on the ground. I say I want to hear that at some time because the informal soundings that I made of the judiciary in Ireland, who have had five years experience, indicated that it is working perfectly satisfactorily, particularly in the case where the judge rules that there is a prima facie case to answer at the end of the prosecution case. He then invites the accused to give evidence and warns him that if he does not, then adverse comment may be made on his silence.
I do not wish to return to that subject. I want to make one or two observations in regard to the omissions which, as far as one knows, are not to be found in the Criminal Justice Bill, which we have yet to see. All the points I raise should be non-controversial and my first concerns suspended sentences. I choose that first because I believe that, at least indirectly, has the support of the Home Secretary. According to a report in The Times newspaper on 6th of this month, when addressing Conservatives at Boothferry, he said:
"I believe punishment deters crime. Fear of punishment will always be an important weapon in the fight against crime".
In the past suspended sentences, particularly when combined with significant fines, proved a very effective threat hanging over the defendant's head for the year or two years that it operated. But Section 5(2) (b) of the ill-fated Criminal Justice Act 1991 seriously fetters the judge's current discretion. It can only be exercised where the circumstances are, in the words of the Act, "exceptional".
As the law now stands at present exceptional circumstances cannot cover good character, youth, early pleas of guilty, provocation, existence of dependent relatives, the fact that the offence caused the loss of a career, the loss of a home, the loss of pension, or even severe depression, giving rise to suicidal attempts. I submit that that subsection is but the residue of the misguided philosophy that judges can do justice if they do it sitting in blinkers. In the same way as significant amendments were made in the Criminal Justice Act 1993 to the Criminal Justice Act 1991, I hope that this subsection will be repealed.
The next point—again it should be non-controversial—is that where a person kills as a result of using excessive self-defence, it should not be murder, as it is now, but should be manslaughter. By way of support I have the Criminal Law Revision Committee recommendation that a new defence reducing murder to manslaughter should be created:
"Where a person kills in a situation in which it is reasonable for some force to be used in self-defence or in the prevention of crime but the defendant used excessive force…if, at the time of the act, he honestly believed that the force he used was reasonable in the circumstances".

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I have the support also of your Lordships' Select Committee on murder and life imprisonment, whose members were unanimously of the view that,
"if murder was to be reserved for those homicides which are most deserving of stigma, this situation does not seem to be one of them".
It pointed out in paragraph 88 that,
"The Lord Chief Justice told the committee that he had always thought it wrong that a person who goes too far in self-defence should be convicted of murder".
My third suggestion for inclusion in the Bill is to remedy a lacuna which exists in these circumstances. Your Lordships will know that it is only in rare circumstances that an accused's record—his previous convictions—can be put to him if he gives evidence. The exceptions to the general law are to be found in the Criminal Justice Act 1898, Section 1. One of those exceptions is where the character of the prosecution or its witnesses is attacked by the accused. In those circumstances, if he gives evidence, his character can be put in evidence.
The lacuna is simply this. If a person is charged with an offence—murder, manslaughter or grievous bodily harm—which results in a fatality, he may attack the character of the victim who ex hypothesi is deceased. He may bring out in evidence that, for instance, the deceased was a homosexual and he was resisting indignantly a homosexual attack. It cannot be put to him that he has a record as long as your arm for violent offences. The result is that a false picture is created for a jury—on the one hand, the damaged character of the deceased and, on the other, by reason of silence in relation to the character of the accused, an apparent blameless person.
The next matter to which I should like to refer relates to moderate suggestions in the criminal law for the protection of privacy. They are not in any way suggestions that fetter freedom of speech. They arise out of the report of the Privacy Committee in paragraph 6.3, as modified by Sir David Calcutt in his review. It is suggested that the following should be criminal offences in England and Wales:

"(a) entering or remaining on private property, without the consent of the lawful occupant, with intent to obtain personal information with a view to its publication; or

(b)

(i) placing a surveillance device on private property without the consent of the lawful occupant with intent to obtain personal information with a view to its publication; or

(ii) using a surveillance device (whether on private property or elsewhere) in relation to an individual who is on private property, without the consent of the individual to such use with intent to obtain personal information about that individual with a view to its publication or

(c) taking a photograph, or recording the voice, of an individual who is on private property without his consent to the taping or recording, with a view to its publication and with intent that the individual shall be identifiable".

A week or so ago, the Minister, Mr. Brooke, is reported in The Times as saying:
"People are getting past the stage where a bit of tinkering and promises to do better really carry conviction".
It is my respectful submission that the Minister is out of date: the people are not "getting"—they have got past the stage where they feel that these protestations carry conviction. I believe that the public perception is that the Government should have the guts to stand up to the press and that to date they have shown a pusillanimous
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approach to this problem. It will no doubt be said that all this will be considered in a major consideration of the whole subject.
It is quite unnecessary to duck the situation in that way. These criminal offences can be put on the statute book without any anxiety that this is an unnecessary incursion into freedom of speech. I believe that there are similar such offences on the statute book in France and probably elsewhere on the Continent.
My last and fifth proposal is that the Bill should contain the abolition of that most devalued of all sentences, the mandatory life sentence on conviction of murder. This should be the least contentious of all my proposals, but it will turn out to be the most. It should be the least for the simple reason that as far back as 1965 when this House was debating the abolition of the death penalty, the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Parker, with the support of 10 Law Lords, past or present, carried an amendment to the Bill making the life sentence discretionary, but it was subsequently defeated. Your Lordships' Select Committee recommended it. In the Criminal Justice Bill 1991, two former Lord Chancellors, the then Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls and five Law Lords, supported the amendment which was carried in this House by a majority of nearly 100 Members. Of course, it got nowhere in the Commons. As recently as February of this year the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, introduced a Bill. The only person who spoke against it was the Minister and that provoked in the most polite of all parliamentarians this comment from the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, in his reply:
"I have never seen a Minister so humiliated on any issue".
If we are to be faced with the parrot cry that murder is a uniquely heinous offence—an observation which is so fallacious that it would make a first-year law student blush —then it is an indication which I would be very sad to witness, of a Government which lacks confidence. The Select Committee was very conscious that if a Government appear to go soft on crime then they are in a situation of some vulnerability. It was for that reason that in paragraph 178 of the Select Committee's Report we said:
"After the introduction of a discretionary sentence for murder, the Committee anticipate that the average length of time served under a life sentence would be considerably longer than it is now".
That is, of course, because it would be reserved for the really very serious offences.
"The Committee expect that their proposals will lead to very lengthy penal sanctions being set in the most grave cases. In some cases, this may result in imprisonment for the rest of the prisoner's life".
There is, therefore, no warrant at all in the suggestion that this is going soft on crime: it is doing precisely the opposite. It is putting an end to the devaluation of the sentence which is the result of it being imposed from the mercy killer up to the terrorist. Those are my respectful suggestions.
8.35 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I was particularly pleased to hear in the gracious Speech that the Government will continue to give priority to law and order. I believe that the Government are right in

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thinking that law and order is the area which greatly concerns a large proportion of the community, some of whom fear to go out at night; some of whom fear to travel on the Underground after 10 p.m. and some of whom feel that it is neither safe nor wise to go to a football match.
I want to look back for a moment to the Welsh revival at the beginning of this century. In the last three months of 1904, 80,000 souls were converted to Christianity: it was reckoned 6,000 to 9,000 every week. There were astonishing results in terms of society. Drunkenness was almost non-existent, crime largely ceased, debts were paid back, houses were blessed, children were clothed and fed, bitterness at work turned into praise, football matches turned into prayer meetings—can noble Lords imagine that? —and the police force in one town, having no work to do because there was no crime anywhere to be found, gathered themselves together into a famous male-voice choir and went wherever they were invited to go.
I want to speak for a moment about the importance and centrality of the family within society. The family was ordained and established by God from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named and a godly image is a visual image of the spiritual relationship of Christ to his Church. It is a place to belong to, to grow, to find love and acceptance; to feel secure, to make mistakes and to be forgiven. It is a place to learn about relationships and right choices. When God's order is established in the home, His word honoured and obeyed, the family is strong. When the family is strong, the nation is strong. When the family life of a nation is under attack, that nation is weakened. Today in Britain the family has become a prime target for attack. It is visibly crumbling.
No strong voice of protest was raised in 1979 when the Gay Liberation Front issued its manifesto saying that its aim was to destroy the family. Again, there was little reaction in 1980 when the British Humanist Association, with its view of family life as an outdated institution, boasted:
"We helped erode the religious foundations of beliefs, attitudes and morality".
Today we are experiencing the effects of that destruction and erosion as laws previously based on Biblical absolutes and intended for the protection of the family, have been cast aside. Old values, restraints and taboos have been swept away, and new, humanistic laws voted in. Today, the Department of Health gives the Terrence Higgins Trust (a sophisticated, highly articulate homosexual organisation) substantial funding and it has gained a marked influence on government thinking. New permissive legislation has weakened the traditional family structure and children in particular have become vulnerable. God established marriage to reflect his own care and love towards mankind, and what is happening to marriage in Britain today reflects what is happening in the nation's relationship to God—it is breaking down, and the concept of the stable, two-parent family as the basic unit in society, is fast disappearing.
The new legislation began with the withdrawal of the prohibition on witchcraft (1951). Then it condoned the
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exhibition and publication of obscene literary material (1959); abolished the death penalty for murder, opening the way to infanticide and euthanasia (1965); removed the protection of the law from the unborn child and decriminalised homosexuality (1967); abolished the censorship of scripts so that blasphemy, brutality, sodomy and other sexual perversions may now be offered for audience amusement (1968); paved the way towards easier divorce (1969); granted protection to cinemas and television from the obscenity laws (1977), and in 1990 gave permission for the artificial insemination of single women by donor, a procedure referred to as "virgin births"; authorised the destruction of handicapped infants right up to and even during birth, and licensed destructive experimentation on live human embryos. Thousands of human embryos are now being kept alive in laboratories waiting for experimentation and destruction.
As the new permissive legislation was introduced, no strong voice of protest was heard from the Church. Today there is more protection under law for ancient buildings and ancient footpaths than there is for unborn babies, and a strident public often appears. more concerned about the rights of animals than of its own kind. One might wonder how much further it is possible to go from what God ordained the family should be.
It is sometimes said that religion must precede morality if morality itself is to survive. Godliness is essential to ethics. Nothing but a belief in God and a desire to glorify Him, based upon our realisation of our utter dependence upon Him and our acceptance of His way of life and salvation in Jesus Christ His son, can ever lead to a good society. This is not merely a dogmatic statement. It can be proved and demonstrated repeatedly in the history of mankind. It is essentially the story of mankind. Observe it in the story of the children of Israel in the Old Testament. See it again in the history of Greece and Rome. They had exalted moral ideas, fine ethical systems and conceptions of law and justice, but the ultimate downfall of both is to be traced finally to moral degeneracy. Then, consider it in the history of this country. Religion and spiritual revival have always lead to moral and intellectual awakening and a desire to produce a better society and, conversely, ungodliness has always led to unrighteousness.
Humanity without religion has never been a historical force capable of resistance. Even today, severance from the Christian faith (whenever it has been of some duration) works out in the dehumanisation of all human conditions: "The wine of life has been poured out", the dregs alone remain.
In April of this year a small parliamentary group—
Viscount Long: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene for a moment. It appears that my noble friend is reading his speech. Perhaps he could come to what he is really trying to say.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I must apologise to the House if that is what my noble friend thinks. I am certainly referring to my notes and I agree that there is an element of reading, but I do not think that it is any more than an element. However, I shall try to do better.

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In April of this year a small parliamentary group paid a visit to an annual church conference when a word of warning was sounded to both Church and nation from Chapter 6, verse 19 of the Book of Jeremiah, which states:
"I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law".
That is as relevant today as it was then. The prophet Jeremiah communicates God's denunciation of the Church's apathy and complacency and the nation's idolatry and apostasy. Prophets and priests are saying, "Peace, peace" whereas they ought to be warning the people of impending judgment and the need for repentance because they have neglected and rejected God's law.
The simple fact is that if there is no soundness in the nation's moral state, there will be no peace in the nation's political state. God's warnings of impending judgment have been mocked and ridiculed throughout history. The people mocked Noah, but the flood came. They mocked Lot, but Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. The crowds mocked Jesus, but Jerusalem was annihilated in AD 70.
The challenge that we face in Britain today is absolutely enormous. No longer can we be classed as a Christian nation. Here are some facts about a typical day in Britain. These figures are taken from the 1992 Social Trends from the Central Statistical Office. At least 470 babies are murdered by abortion today. At least 170 babies will be born to teenage mothers. At least 27 schoolgirls—
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, if my noble friend will give way for one moment, I should be very grateful to him. It is perhaps normal (and sometimes useful) in your Lordships' House when a mild suggestion comes from the Front Bench, particularly from a noble friend of the same party, to observe that suggestion. I am sorry to have to say this to my noble friend, but I do think that we are perhaps going rather beyond the bounds of the normal custom in your Lordships' House.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I think that it is incredible that any noble Lord should rise now to accuse another noble Lord of reading. As I do not read my speeches, I suppose that I am in a position to say this, but a large proportion of noble Lords do read their speeches—whether visibly or not. It is absolutely monstrous that any noble Lord should attack my noble friend on the opposite Bench for reading his speech, if that is what he is doing.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, perhaps I may continue. I have to refer to my notes when I am giving figures, but I note what the noble Viscount has said. I shall do my best to help the House.
Every day in Britain at least one in three under-14s admit to regular sexual intercourse; at least 20 women are raped —the noble Lord may laugh but these are actual figures produced by the Central Statistical Office. I take great trouble to get accurate facts for your Lordships because I think that it is foolish and a waste
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of time to give inaccurate facts. These are meaningful figures. The noble Lord may laugh if he wishes, but the time may come when he is laughing on the other side of his face.
Every day in Britain 65 per cent. of videos for sale or hire deal with the occult, sex or violence; 480 couples are divorced; 2.8 million cigarettes will be smoked by secondary schoolchildren; at least 75 children will be added to child protection registers in England alone; at least 90 children will be taken into local authority care; at least 280 children will run away from home or care and at least £55 million will be spent today on alcoholic drink. I could continue, but I shall not weary your Lordships further as I feel sure that many of your Lordships will have taken the point that I am trying to make. We live in a sick society.
There are two other events which I should like to mention in case anyone still thinks that we do not live in a sick society. The first is the murder of little James Bulger. Anyone who has read of this young lad and of how he was terrorised and abused before being murdered can be in little doubt that the upbringing of Boy A or Boy B (or more probably both) was seriously flawed.
Secondly, I draw your Lordships' attention to the murder of Suzanne Capper, which received much less publicity than the James Bulger case, but was perhaps even more horrifying. She was terrorised, grossly abused and tortured. Perhaps I may quote from The Times of 17th November which, under the headings:
"Victim's teeth 'pulled out with pliers'",
and,
"Six are accused of burning girl alive to disguise torture",
states:
"Peter Openshaw QC told Manchester Crown Court that the six decided to murder the girl to stop her revealing who had tortured her. He said that after leaving her for dead, they went home and celebrated, singing 'Burn Baby Burn'.
Somehow, the girl had managed to struggle about a quarter of a mile to a road where she was found, naked and dreadfully burnt, by three men travelling to work in the early morning. Four days later, 'in spite of the most skilled intensive care', she had died from her terrible injuries".
The article continues:
"Before pouring petrol over her bleeding body, they removed the coat with which they had covered her for the journey. Then they set fire to her and went home where 'the atmosphere was one of exultation'."
When one hears stories like those, can anyone doubt that there is something crucially wrong with society in this country? Unless the British people, under the leadership of Her Majesty's Government, can learn to respect and adopt Christian values, the law and order situation will continue to deteriorate and there is little hope for the people of this country.
But constructive initiatives are taking place, one of which I commend to the House. It is a small charity called Schools Outreach which puts trained workers into schools, if requested to do so by the headmaster. Such a worker will get alongside and befriend the troublesome and frequently underprivileged boy or girl in the school. Results have been encouraging in that truancy rates have improved dramatically and disorder has turned into order. Indeed, one can say with complete confidence that our prisons are less full today than they would be if Schools Outreach did not exist. Despite that,

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requests for assistance for funding have been rejected consistently, apart from limited support in Berkshire from the Department for Education, which is of course very much appreciated. The reluctance to provide financial help is difficult to understand when it is clear to all, especially to headmasters with Schools Outreach workers in their schools, how effective the system has proved to be.
Secondly, throughout the debate there has been disagreement: the Government favour prisons and police, whereas the Opposition appear to favour reform and rehabilitation. I have sought to demonstrate that it is neither. The only effective answer to law and order is revival. How is that brought about? If my noble and learned friend the Minister could spare me a moment after the debate, I could give him details of at least one initiative. The most reverend Primates the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have initiated a project called Springboard. It is intended to stimulate the revival of Christian belief in this country. My noble and learned friend's encouragement would be most valuable. Will he see me afterwards, or perhaps arrange for a Home Office Minister to see me in the near future?
8.52 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, I wish to speak on two matters which are relevant to the gracious Speech. My first topic follows the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, but takes a different line. I wish to express disappointment and disquiet that there was no mention in the Queen's Speech of the 1994 International Year of the Family. It is an important worldwide event led by the United Nations General Assembly. The 1994 IYF was first announced in Vienna in 1991. In 1992, a United Kingdom non-profitmaking organisation was established to promote the aims of the year, which were:
"to increase awareness of the issues confronting families and to stimulate local, national and international action that will make a helpful difference to families in the future".
The document continues:
"Make 1994 a family friendly year".
The United Kingdom IYF association will promote events and liaise with the 1994 IYF organisations for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. On 23rd March 1993, Mrs. Joanna Foster, who was head of the Equal Opportunities Commission, was appointed chairman of the United Kingdom Campaign of 1994 IYF. In the Daily Telegraph of that date she is quoted as saying:
"This new campaign couldn't be more timely, as Britain's families have never been more diverse, more under scrutiny and more in need … We ought to support family life as one of the foundation stones of a good society and, in consequence, fight determinedly against the unemployment, poverty and lack of opportunity by which it is so often menaced. While divorce and disintegration of the traditional two-parent unit have been blamed for the rising tide of youthful violence, the family hasn't disintegrated, but it has been changing—and we need to find out more about those changes".
She went on to say:
"I do not believe that problems come from the increasing numbers of working mothers. I hope that at the end of the International Year of the Family we will be closer to a genuine answer".
During the year many concerns have been expressed about family life at party political conferences. There has also been a welter of special media coverage, with
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disparate views asserted by politicians, clerics, law officers, social workers and other representative professionals.
There is much public concern about changing social attitudes and the legislative measures which bear heavily on the changing traditions in family life at all levels in our society. It seems to me, and to many others in childcare and family help organisations, that the stark significance and vital importance of the 1994 IYF campaign in the United Kingdom merited some mention in the Government's parliamentary programme for 1994.
I am pleased to say that in Northern Ireland an excellent start has been made in making 1994 a family friendly year. A study paper has been issued by the Northern Ireland executive of the 1994 IYF. I understand that the United Kingdom Department of Health has contributed £30,000 to the UK association of the IYF, but it has not yet been decided which government department should be responsible for policy, liaison and general support arrangements. Nor has any policy document yet been issued.
The central theme of many of the speeches today has been the well-being of people in our community, especially those in family groups, of whatever description. I should appreciate a reply from the Minister when he winds up the debate. I did not notify him that I was going to raise this matter.
I turn now to the words in the gracious Speech indicating the United Kingdom Government's policiies and measures relating to Northern Ireland:
"to defeat terrorism … to uphold the democratic wishes of its people and seek political progress by broadly based agreement, to strengthen economic progress and to create equality of opportunity for all sections of the community. They will maintain positive relations with the Republic of Ireland".
I wish to record my warm welcome and earnest support for the principles and the constructive proposals contained in that 62-word paragraph of the Queen's Speech. I welcome also the tone and substance of the subsequent statement by the Prime Minister, the right honourable John Major, on 18th November when in another place he addressed those Northern Ireland matters.
The Northern Ireland people (Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist, Republican and Loyalist, Dissenter and other) are without doubt now living in the most critically dangerous political climate, and in the most highly volatile community situation since, 73 years ago, the Province was constituted an entity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The news of the Hume/Adams dialogue, and the pronouncement of a peace initiative which followed soon after the political vacuum caused by the breakdown of the inter-party talks, gave rise to much political speculation and rumour. Widespread shock and dismay was caused by the awful Shankill and Greysteel bloody murders so callously committed by terrorists and paramilitaries from different sides of the feuding factions. The huge Province-wide pained sigh of community despair, disbelief and confusion was heard and helpfully channelled by the trade union movement.

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This community anguish was moved in concert with the employers' organisations, community groups, the Churches and other constructive expressions of the people power demanding an end to all politically motivated and all other forms of terrorist-promoted violence. After years and years of widespread community suffering, wanton destruction and the cruel deaths of men, women and children, there surfaced a new mood of hope and optimism. Some would claim that the public demonstrations for peace have transformed the environment in which politicians operate in Northern Ireland. At the same time we must not overlook the difficult political dimensions involved in the desired peace process and in moving realistically towards a democratic, just and lasting settlement.
The "Rubik cube" type of political alignments in Northern Ireland and in the Republic does not help peacemaking to follow a set-piece process of fixed moves. Despite the obvious and overwhelming desire in both Britain and Ireland for peace and for the prospect of people in Northern Ireland leading normal lives, there appears to be an evaporation of the hope which followed upon the Shankill and Greysteel massacres. However, some Members of this House have during the past 25 years borne the rigours and responsibilities of ministerial office in Northern Ireland. I am sure that they and the House will agree with me that the right honourable Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Secretary of State, and his good wife have worked unceasingly with courteous patience and frankness and at all levels and sections of our Northern Ireland community. Political opportunists on both sides of the Irish Sea have attempted to hijack the peace agenda for Northern Ireland to a major degree that has caused a dangerous level of community instability to surface across the Province.
Against a background of leaks, criticism, side-tracking and attempts to stop all discussions, Sir Patrick Mayhew has made every attempt to promote reasoned understanding and active commitment to obtain an agreed, just and democratic settlement. I must add that together with many other Northern Ireland citizens I support and agree with Sir Patrick's statement yesterday. He said:
"The people of Northern Ireland deserve peace—but not peace at any price".
Much as I applaud the efforts of the Prime Minister, John Major, and the Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, to work together for a just and lasting peace in Northern Ireland, I believe that responsibility for a breakthrough rests primarily with the leaders of the five main political parties in the Province. They must individually and collectively call for an end to all violence from whatever quarter. These leaders must fully realise in all honesty that they cannot themselves undertake the task of creating a realistic political process; a process to lead to political accommodation and democratic structures to afford the people of the Province to get on together with the tasks of building a better future—yes, a better life for all in Northern Ireland.
The price of peace is high in political, financial and human terms. History is full of examples of men being
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drawn into killing each other over words and a line on a map. If they had only put their thoughts, energies and fervour into understanding one another they would have embraced with the highest sense of human dignity and creative power. Those sentiments call not only for constitutional change, the examination of social and economic progress and for measures to promote understanding but also for relying on the changing of the hearts and minds of people in Northern and Southern Ireland.
There are a number of legitimate and reasoned questions to be answered; for example, what are the principal elements of the peace initiative and what are the cogent factors comprising the Northern Ireland political agenda? Those are but two of the questions which illustrate an elementary part required for maintaining public trust and confidence. I suggest that the agenda will require factors to be realistically considered and much wider than on a constitutional basis. Matters that cannot be avoided are law and order, fiscal arrangements, international agreements and the European implications, economic and social developments in both parts of Ireland and the North-South cultural divide.
The Northern Ireland aspect of the gracious Speech is likely to continue for many months at the forefront of the parliamentary programme. From these Benches as a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party I speak in a personal capacity on this occasion. I firmly believe that the Prime Minister, the right honourable John Major, will firmly uphold the principles that he enunciated in the debate in another place relevant to the points in the gracious Speech. I hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting the Prime Minister and the Government in their declared aim to seek for a permanent end to violence and a political settlement in Northern Ireland.
9.8 p.m.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, it is natural that with the emphasis in the gracious Speech on criminal justice and law and order most of the emphasis in your Lordships' debate has been on connected issues.
The two previous speakers referred to family affairs. I should like to ask your Lordships to follow me briefly into another vital area of social difficulty; that is, the problems of mental illness which confront hundreds of thousands of families in this country.
It has been the duty of a number of us who have been closely associated with individual cases of mental illness over the past 10 years to press the Government to get on with the vast range of forms of action necessary to mitigate the difficulties. I am glad to be able to begin by congratulating the Government on the progress they have made over the past couple of years, and in particular in the past year, in very important new steps to improve matters.
A task force has been set up to support health authorities. There is a new action programme in London. In this House we applaud in particular the improved code of practice for the guidance of all concerned in clinical treatment because the House has done much to help bring that forward.

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Better training is to be given to key workers. A review of standards of care is taking place. Those are important steps forward. And the Secretary of State, in response to public outrage at some terrible cases of violence by discharged patients, publicised this summer, has come up with an imaginative 10-point plan which puts the main emphasis on legislation to bring in new powers for the supervision of mentally ill patients discharged from hospital. Those are extremely important proposals. They were not referred to in the gracious Speech. I hope—and I am sure that your Lordships endorse my hope—that they will be covered under other matters. Therefore, I am glad to be able to start with congratulations.
However, that does not remove the need for further active and far-reaching steps to cope with the continuing problems which derive mainly from the shortage of beds in hospitals for acute cases and dealing with those who have been discharged and who have returned for treatment which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Since 1955 the number of beds in hospitals has been reduced by 100,000. I hope that I have my figures right. It may be 70,000; I am not quite sure. However, it is a very large number. Over the past 10 years, the rate of the reduction of beds has increased and is still increasing. Last year there was a reduction of 5,000 beds in hospitals capable of dealing with difficult cases. That is about 1,000 more than the average of the previous few years. The momentum continues. Therefore, the community is confronted with a growing problem of not enough beds to accommodate those who cannot be treated adequately elsewhere.
The Minister in the other place has given assurances, both there and in recent public speeches, that no further hospital closures will take place without matching facilities being provided in the community in residential homes, hostels and so on. We welcome that assurance. But that deals with only part of the problem. Closing a hospital is one thing; reducing beds in hospitals is another. You can make—indeed, it is going on the whole time—a drastic reduction in beds before the hospital itself is shut. That is what is happening.
We all endorse the goal of shutting down old Victorian hospitals. But when that practice was followed in the United States those responsible got themselves into a terrible mess through not having the facilities to deal with people still needing beds in hospitals. In New York State alone, it is estimated that there are something like 80,000 mentally-ill people on the streets. Our rate of closure has not been as disastrous as that in the United States, but the replacement facilities are not there, especially if you take into account the arrears, the deficit, in hospital beds resulting from the 70,000 reduction in beds over the past 10 years or so. We are facing a very critical social problem of how to care in the community for such people. Whatever we may think of the big institutions, they did provide a home and very good treatment for those who could not obtain it elsewhere.
I have one other point to make. Care in the community requires a great deal of expert nursing staff. We have been told—and we are glad to hear it—that the number of community psychiatric nurses has multiplied
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threefold during the past few years. That is good. However, what does that kind of fraction mean if you do not know the base from which the multiplication started? The answer is that the number of psychiatric nurses, until very recently when the Griffiths programme began to be implemented, was extremely small. Therefore, multiplying the figure by three still only produces a very small number in relation to the enormous army of nurses required for adequate treatment in the community.
I started by congratulating the Government on what they have done and on what they are doing very actively. There remains, however, a challenging vista of unsolved problems. They reduce themselves largely to the matter of resources. Some of us have been hammering away for years on the key question of resources. We are told that £2 billion is at present devoted to dealing with the mentally ill. That is a large sum. However, it is estimated by those who understand the problem much better than I do that at least another £500 million is required if care in the community for the mentally ill is to have substance.
We know that budgetary strains make that kind of money out of the question at present. However, I hope that all concerned acknowledge the fact that the problems remain and that when the resources can he made available they must be made available. There continues to be a whole range of problems that need to be confronted on many different fronts.
9.18 p.m.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I should like first to apologise for joining the number of noble Lords who have spoken on law and order in today's debate. There is not much that I can do about it. Although I promise not to read, I have in fact lots of notes with me. It is a little difficult to start changing one's notes at such short notice. However, perhaps I may refer to the shops Bill, which I must say I rather regret. I do so not because of the principles involved, but because I suspect that the Bill has been born out of the apparent attitude of the many stores and shop owners who flagrantly flout the law. Therefore we are having to introduce a law in order to meet that flouting of the law. If we carried that principle to infinity we would end up removing all speed limits, for example, simply because everybody ignores them. I simply throw out that idea for starters.
I welcome the measures relating to law and order which have been described as tough. I was encouraged by the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Miller of Hendon. In this House we are fortunate in having so many noble Lords from such different walks of life who have wide experience of the matters about which they speak. It is clear that my noble friend is blessed with such experience at, as she rightly said, both ends of the spectrum.
It gives me a certain degree of pleasure to refer to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey. He may remember that a few years ago I quoted a couple of lines from Gray's Elegy and that he bowled the next two lines back at me, which rather stumped me. The noble Lord referred to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor as the person in whom the law is

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embodied, quoting from Gilbert's "Iolanthe". The theme of my speech this evening comes from "The Mikado"—the punishment should fit the crime. For instance:
"The idiot who in Railway Carriages
Scribbles on window panes
Is only made to suffer
To ride on a buffer
Of Parliamentary Trains".
I am not sure that we have any parliamentary trains left, but I am sure that noble Lords understand what I am getting at.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I hope that the noble Viscount will forgive me. I think that the parliamentary trains' successor is what is called the public service obligation of British Rail.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord. As those lines were written a very long time before I was even born I have always been puzzled as to what they meant. I am very grateful to the noble Lord. One learns something new every day.
My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor referred to the words in the gracious Speech relating to tough measures for young offenders. I am very glad to hear that, but why do the proposals relate specifically to the young? What about the old offenders? Have they been forgotten?
I agree with my noble friend Lady Miller, who referred to maintaining certain standards of decency for those who are put into prison, particularly for any length of time. I support that view entirely. We must have certain standards for people who are in prison. I hope that that is a matter which will be looked at very seriously and that conditions will be improved.
However, there is a difference between standards of decency and leading a cushy life. Some noble Lords might be surprised if I said that I have never been to a gaol. So am I, but I have not been to gaol either as a visitor or as an inmate. I therefore have to admit that I do not have first-hand experience. I am given to understand that prison is not a terribly pleasant experience. Nor indeed is it designed to be. However, I believe that at times efforts to make life "decent" go too far. For example, rather like the picket officer in the regiment going round the men at lunch asking, "Have you any complaints or suggestions?", bless me, only the other day I read of that very thing happening in a prison. I find it rather extraordinary. By all means have acceptable food, but that can be achieved from the kitchens, but I should have thought that to go round asking prisoners whether everything was all right and saying, "I'm sorry that it wasn't smoked salmon today", was unnecessary.
I believe that billiard rooms are available to some prisoners. I recently read of a complaint by a prisoner that he could not get to his gymnasium to exercise himself sufficiently because of a lack of staff. I do not believe that such a complaint is good enough.
About a fortnight ago a prisoner was being moved from one level of security prison to a lower level security prison. He was solemnly given a rail pass or some money to buy a rail ticket and was expected to
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travel from one prison to another. It will come as no surprise to your Lordships that he did not reach the second prison. He decided to turn left and landed up at Middlesbrough, where he committed another offence. That behaviour seems to me extremely lax, and should be prohibited.
The Prime Minister has referred to a return to basic values. I am pleased to hear it because, in the field of law, and in particular order, the sooner we do this the better. I recognise that some of my deeply held convictions to which I have referred previously in your Lordships' House will differ greatly from those held by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, who we all know is a great philanthropist. I respect his views enormously. They are born out of a deep conviction.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I have no money; I do not know what I would do with it. I am not a philanthropist.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that intervention. I shall have to brush up on my English dictionary. However, the noble Earl knows what I mean.
I do not believe that prison is necessarily the right answer for some offenders. There is the expression, "Do unto others as you would be done by". Those who act deliberately and derive actual enjoyment from thuggery, from beating up young, middle-aged or elderly people, can expect to receive such treatment themselves. If you hurt someone, you deserve to know what it feels like. If the school bully was beaten up a bit, he stopped bullying. Moreover, such action deterred others who might have been of the same mind.
We all wish to deter. Prevention is better than cure and imprisonment is supposed to cure. I should like to prevent people going to prison, then, if the offender does not respond to that treatment, clearly it has not worked and he will probably have to be sent to prison. However, five Criminal Justice Bills in the space of eight years do not reflect a great deal of credit on the party to which I have the honour to belong. The Government may have to offer some explanation as to how matters have changed so dramatically between yesterday and today. The only factor that has changed is the dramatic increase in crime. It has been proved that the measures that the courts are allowed to take are not having the desired effect on the criminals and would-be criminals. However distasteful it may seem, I believe that a touch of the birch is necessary for those wanton persons who have no respect for people walking on the streets, the common or wherever. I hope very much that the Government will bear that in mind.
We heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, that there may be those who would suggest that this was a possible infringement of human rights, and that the European Court of Human Rights would wag its finger. He said, and I support him entirely, that we should not be influenced by the Court of Human Rights to the extent that it dictates and governs what we want to do in this country. I have nothing against the European Court, but I do not see

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why we should slavishly follow its doctrine. We have our laws. They should be respected, and we should be allowed to run and manage our own affairs.
We are—or at least we think we are—a civilised society. It will be understandably said that corporal punishment—let us call it that; let us call a spade a spade—is uncivilised. I remind noble Lords that when, some 10 years ago, birching was stopped in the Isle of Man, the crime rate increased in six months by something like 150 per cent. Need one say more? Is it the act of a civilised society to accept the endless muggings of the elderly and gang thumpings of pensioners who nearly gave their lives for this country in war? They have ended up with their faces kicked in, with black eyes, broken noses and what have you. It certainly makes my stomach turn. It is not the act of a civilised society to permit that.
My next point is definitely controversial, and I accept that. The fact remains that serious consideration should be given yet again to the restoration of the death penalty. I am not, and I do not wish to be labelled as, what some commonly call a hanger and a flogger. I am not. I am a realist, and I hope that I am practical. One may laugh, but it will come. It will have to come. If it does not come, there will one day, though I do not know when, be a breakdown of law and order. I say that most sincerely. Would anybody like to say what is the difference between Guy Fawkes, who, in 1605, attempted to blow up His Majesty's Government, the Opposition and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all, and the man who attempted to blow up Her Majesty's Government and Ministers in Brighton? Guy Fawkes was hanged, drawn and quartered and had his head cut off. I would not for one moment dream of suggesting such a barbaric and dreadful way of treating anyone. But I would like to know what is the difference between Guy Fawkes, who did not succeed, and the person—whose name escapes me—who set off the Brighton bomb. There is no difference. Both acts were acts of treason, acts of terrorism. I see justification for consideration being given to similar treatment for the one and the other.
Having made that point, if it is not possible and is unacceptable—although I have to say that many people outside the precincts of the Palace of Westminster take a rather different view—then the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, is an absolute must. A murderer, a killer of a policeman, must have a mandatory life sentence which means life, with no hope of coming out of prison.
That brings me back to the question: is that the act of a civilised society? I know which option I should prefer. If that were the choice, I should prefer to end my days rather than spend the rest of my life in gaol.
9.35 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, the debate has now lasted for six-and-a-half hours and I am the 29th speaker on the list. With your Lordships' permission I shall indulge in what used to be known in my theatrical days as a "train version". That means that we would cut all corners so that we could catch a train on Saturday night to get home for a truncated weekend.
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I too have no desire to speak further on law and order. I should like to follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, in talking about care in the community and the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, who quoted from the gracious Speech as follows:
"My Government will continue to develop their policies on social security so that help is concentrated on those most in need".
I say amen to that.
So far as concerns those with a mental handicap—or the preferred term "learning disabled"—one can perhaps now see why "learning disabled" or "learning disability" is preferred. It differentiates between the mental illness referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, and the mental handicap of learning disability which is the area that I represent. As I said, I should like very much to see help concentrated on those most in need, but for people with learning disability I see little help in the offing.
During schooldays there is a statutory right for all young people to receive education to the age of 19. After the age of 19 there is no statutory obligation for an adult alternative to school. What is available—which for most people with a learning disability is an adult training centre or day centre—is becoming increasingly unavailable, while increasingly charges are being levied if a place can be found. Central government argue that local government has discretion regarding charges, but it has little discretion when central government funding assumes that charges are in fact being levied.
I understand the economic argument for charging. If people pay for their own services, the public purse does not have to pay for them. I understand another economic argument even better: parents of adults with a severe learning disability are already out of pocket because they look after people who otherwise would be wholly a charge on public funds. But I must stress that they have no legal liability to pay for day service charges on behalf of their son or daughter, any more than they do to subsidise their other costs. But the son or daughter only has benefit income and those benefits take no account of the introduction of day service charges. Parents may therefore be faced with the prospect of paying charges on top of existing transport, meals and materials costs plus the cost of maintaining an adult son or daughter in the parental home. Whatever the hardships for our national economy in maintaining existing public services, I cannot believe that they exceed the hardships of families who are struggling with that unnatural and unreasonable burden. Surely, following the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Blease, that burden could be lifted to help celebrate the International Year of the Family in 1994.
However, there is indeed a simple solution and one which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has already acknowledged in relation to legal aid; namely, to disregard the attendance allowance (or whatever it is called these days) in assessing a person's income in the same manner as the mobility allowance (or whatever it is called) is disregarded because that is already exempt from charges. Assuming that no charge is made on income support, because that is there merely to keep body and soul together, this would ensure that people

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with a learning disability would be safe from day service charges. That simple and logical solution would lift one burden from their shoulders and those of their families. It would save unnecessary administration and have only a marginal effect on local authority finances. Exempting the attendance allowance would indeed be seen as the Government going back to basics, because I am sure that I do not need to remind your Lordships that the attendance allowance is awarded to those who are the most severely disabled.
I have just returned from chairing a two-and-a-half-day Mencap conference in Blackpool—our first delegate conference ever—with over 500 parents, carers and people with a learning disability attending. It was a heart-warming and encouraging occasion, even though there was a considerable argument as to exact terminology, but, thank goodness, that did not intrude upon the debating time. It was abundantly clear that the challenges and opportunities provided by community care were uppermost in the minds of all those present. They will indeed be met or seized upon, according to need.
The current challenge is of course charging for day services, and there was total unanimity against this practice expressed by all those parents present. I must stress that any day service charges that are levied against disability are effectively a tax on disability and are a further threat to the fundamental principles of care in the community. That means indeed the seven ages of man, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, in her reference to the Bard of Avon.
With their opposition to anti-discrimination legislation still fresh in people's minds, as well as their failure to implement certain sections of the 1986 disabled persons' Act, I cannot think that the Government would wish to see their own policy for community care—the promised land—consigned to the dustbin of broken promises and faded dreams.
9.41 p.m.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I must endeavour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rix, in attempting a "train version". The hour is late and this debate has been distinguished by four outstanding maiden speeches. The subject of deregulation has come up several times in the course of the debate and I would like to speak very shortly on the subject of nurses and care workers. I have to declare an interest here, in that I am a director of a public company which has as its subsidiary an employment agency covering both those sectors, and so I hope that what I have to say will be regarded as even-handed.
Your Lordships will be aware that the recruitment and replacement of agency nurses is governed under the Nurses Agencies Act by the Department of Health, while the activities of care workers, who play an absolutely essential role in the care of the elderly and the incapacitated, covering many of the cases referred to so eloquently by the noble Lords, Lord Thurlow and Lord Rix, are covered under the Employment Agencies Act by the Department of Employment.
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I am given to understand that it is this latter Act which is being considered for abolition. In other words, the regulations covering care workers are likely to be deregulated. The Department of Health, for its part, has indicated that it is unwilling to introduce new regulations which might constrict the development of domiciliary care. It prefers the approach of self-regulation. I have to tell your Lordships that this path has in the past provoked fragmented, inconsistent and, in several cases, politically motivated moves.
This is potentially a very dangerous situation. Care workers are, by their very nature, dealing with the most vulnerable and dependent members of the community and I venture to suggest to my noble friends the Minister for Health and the Minister for Employment, that it is essential that the activities of care workers are properly regulated, in particular in the matter of initial assessment of the mental and physical condition of the individual and the individual's needs, and also in the selection of the appropriate care workers. I suggest that this would be most simply done by extending the Nurses Agencies Act to include not only nurses but domiciliary care workers as well.
It would ensure that those critical evaluations are carried out by suitably qualified professionals. The inspection regime, which could be expected to come into effect with an updated code of conduct which already forms part of the Nurses Agencies Act, would place the responsibility on each local authority. But most importantly, it would be based on a national standard rather than on local whims.
The reference to deregulation in the gracious Speech at that time was taken up by my noble friends Lord Montgomery of Alamein and Lord Lucas in their admirable speeches as regards the humble Address. Deregulation, by the removal of existing employment agency legislation covering care workers, could have potentially disastrous consequences affecting in particular old and handicapped people. It is absolutely essential that the activities of domiciliary care workers are regulated without inhibiting the invaluable tasks that they perform by bringing them within the scope of the Nurses Agencies Act. That problem has the frustrating and all too familiar complication of involving two departments. I hope that my noble friends—the Minister for Health and the Minister for Employment—will together ensure that this subject does not fall between the two stools of their respective departments and is effectively co-ordinated to produce a satisfactory resolution to the problem.
9.46 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, it is my pleasure to congratulate four outstanding maiden speakers today and to hope that we hear them on many future occasions. I listened also, not for the first time, to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, wishing that there were time in the legislative programme to implement the reports of the Law Commission. It may be that that would be easier if we were not facing yet another Education Bill. Like Criminal Justice Bills, they are brought in so frequently that one begins to think that the Government are suffering from a legislative stammer.

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The new Education Bill is being introduced 33 sitting days after the Third Reading of the last Education Bill, and 23 calendar days after the end of the consultation period. Many of us in all quarters of this House were extremely grateful when the consultation period on student unions was extended from 1st October to 1st November. I should be sorry to think that that concession had been illusory.
The Bill is attempting two things. One is the reform of initial teacher training. The objective appears to be to exclude nutters from participation in teacher training. It may be misguided. We may find, under another government, that Professor Timothy Brighouse is in charge of it.
The student union proposal rests on a highly complex and difficult distinction between core and non-core. As those of us who have eaten apples know, that is not always a distinction which can be made with great precision. I hope that when the Bill comes before the House there will be a sufficient proportion of it in primary legislation to allow this House to discharge its responsibilities as a revising Chamber.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, would perhaps misinterpret me were I to say that I listened to him with pleasure. But I am glad that he said what he did. The objective of care in the community is one that we on these Benches have consistently supported. What he said regarding resources my noble friend Lady Seear and many others have said over and over again. It bears repeating. However, it also remains true that there is an irreducible minimum of people who, either for their safety or for ours, or for both, need hospital beds and those beds must continue to be available.
In the field of criminal justice, which has taken most of the time today, I am particularly anxious in regard to the Government's proposals on magistrates courts. It is the objective of those proposals to introduce performance indicators to encourage them to complete cases faster. Noble Lords will know that it is my consistent view that performance indicators are the enemy of performance. Were we to have performance indicators for Ministers and were we —begging the pardon of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for even contemplating such a thing—to measure their performance by the number of pages they put on the statute book, counting what the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, would perhaps like to describe as the "Dangerous Ministers Bill" as equal to any other, we might find that the best Minister of the Thatcher years was Mr. Kenneth Baker.
When we apply that to the task of doing justice there is an inherent conflict between hearing cases fast and getting them right. If, for example, all the prosecution witnesses collapse, that may materially affect the result of the case and it may add to its duration. Were this proposal to be brought in by any authority of less unquestionable legality than an Act of Parliament, some unkind people might be tempted to describe it as a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
But most of what I have to say is concerned with my own subject of social security. The gracious Speech is
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rather less forthcoming on social security than some Ministers have been recently. It contains the usual phrase which always whets my appetite, that,
"Other measures will be laid before you".
I ask whether "other measures" is likely to include anything on invalidity benefit. If so, I hope that the Government understand that an objective medical test is incompatible with a savings target and, indeed, if clinical judgment is genuinely independent it could even lead to an increase in spending.
I also ask whether the Government are contemplating any measure on statutory sick pay. If so, I hope that Ministers will refresh their memory by reading the debates in this House on the last statutory sick pay Bill when it was said that the Minister stood at the burning Dispatch Box whence all but he had fled. I would not wish that fate on the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, in his first Session in a new brief.
I also ask whether, as we have been led to expect, we are to have a Bill on statutory maternity pay in this Session. If so, I say in passing that the Equal Opportunities Commission is talking a great cleat of sense on that subject. In particular, before considering any measure to transfer part of the cost of statutory maternity pay from government to business, I hope that Ministers will read some of their own rhetoric during the debates on the Social Chapter about the need to keep down business costs. If they attempt to increase business costs by imposing what would in effect be a tax on the employment of women, they might create a lively debate in this House.
I hope that on another occasion this House will be able to debate the Child Support Act at length. I listened with pleasure to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, had to say on that subject. The question is not whether the Act is viable in its present form; it is rapidly proving to be unenforceable. I hope that it will be amended substantially and soon enough to make it possible to continue a measure which was not unsound in principle.
On the subject of single parents, I will confine myself to one remark. I agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that probably few single parents became pregnant after consulting their welfare rights officer. If hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is speaking for the Government. The gracious Speech also says that help will be,
"concentrated on those most in need".
That surprises me a little. I thought that we were doing that already and if not, I would like to know why not.
Like the Government, I am concerned by the cost of social security and although I am not now quite as concerned as they are, during the long weekend between the Conservative recessions I recall telling them that I was a great deal more worried about it than they were. It is certainly true that social security spending, as a proportion of government spending, has been rising and that that puts other government spending under pressure. What we are not so often told is that the number of people forced to depend on that spending is rising equally fast. At present, 5.35 million people or 12.6 per cent. of the population over 18 are dependent on income support. In the past year that figure has risen

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by 860,000 or by 2 per cent. of the population over 18. It is the case that 24.2 per cent. of the children in England and Wales depend on income support, or 3.2 per cent. more than a year ago. In Scotland the figure is 25.6 per cent., or 2.6 per cent. more than a year ago. The figures have increased, are increasing and ought to be diminished. It is in those figures—not just in unemployment benefit—that we see the cost of unemployment to the social security budget.
When we put the level of spending in context with those numbers, it is not so very much per person. It is hard to see how we can much reduce the social security budget without reducing the numbers of people who depend on it. There is no scope, I believe, for reducing the cost by reducing the level of benefit. Ministers are familiar with the evidence provided last year by the National Children's Home and the National Consumer Council. Even if they do not accept that evidence, they must realise that others do and would react accordingly.
Ministers might realise rather better than they do that benefit levels are under pressure if they collected evidence of the level of debt among those on benefit. At present they do not do so and that is a mistake. It is not only welfare groups, but utility companies also, which are well aware that this is a serious problem. It is hard to see what useful purpose will be served by worsening it. Nor is there any significant scope for reductions in social security by denying people entitlement to benefit. Ministers cannot simply follow the example of Goldfinger and say, "She left my employment". People whose benefit is reduced or taken away will not normally quietly die. They will do something else - and that something else will usually create costs which fall on other departments.
The Department of Social Security cannot solve its own budgetary problems only by worsening those of other departments. We need something more than the traditional Whitehall policy of "Beggar my neighbour". After all, the public sector borrowing requirement is a deficit of the whole Government, not just of one department.
People denied adequate benefit may typically do one of two things. They may fall ill, or they may take to crime. That is illustrated in the new National Children's Home report, The Lost Generation. I was glad to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, said about that report. It deals with young people who either receive the lower rate of income support because they are young or who receive nothing because they are 16 or 17. One in three of those covered in the survey had had one meal or none during the past 24 hours. It is not surprising that that showed up in an above-average rate of visits to the doctor and, more worryingly, in a bad record of mental health. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, who tried so hard on 31st March last to convince me that there was enough money for care in the community, will, I think, understand the public expenditure implications.
Among those surveyed in The Lost Generation one in two said that they were hard up enough to consider shoplifting and other forms of theft. As one of them said, "If they put the money up, even £10 a week would
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do me, and I would not think about doing crime." Ministers who are tempted to think that such people are naturally lawless might reflect upon the young man on the under-25 rate of income support who was found stealing in order to pay his poll tax. Ministers are right that crime is in the end a matter of individual responsibility, but that is no excuse for leading us into temptation. I should not want to make too much of the precedent but their argument is the one first used by Satan in the opening chapters of the Book of Job.
It is sometimes said that we can reduce expenditure by attacking universal benefits, but the only benefits of substance which could be called universal are child benefit and the state pension. Child benefit is universal, but it is not a universal benefit. I listened with pleasure to what the Secretary of State had to say on child benefit at King's College at lunchtime today. Child benefit is in lieu of a tax allowance for those with children. Only those who can explain how a tax allowance is targeted on those in need, or those who think that it distorts the market if the state in any way recognises the cost of bringing up children, can attack child benefit as a universal benefit. I should enjoy listening to either of those groups explain itself to the electorate.
Only those who think that private pensions are always reliable can defend ending the universal state pension. It is sometimes suggested that we could solve the problem by privatising it. I should like to know, whose problem? I have not yet been convinced that the private sector can produce a cheaper service except by providing a worse one. It is sometimes known as a more efficient service. If we are going to pay just the same amount, who will gain? Is the Treasury solving its problem at our expense? If so, is that really in the national interest?
The Chief Secretary recently said that those under 40 should not expect a state pension. I do not like spreading scare stories, but I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate whether he can say that that is not government thinking. If he cannot say that, am I spreading a scare story if I say that it is?
Most welfare cannot be privatised because it is not profitable, or at least not legitimately profitable. If the Secretary of State for Social Security wants, as he must, to reduce his spending, he should begin by pressing to be included in the main economic committee of the Cabinet. That is where his costs are determined. We must reduce the social security budget by making it an object of macro-economic policy and micro-economic policy to increase levels of employment. No other policy even addresses the problem. But that does not mean that social security, as a department, has nothing to contribute. There are plenty of policies in social security which constitute rigidities in the labour market and make it harder for people to get off benefit and take on jobs as they are created.
Like the Secretary of State, I have a little list but it is much too long for me to complete at this time of night. Some cases are plain poverty traps. The paradigm case there is child care. As Elaine Asquith put it when writing in the Daily Telegraph on 12th November:
"If you need someone to look after your children while you work it becomes a joke: you pay to work".

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The second category is where social security fails to meet the Prime Minister's criterion stated in his Carlton Club speech—a hand up, not a handout—where it does not meet the start-up costs which help someone to get into work for the first time. We are told in the advanced publicity to the deregulation Bill that it will put a charge on employees to pay for hard hats and other protective clothing. That contradicts what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale on 22nd June, 1989, when speaking for the Department of Social Security, that it should be a charge on the employer. That will worry those in the Department of Social Security because it will mean that many people will not be able to afford to take jobs. That is not in the public interest. Furthermore, I am gaining the impression from my postbag that there is a rapidly increasing problem of a poverty trap in relation to the cost of travel to work —but that is another subject.
There is also the category of those for whom work is impossible. There are people who lose help with their mortgages if they work more than 16 hours per week and move off income support and on to family credit. People are giving up work because they cannot afford the costs, and that is not in the public interest. The fourth category is people such as 16 and 17 year-olds who fall through the social security safety net. It is more than ever looking like the Irish definition of a net; a series of holes tied together with bits of string. They get so broken by the fall that they cannot recover and they cannot work again. I am raising that subject for the fifth consecutive Session. I do not want to beat my great grandfather's record of doing so 12 Sessions in a row, but if I have to I shall.
10.7 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the debate has largely and inevitably focused on the two law and order Bills outlined in the gracious Speech. With contributions from practising judges, QCs and former professional police officers, including my noble friend Lady Hilton, the House has rejoiced in remarkable expertise. Perhaps it is worth emphasising that with the exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, not a single voice has been heard today during seven hours of debate in favour of the new police authorities, the new training centres for juveniles, the new austerity regime for prisons or the loss of the right of silence.
We have also had distinguished contributions on Sunday trading from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool; on ITV franchises from the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth; moving speeches on mental illness and mental handicap—and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, was entirely right in every point that he made; as well as some well-directed and I hope well-taken swipes at quangos.
The debate was greatly enhanced by four striking maiden speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, gave us a wise and wide-ranging analysis of the situation in Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, made a fluent and persuasive call to embody the European convention into British law. The noble Lord, Lord Westwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of
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Hendon, made humane and compassionate speeches on behalf of children and victims respectively. Those noble Lords have greatly enriched our debate.
Like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I wish to speak to the rest of the back-to-basics agenda; that is, social policy. "Back to basics" depends on who you are and where you come from, but it signals deep dissatisfaction with society around us. Your Lordships can look around and see the rough sleepers, the street kids, the families in bed and breakfast who were virtually unknown in 1979; the truanting and offending youngsters and worsening clean-up rates in crime, as has been emphasised; and the growth in homelessness with families unable to rent and unable to buy.
Hospital waiting lists are the highest ever. Unemployment is nearly three times what it was in 1979. The number of those defined officially as poor has more than doubled so that one family in four defined as poor by the EC, within the EC, is living in Britain. The poorest 10 per cent.—actually 14 per cent.—are worse off in real terms than they were in 1979, while the rich are better off still. In the light of that, I can see why we should all like to return to basics, to the years before 1979.
I have no patience with those political commentators in The Times and elsewhere who regard it as sanctimonious nonsense and believe that it is a cynical attempt by Government to re-invent themselves as the opposition by holding everyone but themselves responsible for the events of the past 15 years. After all, does anyone believe that the employment situation is now better than it was in 19'79 or that housing, law and order, health and dental care, local government and community services have improved since 1979? Of course they do not. That is why in common humanity, Ministers wish to return to basics; quite so.
Indeed, basics might even take us back to Beveridge and the slaying of those five dragons mentioned by my noble friend Lord McIntosh: the dragons of want, disease, squalor, idleness and ignorance. In the all-party consensus of those years, there was Butler's great Education Act to tackle ignorance. All parties were committed to eradicating unemployment. Strong local government would confront the squalor of post-war dereliction, homelessness and the need for town and country planning. As regards disease, Bevan's NHS would be available at the point of use and at the point of need. As for want, there was a new social security system based on entitlement through contribution and insurance.
Mr. Lilley, in his Mais lecture of 23rd June this year, insisted that Pacific Rim countries such as Taiwan are prosperous precisely because they do not have a welfare state. Mr. Portillo told the Tory Party conference that whatever is done by the state is done at the expense of individuals and their efforts and that true morality means moving beyond the language of entitlement and back to the ring-fenced palisades of private provision with the occasional saunter out into the byways of charity—and he said that. If ask them, as I ask your Lordships this evening, in looking at the moral and social landscape around us, to remember that basic moral truth of Beveridge:

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"Want, squalor, disease, ignorance and idleness are common enemies of us all—not enemies with which we may individually make a separate peace escaping oneself to personal prosperity, while leaving our fellows in their clutches. That is the meaning of social conscience—that one should refuse to make a separate peace with social evil".
No one denies that rights must be brigaded with responsibilities; of course not. No one denies that Beveridge's basic principles need reworking against the demographic map, family structure and women's working lives. That is why Labour set up the independent social justice commission. But the core of Beveridge—that the meaning of social conscience is no separate peace, no private opting-out deal with social evil—is surely shared by your Lordships this evening.
All of Beveridge's concerns as regards education, local government and employment are topics for later this week. Today we have been talking about law and order, social policy, health and social security. On health, there are no specific legislative proposals in the gracious Speech, although we might have expected Bills on mental health, adoption or a complaints procedure for patients following the findings of the Wilson Committee, or on public and environmental health, given both the Health of the Nation and the re-emergence of diseases such as TB, scurvy and rickets, which are diseases of poverty. Instead, we see a grim determination to press on with the so-called health reforms which ensure, first, that the health service remains undeniably underfunded. We are fourth from the bottom of 21 OECD nations in our spending on health. France and Germany each spend one-third more than we do.
Such underfunding has been aggravated as the reforms have switched money out of nursing and into management. I understand that each new trust cost £500,000 to set up and £250,000 a year to run. That is all extracted from patient care. That is why, since 1989, the NHS has acquired 40,000 more managers and administrators and lost 20,000 nurses and midwives, as a surprised John Redwood blurted out, inadvertently, in Wales. It is also why in 1987 the NHS spent £25 million on managers' salaries and, five years later, £251 million.
But, above all, the NHS has, I believe, been deformed by the purchaser-provider split, the working of the internal market and competition in which hospitals, GP fund-holders and ambulances have been required to re-establish themselves as small businesses. Yet whereas a business cheers if it has extra customers or increases productivity, those businesses are closed down as soon as they fulfil their contracts until the following spring, just as though they were making crackers for Christmas or chocolate eggs for Easter. Competition, as we see in London, undermines planning and overrides care.
Plymouth hospital put 62 beds onto a five-day week to correct, I quote, "over-activity". Hospitals are destroying themselves by their efficiency. Half of all NHS hospitals are running out of money for all but emergencies unless, of course, a patient with a fund-holding GP brings with him a dowry, thus ensuring that patients are treated not according to
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medical need but according to whether they come with cash in hand. The money does not follow the patient; the patient has to follow the contract.
But surely waiting lists have improved. That was what it was all about. After all, back in November 1981, John Major said:
"It is necessary within the NHS to reduce the waiting list of over half a million which was inherited after the 1979 general election".
The figure was half a million then, but now it is over one million—the highest ever. Indeed, it has risen 23 per cent. over the past three years. Significantly, we in Britain now enjoy the longest wait in Europe to see a consultant. So we have patients waiting to be treated; patients waiting to join the waiting list to be treated; and doctors and nurses waiting to treat patients.
If you have chest pains, it probably does not mean that you need a bypass operation; but it may do. Only a consultant could tell, but you will wait months to see him. If you suffer severe indigestion, it probably does not indicate cancer; but it may do. Only a consultant could tell, and you will not see him for months. If you are suffering from severe depression, I hope that you will not be a suicide risk. Only a consultant might help you, but you probably will not see him at all.
In case noble Lords think that what I am saying is speculative, perhaps I may quote from one very eminent consultant thoracic surgeon in East Anglia who wrote to me three days ago. On 19th October he was told that his unit had virtually completed its contract with the Kings Lynn area and that he was immediately to restrict all admissions, including urgent cases. He was to accept only emergencies and those waiting for more than 12 months. In his letter he wrote:
"I was no longer to admit urgent patients … with potential or proven malignant disease from north-west Anglia or the Kings Lynn area which I visit as the consultant thoracic surgeon. I attempted to clarify the definition of 'emergency' with managers, but have not received a suitable definition".
If that consultant treats non-emergency but urgent cases, he will plunge his unit into the red. In Kings Lynn, if you have proven cancer of the lungs—that is, cancer that is confirmed, spreading and urgent—you have no financial right to be treated until next April. Cancer is a killer. That is the case unless in Beveridge's phrase, you make a private and separate pact with social evil and you are wealthy enough to opt out of the NHS. As the surgeon's letter finished:
"This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue".
He is right. But as health authorities are quangos—just as future police authorities will be quangos—they are unaccountable, so who will set the matter right?
Finally, I should like to turn to the onslaught on the welfare state which has dominated political debate this summer and autumn. As Sir Edward Heath wrote in the Guardian on 18th November, with cold sarcasm:
"for those claiming social service benefits today, 'back to basics' means cuts to cope with a situation which we are told may arise in the year 2050".
We are told that social security expenditure is rising and out of control, due partly to growing numbers of the deserving poor—the elderly whose pensions the country cannot afford—and more especially because of the growth in the undeserving poor—the not-so-sick who claim invalidity benefit when they should not, the young

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women who lay back and think of a council house and become pregnant, the families on income support who unreasonably think it reasonable to claim housing benefit. All the while Ministers were orchestrating moral panic they had on their desks the departmental research, some of it now leaked, which shows that what they said was not true and that they should have known that it was not true.
By the year 2041 three-quarters of our population will still be under the age of 65. If there is employment for them we shall have the best support ratio of workers to dependants in Europe. The additional cost of ageing will add less over the next 50 years to public finances than the cost of the rise in unemployment alone over the past three.
There is no demographic burden, although there is an unemployment burden. However, that does not seem to stop Ministers talking about means-testing old age pensions, even though they are a contributory benefit, raising the old age pension age even though already half of all men between 59 and 64 are out of work, or even, in the past few days, calling on the elderly to sell their homes and live off their capital instead.
Ministers are equally less than scrupulous when it comes to the invalidity benefit. They suggest, first, that many of those on invalidity benefit are not really sick but layabouts; secondly, that that is because GPs are too lax in their medical assessment; and, thirdly, that it is because benefits are too generous. Yet the department's own research contradicts every one of those assertions, and Ministers know it.
First, those on invalidity benefit are not layabouts. They have mostly come from jobs which they held for at least 10 years with their previous employer. They are desperate to get back to work, but it was usually their previous employer who failed to keep them in work by altering their work conditions. Whether they can go back to work depends on whether he will take them back. Because of their poor health record, growing age and broken employment no one else will employ them.
Nor is it the case that GPs are too lax. Are your Lordships aware—I was not—that half of those on invalidity benefit under the age of 50 are already re-examined by the benefits medical service, which double checks their GP's assessment? It is upheld in six cases out of seven. The seventh case is very often a mental health case and notoriously difficult to determine. Even when invalidity benefit is refused, on appeal the claimant has it restored in over half the cases. Is it too lax, when the GP's medical assessment is almost invariably confirmed? In those very few cases in which the benefits medical agency overruled the GP and said that the claimant could and should return to work, only one-in-eight could find it. The rest were simply displaced on to other benefits, such as unemployment benefit, income support or pensions.
Is it the case that invalidity benefit is too generous? It is a contributory benefit paid for when in work. It represents less than half the earnings of more than half of those on benefit. Only 7 per cent. of men receive invalidity benefit worth even 80 per cent. of what they earned when last in work. They are generally those with very low pay and large families who are desperate to
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return to the labour market. In other words, to make the medical assessment even tougher will not help one extra man find a job. All it will do is displace invalidity claimants on to other benefits—income support and unemployment benefit—until, of course, on the roundabout which the noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned, they are pushed back on to invalidity benefit by employment officers in their turn trying to massage unemployment figures. That is the reality.
As for taxing the benefit, claimants are already very poor. More than half of them have savings of less than £1,000. The cost of disability in terms of heating and food is very high. Therefore, to tax the benefit merely adds deeper poverty to ill health. Why should those people pay because the Government have so mismanaged the economy?
The second group fingered for soaring social security expenditure, along with the collapse of moral fibre, is supposed to be lone parents, portrayed as feckless teenagers who become pregnant to obtain benefits and a council house. I refer to Mr. Lilley's notorious little list. It is quite false, as Mr. Lilley knows, and knew. Only 5 per cent. of lone parents are teenagers. Most lone parents have come from marriages or partnerships and have sadly taken a considered decision to leave a man who may be unemployed, underfoot and violent. John Redwood asked at a Cardiff housing estate, "Where are the fathers?". The police quietly told him that there were 250 exclusion orders on that estate because of abuse to families. Nor did those lone parents become pregnant to obtain benefits and a flat. Eighty-eight per cent. of them became pregnant through ignorance and having ensured in the recent education Bill that sex education shall be optional and not compulsory, we can take some credit in this House for continuing that state of affairs.
Over 90 per cent. of teenage lone parents live with their parents. After surveying 40 sample local authorities the Institute of Housing said that it was rare for teenage mothers to present themselves for rehousing and that not one local authority prioritised a lone parent over a traditional family. Sir George Young knew this but led conference to believe the opposite.
Even if Sir George requires local authorities to alter their housing policies as a sop to moral panic, it will make little or no difference because the Children Act 1989 places a statutory duty on local authorities to accommodate those parents. He merely transfers responsibility from housing to social services departments which will promptly transfer it back again, adding to cost, stress and complexity but not adding a single house or preventing a single pregnancy.
The real problem of single parents is not that they are single but that they are poor, as the DSS's own research confirms. Statutory maintenance from fathers may help, but only—I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon —if the Child Support Agency procedures are modified and if mothers retain a portion of the maintenance payment. It certainly will not help if mothers remarry because a stepfather means that children are twice as likely to leave home early, the boys

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twice as likely to truant and the girls more likely to become pregnant when young. Better a lone parent than a step parent, my Lords.
The right way to help lone parents is to do what they themselves want: to help them off benefits and back into work. Why are lone parents poor? It is partly because we have one of the lowest proportions in Europe of lone parents working and the figure is falling. Forty per cent. work in the UK, mostly part time. In Europe the figure is 54 per cent.; in the United States it is 68 per cent. The issue is all about child care which is almost impossible to afford in this country and is widely available in those countries. If a lone parent on £70 a week benefits has to earn £170 per week to be better off, she cannot do so and therefore will not do so. When in 1988 the Government removed the disregards for child care, they trapped lone parents in dependency and then blamed lone parents for the dependency that government had created.
The third area apparently targeted for legislation and cuts is housing benefit. Why has it risen? It is because the Government required the rents of housing associations to rise by 5 per cent. in real terms over and beyond inflation while clawing back subsidies from local authorities. As rents rose but incomes did not, so two-thirds of all council tenants and over three-quarters of all housing association tenants claimed housing benefit, financed by government to pay for the rent rises required by government. Already half a million poor people face marginal tax rates higher than the wealthiest taxpayer. Make housing benefit more stringent, my Lords, and you will lock them even more firmly into the benefit trap.
All those attacks on invalidity benefit, lone parents and housing benefits presume a crisis of social security expenditure. Is that true? No, my Lords. Social security takes 12.3 per cent. of GDP and could rise by 1 per cent. of GDP if unemployment and economic growth remain as they are. But if one reduces unemployment to 2.25 million and raises economic growth from 2 per cent. to 2.5 per cent. the figure is stable. If unemployment falls further, or growth is somewhat higher, then the percentage of GDP taken by social security expenditure will fall. It all depends on employment and the economy.
The welfare state basically works; it is the economy that does not. Reduce unemployment, and one simultaneously reduces unemployment benefit, income support, invalidity benefit, lone parent benefits, housing benefit and council tax benefits, to name but a few. At the same time one would have people in work paying national insurance contributions which would float them off poverty in old age.
Social security expenditure is driven not by the feeble on invalidity benefit, the feckless lone parent, or the incompetent on housing benefit, but by feeble, feckless and incompetent management of our economy—a mismanagement by the very sanctimonious who are now fingering the victims of their own incompetence.
The Government assume, when it suits them, that people want benefits, that they like benefits, that they prefer benefits and that they would rather not work if possible. On the contrary—as they know, because their
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research shows them —the sick want to work when they are still frail; lone parents want to work when they still have children under five; older men in their early sixties still haunt the job shops; young blacks still make 50 applications and do not get a single interview. They want to take responsibility for their lives. Would that government allowed them to do so by getting the economy right.
Finally, what links today's debate? The link is the financial, moral and social poverty that follows in a country whose ethical and physical infrastructure has been laid waste by unemployment. Youth crime, ill health, rising social security and homelessness all flow from the poverty of unemployment. If "back to basics" means anything, it must mean slaying what Beveridge insisted was the most fierce of all his dragons: unemployment. And that means no opting out into private pacts with social evil. It means a society that is inclusive, not exclusive; one that does not create outsiders, or let its outsiders become outlaws. That, as Beveridge said, is the meaning of social conscience.
10.32 p.m.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Rodger of Earlsferry): My Lords, I should like to start by congratulating the four noble Lords who have made such distinguished maiden speeches in the course of the debate. I am sure that we all look forward to their contributions to future debates.
In the course of this long debate many points have been raised. I hope that noble Lords will understand that, if in the time available I do not find it possible to cover all the detail of all the matters which have been raised, some of the points will be matters which either I or my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor or other Ministers may take up and reply to in writing.
Since Sunday is the first day of the week, it seems perhaps appropriate to start with a brief mention of the Sunday trading matter. As my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor explained, Parliament will have the opportunity under the Bill to vote freely on the three options. As a Government, we have no view on which option should be adopted, although of course individual Ministers, as individuals, may have their own personal views. However, I can assure the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool that the total deregulation option is not there for any sinister reason, but simply so that all the views which Members of this House or of the other place may have may be tested so that the true view of Parliament can be obtained.
Turning to the matter of the police, in the course of the debate noble Lords have expressed a wide range of new views, and I have listened with great interest to what has been said. I acknowledge, of course, that there are concerns in this House about the details of the proposals on police reform. They were put very forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. Nonetheless, having listened to what has been said, there are clearly matters which are common to all who are involved.
I am sure we all agree that policing is a matter that has to be carried out with the involvement and consent of the local community. After all, it is to the needs of the

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local community that the policing has to be responsive. It also requires—and we are very fortunate in this country that it has had—the services of dedicated policemen and policewomen, not least those who serve by walking the beat.
Likewise, it is recognised that police authorities will always need to have close links with the local community. What is proposed does not in any way undermine that aspect. As noble Lords know, there will be strong representation from the local authority. In addition, there will be people who are chosen from the local community who will have particular areas of expertise which they will be able to bring to the management of the local police. It does not seem to me that it in any way undermines the concept of local policing if we introduce people—not necessarily councillors but people who have an interest in these matters —into these local police authorities. That does not in any way diminish the local character of the police authority.
It seems to have been suggested—I think it was the fundamental objection—that somehow or other we would land up with more centralised control of the police, perhaps in the hands of the Secretary of State at the Home Office—the Prince of Darkness, as he was referred to at one point. On the contrary, the whole thrust of the reform is in many ways to pass down to the local authority a greater degree of control. The local police authority will have the power to set the budget, decide the local policing objectives and determine the local policy plan. It will be open to the chief constables to determine in which way they will manage their resources in order to meet the local needs which will have been laid down. In particular, I should observe that it will be possible for the local chief constable to decide what he will do in the way of using the new freedom to employ more people on the beat instead of having them employed in middle management jobs.
What the Home Secretary will do in all this is to set national objectives, leaving the police and the new police authorities to fulfil them in the way most suitable for local conditions. In particular there will be no power of direction by the Secretary of State to give directions to chief constables. So, contrary to what has been said, I do not see this as a matter where greater control is going into the hands of the Secretary of State.
Nor do I see the proposals in connection with the appointment of the chairman of the police authority as having the sinister impact suggested. It seemed to be suggested that inevitably somehow or other the person who was chosen would be one of the persons appointed to the police authority rather than, for example, one of the other local councillors or one of the magistrates. It may very well be that he will come from among those people who have been local representatives. He would be selected by the Home Secretary as the person who was most suitable and seemed best fitted to carry out the job of leading the authority.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble and learned Lord. Why should
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the Home Secretary make the decision as to who the chairman should be rather than the police authority itself?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, these authorities, as I have said, will have very important functions—functions which will make them responsible for seeing that local objectives are set and that the local police carry out the national objectives. It is therefore important that they should not only be people who will be acceptable to the local community but also people in whom the Secretary of State has confidence as well.
Several noble Lords: Ah!
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, in that way it is important that they should be acceptable to both the local authority and to the Secretary of State. In that way we think that we will have a combination of local responsibility, with national objectives being achieved.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, before the Minister leaves this point, he is making a distinction between the confidence of the local police authority and the confidence of the Secretary of State. Supposing that the Secretary of State's appointed chairman does not have the confidence of the local police authority, as recently happened when the distinguished chairman of the Cornwall Health Authority was replaced by the local Conservative Party chairman who then had to resign. Which choice will the Secretary of State make?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, I have no doubt that the Secretary of State, in making his choice, will consider all the local circumstances. I would not expect that kind of situation mentioned by the noble Lord to arise in practice, and there is no point in tilting at hypothetical situations before the scheme is even off the ground.
If I may turn now to matters relating to the Royal Commission, I should like simply to reiterate what I said on a previous occasion: there is no hesitation on the part of the Government in connection with the criminal cases review body. It is of course correct that it will not be in the legislation this Session. That is not because of any lack of desire to bring this forward but because, as was said on the previous occasion, this will be a very new body; a body whose relationship with the Court of Appeal is one of great sensitivity. These are not matters which were explored in detail by the Royal Commission. It is important, as the Lord Chief Justice said during the previous debate, that we get these matters absolutely right and that we put in place something that will work.
In the course of the debate on the last occasion, the right of silence was covered at some length. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, came back to that subject tonight. I can only touch on it briefly, but I would simply say, as I said on the previous occasion, that the jury will be directed in any appropriate case that they can draw whatever inference common sense suggests in the circumstances is the appropriate inference to draw. There may be circumstances where the evidence before the jury is such that the inference which common sense suggests is that the person was silent because the person

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had no answer to the facts with which he was confronted. That is an inference which it is open to the jury to draw in an appropriate case. I have stressed, and I stress again, that this only arises in circumstances where there is already a case to answer, because it is in effect the failure to answer that case which the jury is being asked to consider. We will doubtless go into this in greater detail on future occasions, and perhaps on those occasions we shall have further opportunities to discuss the kinds of examples which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, put before your Lordships tonight.
Turning to the matter of imprisonment, which was mentioned in a great many speeches, the first point that I should make clear is that the Government remain committed to what was said in the White Paper on the Woolf Report. They are therefore committed to improving prison standards and nothing said by the Secretary of State in any way detracts from that. What he said in the speech to which allusion has so often been made was designed to stress that imprisonment does indeed play an important role in our system of criminal justice.
The case for imprisonment was put eloquently by my noble friend Lady Miller of Hendon in her notable maiden speech. I do not intend to go over the various points which she made. They were all legitimate arguments for the use of imprisonment in appropriate cases. After all, they are arguments which will occur to and go through the mind of the judge who will have to consider in any given case whether or not to impose a sentence of imprisonment. At the end of the day the Government are simply making available facilities. The question of whether or not a sentence of imprisonment is to be imposed is a matter at all times for members of the independent judiciary and nobody else. That must be borne in mind.
At no stage has it been suggested, and certainly not by the Secretary of State, that imprisonment is the uniquely appropriate sentence or that it will of itself solve problems of crime. The remarks of my noble friend Lord Windlesham were well to the point. He referred to many matters which must be kept in mind when we are debating these various issues. In that connection, and replying to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I may perhaps mention the reference made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to the position in America. It was a reference to the point that the United States is a country where, during the past decade, the prison population has increased while recorded crime has remained fairly constant and crime as measured by victim surveys appears to have declined substantially. That may not be what one would immediately see as the position in America, but it is important to remember, as my noble friend said, that the matter of crime surveys is important in considering the true picture, whether in Britain or America.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord saying that the Home Secretary was referring not to the criminal statistics in the United States, but to certain victim surveys?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, there were two points. He referred to recorded crime figures remaining fairly constant and to crime as measured by the victim survey appearing to have declined substantially.
Of course we recognise that prevention is to be preferred. That is why over the past few years the Government have encouraged neighbourhood watch schemes, the provision of closed circuit television in banks and so forth. Ours is a balanced approach and is designed to tackle the problems at several different levels. It is an approach which I believe should be warmly welcomed by the House.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord leaves the subject of prisons, is he seriously saying that Mr. Howard does not represent a new development in policy? How does he explain the statement made by Mr. Faulkner—who was in charge on the official side for all those years—that it is a revolutionary change? Does he just laugh that off?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, I do not laugh off what Mr. Faulkner said, but I do not intend to get into a debate with a former official of the Home Office.
On the matter of the secure training order and children, the introduction of secure training orders is not something which has been gone into lightly or with any sense of pleasure by the Government. It is introduced to deal with one small group of offenders and people who constantly offend having caused, in various communities, havoc and misery. We remember the particular circumstances of joyriders and so on. These are not matters which can easily be laughed off but which cause great misery and for which some remedy has to be found. The remedy which is being suggested here is to be used only in limited circumstances. It is to deal with these unfortunate young offenders. It is not simply a matter of locking them up. In this remedy there is both a system of education and, when people leave, a system of supervision.
Perhaps I may now turn to the other matters which have been raised and, in particular, to the various issues in relation to social security and so forth. I cannot anticipate in any way the announcements which will be made about the reform of our social security system. These will be made at the appropriate time and when the various stages of the review have been completed. In that situation I cannot tell the noble Earl, Lord Russell, what particular items of social security legislation will be brought forward during this Session. All I can say is that when policy announcements are made any legislation which is appropriate to that announcement will be brought forward. What I can say is that the Government are conducting a long-term and fundamental review of each part of the social security programme. It is one which is designed to ensure that that programme is suitable for the objectives of the 1990s. Nonetheless, I stress that we shall honour the election pledges which were made to uprate the basic retirement pension and child benefit in line with prices.
It seemed to be suggested, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that somehow or other the

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Government were not committed to the social security system, that we were determined to undermine it and that we were not supporting it. If we went back to this golden age, which was referred to, of the Beveridge Report and the Labour Government we would in fact be spending about one-third of the proportion of gross domestic product, which we are spending at the moment on social security. If we were to take out of the calculation the increases in social security spending the figures for unemployment, there is still an annual increase of 3 per cent. per annum of expenditure on social security. In that situation one has an increasing figure—
Earl Russell: My Lords, I beg the noble and learned Lord's pardon, but I shall be grateful for some clarification of what measure he is using for the cost of unemployment in that regard.
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, if one were to remove from the figure the cost of unemployment on the social security system, then there would be an annual underlying increase of three per cent. per annum. In effect, we are paying an increasing amount. It is something which we cannot ignore. In common with all other nations in the European Community we are having to tackle this problem. It is not a sign of irresponsibility, but of responsibility. We are seeking to make sure that the burden which we all have to bear, and which we willingly bear, is one which employed persons, employers and industry can bear. At the end of the day, if our industry cannot bear the costs of that, it will not be profitable and if it is not profitable, it will not be producing the income which is required to produce the level of social expenditure which we all think is desirable.
I should like to cover many other points, but time is short. On the matter of child support, I would simply say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, that we deplore the leaks, of course, and that the matter is being investigated. However, on the more general point, the Child Support Act is an Act which I am sure that noble Lords on all sides of the House will think right in principle. It is something which, for many people who have never received support for their children, will produce a measure of support and assurance about their way of life.
However, I have to say that in its initial months the agency has attracted a degree of criticism—and Ministers have acknowledged that and have indicated that they are monitoring how it is working and that they will take steps, if necessary, to ensure that it works more satisfactorily in the future. I should make it clear, however, that contrary to what seems to be suggested,
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even during these first few months of its operation, 75 per cent. of the work carried out by that agency has been in respect of parents who, until now, have been receiving no maintenance whatever. It is the parents and the children who have not been receiving maintenance on whom we must focus and whom we must bear in mind.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way, but is he suggesting to the House that, as a result, families are receiving maintenance and are therefore better off?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords. it is important that parents—that fathers—should pay maintenance to their children and it is surely unacceptable if they have not been paying maintenance in the past. Cases involving children who have not been getting maintenance are now being tackled. Those children will now get maintenance if the thing succeeds. Such cases represent 75 per cent. of the agency's cases.
We have tackled many other topics today. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, referred to the importance of law reform. Those are matters which we are bearing in mind and for that reason the Jellicoe Committee's reforms have been brought forward. We hope that that will prove to be the way in which law reform can be taken forward.
I noted all the points that were made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. We shall no doubt hear more of them.
In conclusion, overall this debate has focused largely on matters of crime and punishment and, to some extent, on matters of social security. In his speech my noble friend Lord Tugendhat laid the basis of a wider issue, Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, also referred to that wider context. In considering these various narrower issues, we should also bear in mind the darker wider issues of Northern Ireland. As we go forward in this Session, we shall bear those wider issues in mind when we are considering the very important and interesting matters of home affairs which have occupied your Lordships today.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned until tomorrow.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned until tomorrow.—(The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.
House adjourned at one minute before eleven o'clock.